Now that Andrew is no longer needing a morning nap, I decided it’s time to train him to sit still. Once again we resumed our radio Bible time with John MacArthur. Each boy has their own seat and they are required to sit and listen to the 30 minute program. I’m happy to say that they are doing quite well. Of course they need occasional reminders. Some may wonder why we even bother to train our kids to sit still. Is there really a point to it?

We are part of a church that is family integrated where everyone, from young to old, sit together in the same service. There is no age-segregated service. Just one big family in one auditorium. Matthew, now at 3 years of age, has come a long way and is currently doing quite well sitting with us through the entire service. Andrew is not quite trained yet (also has a tough time because it coincides with his morning nap which he’s just growing out of). In order to have our kids sit through the entire 1 hour 45 minute service, we realized that we needed to train them in a less difficult environment: at home. Our daily radio Bible time helps the kids to practice sitting still and learn the Word of God. Although I don’t expect my kids to understand everything in the sermon, I’m always amazed at how much they understand. Let’s not underestimate our kids’ ability.

I have been reading Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman who encourages parents to have their children participate in the worship as a family.

Parenting in the pew helps you pay attention to the most important thing you can ever train your child to do: worship. Worship is the only thing we get to do forever. (p. 16)

We parents often feel Sunday worship is a time for us. We need to get “spiritually fed” and we can’t be “distracted” by our squirmy kids. But Castleman tells us that worship is the most important thing that we can ever teach our children. We need to invest our time in training them to value worship. Recognize that this is not easy and that you won’t get much out of the sermons. Consider this time a season of life. Soon enough your children will be grown and they will be able to sit with you (!) and delight in worshipping the Lord with you. We need to model for them that worship is important.

John Piper’s article “The Family: Together in God’s Presence” explains some more reasons behind worshipping as a family and offers some practical advice about how to do it. Give it a read. May it encourage you towards a joyful family worship.

A while ago we had the chance to look after a friend’s young children when she had to run an errand. In the time before a few emails were exchanged, in which she was glad we didn’t “mind watching” her kids. My response? “Not mind?… not hardly! We love your kids, it’s our pleasure!” That elicited this unexpected response:

Evers said the nicest thing I’ve ever heard, he said not that he didn’t mind watching my kids, he loves them. Wow, I was so convicted last night that I lost sleep, which was very unusual. Like you said, I have [these] gifts from heaven but I often don’t treat them like gifts, but inconveniences. Sometimes I get angry and I don’t like them very much. Isn’t that awful? The very thing I know I shouldn’t do, I DO quite often. How much I need the grace of God!

I know I am not perfect, so I won’t try to achieve perfect motherhood. But I do want to become a better mother today than yesterday. I want my kids to really know that I love them, and I want to homeschool them as if I only have one year to live–create fun memories, teach them about what’s truly important, prepare them for Heaven not Harvard, forget about petty things that aren’t important.

The truth is, we often forget as well the right priorities, and how to love and like our children. May the Lord help us to do so.

I just wanted to publicly acknowledge God’s faithfulness.

This evening I had the opportunity to preach in our church’s evening service (I’ll post a link to an downloadable recording as well as notes sometime next week). It was such a blessing to me to preach the Word again — it’s been almost two years since I’d last done so. At first I was nervous: not butterflies, but rather, the sense of rustiness and concern that I was out of practice in preparing and presenting an understandable sermon. But once I got started, about 10 minutes in, the Lord simply blessed all my preparation, self-consciousness abated, and God helped me to deliver a forceful and clear message from Philippians 1:20-21:

²⁰according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

As usual, the saints were very gracious and attentive; and afterwards expressed their appreciation for the message.

What’s most wonderful to me, though, is how much I have felt moved during my preparations by the subject of the message: living and dying in a Christ-exalting fashion by growing in treasuring and exulting in Christ Himself above all else. I’ve really felt renewed in a desire to deepen in my meditations on Christ’s glories as a means to being Christ-exalting in such endeavors as parenting & being a husband. Not merely trying to produce obedient children or make my wife happy. But actually glorifying and exalting the Lord in those responsibilities; which is the highest priority from which all other activities come into their proper context.

In addition, as I preached, it was exciting to again feel the sense of preaching a message that the Lord had already been stirring my heart about — not merely academically presenting an exposition of the text, as has happened on a few occasions. Thanks be to God for his grace and kindness! In the midst of this season of life, as a parent of young children, it’s been an immense challenge to carve out the time necessary to prepare this kind of teaching. So, I would close with a public word of appreciation for my wonderful wife who not only helped me on several occasions to have study time, by watching the kids; but also exhorted me to study!

This evening, as I was tucking Matthew in to bed, I opted to sing “Be Thou My Vision” to him as our good night song. He interrupted me once or twice to ask me what a phrase here or there meant, but one interchange was so interesting that I had to share it. I got to the line which says “High King of heaven…” and then the following dialogue ensued:

Matthew: What’s heaven?

Me: Heaven is the place where Jesus is. And where everyone who loves Jesus will go to be with him, and sing to him, and talk to him.

Matthew: Like church!

Me: Um… yeah, sorta. Except this is only when we die, everyone who loves Jesus will be with him forever.

Matthew: And Jesus will play with us? (!)

Me: Um, yes, sure! [think sermon illustration that a 3-year-old can get, I think it’s not too far off. Remember, this kid’s life is about eating, sleeping, and playing, with some “fun” schoolwork as well. So “playing” equals quality time spent together.]

Matthew: And we will give Jesus toys?

Me: Yes… I think. [I have no idea what he’s talking about! But I’ll just assume it has something to do with “playing” with Jesus.]

Matthew: And we go to Jesus’s house?

Me: Yes, in fact, heaven is Jesus’s house!

Now that was an interesting conversation. I’m just so blessed by these little conversations.

I’ve just updated our parenting resource page by adding yet another book to the pile: Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism. This book, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, is an excellent reference for learning God’s design for men and women. The book covers both practical applications and Scriptural exegesis of key passages relevant to the subject. We recommend it highly. More excellent resources related to the subject can be found at the website of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which also offers a free download of many books including this one (in PDF format).

I borrowed the LeapFrog Letter Factory video from the library since it teaches letters and phonics. I have been teaching Matthew phonics so I figured watching this video might be a good idea in reinforcing what he already knows. I was pleasantly surprised by this video for the following reasons:

1. It’s actually entertaining. It’s something I wouldn’t mind watching.
2. It has a very catchy tune in remembering each letter and its sound.
3. It’s very well done. I actually like the story line and how it’s played out.

I especially like it when Matthew giggles and laughs when he watches it. I have to say that I’m usually not a big fan of educational videos/programs, especially Sesame Street. For those curious souls out there, you should definitely read Jane Healy’s Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It. Very enlightening. But I digress. . .

What I really want to say is that music has a tremendous impact on the mind. The little catchy tune in the video cemented the letter sounds in mine and my kid’s mind quite well. I find myself singing the tune during the day and my son sometimes jumping in and telling me what each letter sounds like. It’s really a great way of learning.

In learning the vowels, I sing a modified version of the Old MacDonald song (“Old MacDonald had a farm, A-E-I-O-U…”) and Matthew takes great delight in it. This painless lesson helps him know his vowels really well.

He often asks me to play the “This Old Man” song on the piano and of course I oblige most of the time. In playing and singing this song, he learns his numbers. It’s simply amazing. . . . .

Lastly, I just want to reiterate that I’m not a big fan of letting my kids watch videos to learn things because I believe a real person such as myself is the best teacher. Videos are helpful as a secondary or supplementary tool. If you choose to watch an educational video, make sure you watch it together with your child so as to guide him along. Make sure there’s a conversation between the two of you. Watching a video/program is a one way process which is passive learning. Having a conversation with your child about the video is a two way process which is active learning.

Those of you close to us may know that we’re in the process of adopting an infant girl from China right now. We expect to be notified of a child selected by the CCAA within a couple of months, Lord willing.

One of the most common questions we receive is why we chose to adopt, especially since we have not had any difficulty conceiving (short history lesson: our first child was conceived 2 months after our wedding). Behind this inquiry, I think, is an unfortunate assumption: that adoption is only for people who are infertile. Worse yet, I think this tragically, albeit unintentionally in most cases, tends also to assign a lower “value” to those children who are awaiting adoption (after all, “why go to the trouble of getting ‘someone else’s kid’ when you can have “your own”?). But think long and hard, please: orphaned children are only victims of either ill will or unfortunate circumstance. Or compare adoption to another noble activity: is fighting fires only for people whose houses have already burned down?

The heart of our desire to adopt a child is rooted in our deep love for God and desire to do those things which please him. I’d personally also deepened in my appreciation in recent years of the fatherhood of God over us: we are his adopted children, and he confers on us privileges of immense love and grace. Combine those “theological considerations” with an exposure to several other families who’ve lovingly adopted orphans from near and abroad, as well as a deep and abiding desire to be part of a substantive alternative to abortion in the world… and the Lord brought us to a rapid yet clear consensus in October 2004 that we wanted to adopt a child with no further delay. Lois’ own remembrances of poverty in China — and various negative facets of family life associated with being a girl in a family where she was neither first-born nor a boy — directed us to an obvious location from which to adopt: China.

We realize that adding a little infant girl to our family at this young stage of our family life will be hard. For Lois, being a mom of two young boys has already been a great test of her endurance and faith. Same holds for me, in being a husband and father. Nevertheless, we considered these challenges, and our response was, “Yes, it will be hard, probably unimaginably hard. But we must look with eyes of faith and trust in God to give strength to do what pleases Him.” All the reasons we could think of not to adopt were self-centered (“Oh! how hard it will be on us!”). Finally, we knew that nothing we could provide — even if less than “ideal” — would be worse than leaving an adoptable orphan without a home and godly parents.

Lastly, one other question that’s been asked by a number of close relatives: “Are you going to be able to love her as much as if she were your own?” My only response at this point is, nothing’s certain. And yet, I know that when I think of when both of our boys were born, it was not any consideration of blood relation which filled my heart with love and joy. Only the thought that this was a precious soul God had given us, if only for a season. I truly believe God will give us the heart to love whatever children he brings into our family, through whatever means he brings them.

That’s all for now. There’s more that could be said, but it’s hard to simply do so in a random blog entry. Comments? Thoughts? Your prayers are much appreciated as we approach the day when God adds another member to our family.

For more thoughts on this subject, I’d encourage you to read John Piper’s sermon reflecting on being adopted by God and adopting children.