The compulsory attendance law was enacted in the 1850s due to the immigration of Irish and other European groups. Many east coast cities were full of children and families that needed something to do. This was not for the education of the children, but was to teach discipline and obedience to make these children into good factory workers and citizens. In order to do that, children had to be separated from their parents. They had to be forced to learn, or be indoctrinated with the ideals of someone else.

Homeschooling has become a hot topic in recent years. Many parents have chosen to remove their children from public school settings after the interruptions in schooling due to covid. This influx of children daily in the home, has greatly changed the education landscape of our country. For many of these parents, this was the first time they had an experience with teaching their children at home. The idea of teaching children at home is not novel, although have been accustomed to think its new. In fact, throughout history teaching your children at home was the norm. Homeschooling has been around for a lot longer than we think.

Our frustration of frequency, our exasperation of exhaustion, our wrath against repetition is experienced when we are sick of having to repeat something. We’ve said something before, and now the nuisance of stating the same thing again has driven us slightly (maybe more than slightly) bonkers. Maybe it was somewhere between the 70th and 470th time the question was asked, it’s hard to tell exactly, but somewhere, at some time, we snapped and decided “this is the last time I’m going to say this” and issued the warning “don’t make me say it again”. 

The Terra Prime Adventure Series is a good clean space story for kids and families. The first story sets the scene of a tween boy who awakens on the starship to find that his sleeping pod was opened while everyone else's stayed closed. Zack must solve the problem on the spaceship of an un-identified intruder, with only the help from the on board computer.

When we think of the gospel going out into the world there are a great many things that come to mind. Missions efforts, evangelistic crusades, interpersonal conversations about Jesus, baptisms, testimonies, transformed lives, church plants, sermons, bible translation, and more. Often when we think of the gospel spreading, we think in the present sense. We consider the present global spiritual landscape and then carry on with that in mind. This is a good thing and is in no way worthy of critique. The apostles were dedicated in their lives (during what was their time in the “present”) to the spread of the gospel widely. They traveled afar, and had gospel conversations with people from dozens of cultures, lands, and languages. 

Hospitality today is delegated as something that women do. It is often conceptualized as a noun. A thing that only certain people should do because they are good at it. That is not how the Bible speaks about hospitality. Hospitality is not a gift some of us have, it is a command for all of God’s People.

Many children in our western culture have been told they can’t sit in worship. They have been led to believe that the Bible is too difficult for them to understand. That there are only certain stories worth learning about. Why these stories? Because some believe kids can only learn the “fun stories of scripture." Children are taught about Jericho falling down, but are they taught about Joshua, Rahab, or Moses? Are they taught why the walls of Jericho needed to fall down? Are they taught of the victory of God in fulfilling His great promises to His people? Are they taught how destructive and devastating sin is? Are they exposed to the ultimate reality of God’s wrath against His enemies? Are they told of the grace of God in Christ? Are they taught about the significance of the return of Christ?

Hospitality is something every Christian should be doing, but what exactly is hospitality? Hospitality can mean different things based on your culture, and upbringing. Do some hospitality is what you receive when you stay in a hotel. Its a clean bed, space to be alone, a lavish breakfast and the ability to have your needs meet 24 hours day. For others, hospitality is someone opening their home for you to stay. Instead of a lavish breakfast, room to yourself, and your needs met 24 hours, you are invited into a home to help prepare the meals and to share rooms with others.

14 books to get your family reading aloud together this summer. A great family tradition to get started with wonderful books.

Jacob and Amy often receive questions about matters pertaining to family, children and the church. One such question was how to train our children to love instruction and to love God’s Law. This week we briefly touch on 5 tips to help you teach your children to love Instruction and His law.

Jacob recently received this questions about the contemporary Christian Music Movement within churches today. We know that many people are struggling with what music should be sung in worship, versus the home. We hope that this answer encourages you to think about the “Christian” music you listen to and the music that is sung at your worship service on Sundays.

My wife and I have always taught our children about death. This means, as Christian parents, we have also taught our children about the hope of the resurrection. It can be difficult to have conversations with little ones, and that’s a truism that has been proven time and time again as we raise our four living children. Conversations can sometimes be difficult because of the tragic, gut-wrenching, soul-disturbing reality of the curse of death.

Today we will share a few quotes to think about and chew on. Many of these will read as quite offensive in the current climate in the secular west that is so utterly hostile to the Lord and his instructions.

The past few months have been filled with prayer, work, excitement and anticipation. We are so blessed in where God has called our family. We look forward to sharing with you more about how God has been working in our lives in hopes to encourage you in yours. Check out what’s new with our family!

In Acts 14:23 (narrative, descriptive) we read that it was the Apostle Paul's pattern to appoint Christian elders within churches early on in the lifecycle of a church (1):

Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

The following is an excerpt from a study Jacob has been working on over the last 2 years about the New Testament Elder…..

In Acts 11:29-30 (narrative, descriptive) we’re given the first explicit mention of New Testament Christian elders:

Acts 11:29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

There seems to be trouble not far behind whenever we conflate what we do, enjoy, or desire, with who we are. What we do changes, what we enjoy is fleeting, and what we desire is rarely satisfied. Our understanding of ourselves will, by necessity, be a confusing labyrinth of the mind if we use any of these things to find, evaluate, and plant our identity. This is perhaps the definitive great question of our time among a dying and lost world, “who am I?” and by association as social creatures “who are we?”.

If you think this isn’t a hot topic within western Christianity then I’ll simply lay out one, clear cut propositional statement for you - The VAST majority of distinctions within churches in the west boils down to issues related to authority. The reason there are X number of different professing Christian groups within your city, county, state, province, region, nation, and continent, are primarily due to distinctions and perspectives regarding authority.

Christians who are enjoined in a covenant marriage between one man and one woman have the best possible sex because it is the only sexual experience which dwells under the blessing of the Divine Maker. No other form of human sexuality can include the Divine blessing. For the biblically informed married Christian husband and wife, sex isn’t a sneaky unspiritual side gig outside of the blessing of God. For that couple sex is a unifying expression of love to be enjoyed for the glory of God.

While we live in an age where Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers are all active and sharing a digital space called the Internet, the conversations relating to religion are much different from those prior to the mass adoption of the Internet. Politics, religion, and finances were the socially accepted triumvirate of topics that were taboo among polite company over much of the 2nd half of the twentieth century. Today, speaking of taxation policies, immigration, and even gun laws might make for awkward conversational topics for many, but those issues are not nearly as polarizing as the present “hot topics” within Christianity at large.