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Today, the Christian Post released my article called "The Greatest Untapped Evangelistic Opportunity Before the Modern Church." In it, you'll read,

There are many mission fields, but family presents what may be the greatest untapped evangelistic opportunity before the church today. What is at stake is the salvation of millions of children under the evangelistic and discipleship ministry of fathers and mothers in the home. This is not the only mission field, to be sure, but it is perhaps the most neglected mission field before the church in our time.

Please read the full article and like it, tweet it, or google+ it on the Christian Post.

- “we segregated youth from the rest of the congregation”

- “we incorporated an attractional model that morphed into entertainment-driven ministry”

- “we lost sight of the Great Commission, deciding instead to make converts of many and disciples of few”....

My Friend R.C. Sproul Jr. answers this question here.

C. Jeffrey Robinson Sr., from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article called "The Home is an Earthly Kingdom: Family Discipleship Among the Reformers and Puritans, Part 1–Martin Luther."

The early reformers discovered the rich truths in the Word of God about the family. Further on, I give a clip of what Robison says as well as talk about the great legacy left to us by John Calvin. 

Last week Paul Martin wrote a blog entitled “Why we need Youth ministry” for The Gospel Coalition. In this blog, the author asserts the necessity of youth groups. A basic read of his post will show one very important factor missing: Scripture. The only support the author finds is in reference to the Jewish education tradition.

Relying on the cultural practices of Jewish or any other tradition to support one’s position is a truly unbiblical path to take because it elevates tradition to an authoritative level near to that of Scripture.  

A little farther down, I will talk to you about Paul Martin's post and how to think about non-biblical sources (like tradition) and the sufficiency of God's Word. Read to the end to find a great quote by Charles Spurgeon on God's Word.

Our friend Joaquin Fernandez was recently interviewed at "Expolit 2012" – a Spanish conference in Florida.

Here's a brief report of the radio interview for 88.3, the local Hispanic Christian radio station:

Before we recorded the interview, the host told me he had watched Dividida during the Expo. His father in law, who is a pastor in Venezuela, picked up a free copy and after watching it, made him watch it. The radio show host is a pastor of a new church plant and they still don't have children's church or any other age-segregated ministries. When he saw the film, he was upset and resisted it, mostly because he was a product of the Sunday school movement, and as his wife reminded him, a former youth pastor himself. He had to watch it a second time and then he got it! During our interview, he strongly endorsed the film and told a little of his story, saying that it was truly eye-opening to him to realize where age segregation had come from and realizing that the Scriptures never mention it. He was so excited about us being here.

Please pass these Spanish resources to Spanish-speaking people that you know or with whom you go to church. Dividida is available online for free at http://www.divididalapelicula.com/ 

In addition, there are Spanish resources at the Spanish NCFIC webiste (CNIFI): http://cnifi.org/

As part of the NCFIC's Spanish launch, Joaquin Fernandez and his family and Alfredo Litardo and his wife, Pilar, went to "Expolit 2012" to promote the message of church and family reformation in Spanish. Please look at the new NCFIC Spanish website (CNIFI) and the new Divided Spanish website (Dividida).

On Cinco de Mayo, the NCFIC is launching the NCFIC and Divided websites in Spanish!

To view the NCFIC Spanish website, click here.

To view the Divided Spanish website, click here.

Divided has been fully subtitled in Spanish and is available online with many of the bonus features actually dubbed in Spanish. Please share this with your Spanish neighbors and friends.

The Gospel Coalition seems to continue to make our arguments for us (while still seeking to legitimize, nurse, and resuscitate a failed system). Here is a quote from this article:

But the thing is, we have to be sure that we don't segregate the youth for our sake and theirs. They are part of the body of Christ too, and no part of the body can remain healthy if one of its members is cut off and put to the side. If we segregate the youth, not only do we lose all they have to teach us, but we also inadvertently teach them that the church is really only for adults---those who are married and have families of their own. And then we wonder why they don't get involved in church as college students or young singles, when in reality, we've been telling them all along that the church isn't yet for them.

It seems that the term patriarchy has fallen on hard times. But what is biblical patriarchy?

Consider the seventh command, "You shall not commit adultery" (Deut. 5:18). This command initiates a celebration of the wonderful commands of God for marriage. This command takes us into the deepest recesses of the heart of God's love for men and women. He desires us to mirror His own nature in the loving unified relationships in the Godhead as well as His sacrificial love for the Church that Christ demonstrates. This is the essence of biblical patriarchy, and it displays the truth that God's commands for marriage are both a soothing breeze and a wall of protection for all those who would obey them.

Why do I say that this command is the essence of biblical patriarchy?....

AP Writer Linda Stewart Ball reported on a phenomena – leaderless unstructured, do as you please home churches. The NCFIC has consistently spoken against these kinds of churches – click here to listen to this audio message, “What about Home Churching.” While Scripture makes it clear that the location of the meeting may be in a home, it is the structure and practice that defines a true church.

She writes of this increasingly common situation:

To get to church on a recent Sunday morning, the Yeldell family walked no farther than their own living room to greet fellow worshipers.

The members of this "house church" are part of what experts say is a fundamental shift in the way U.S. Christians think about church. Skip the sermons, costly church buildings and large, faceless crowds, they say. House church is about relationships forged in small faith communities....

And verily there is one spring and cause of the decay of Religion in our day, which we cannot but touch upon, and earnestly urge a redress of; and that is the neglect of the worship of God in Families, by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed. May not the gross ignorance, and instability of many; with the profaneness of others, be justly charged upon their Parents and Masters; who have not trained them up in the way wherein they ought to walk when they were young? but have neglected those frequent and solemn commands which the Lord hath laid upon them so to catechize, and instruct them, that their tender years might be seasoned with the knowledge of the truth of God as revealed in the Scriptures; and also by their own omission of Prayer, and other duties of Religion in their families, together with the ill example of their loose conversation, have inured them first to a neglect, and then contempt of all Piety and Religion?......

We should bring our children with us to the publick teaching, so may our private teaching prove profitable. Oftentimes divine truths are as nails, one teaching sets them in, and the other teaching fastens them; one plants and the other waters, and so of both God gives increase.

We should bring the word publickly taught home to our children, by repeating it to them, and requiring it of them. It is not enough that we with others teach them, but we must see what they learn, enlivening things upon their hearts at home, by holy counsel. At our houses we should harrow in that good seed which hath been publickly sown, that so it may be covered the closer and root the better in the hearts of the children and servants.

Family Religion Revived, or a Treatise as to discover the good old way of serving God in private Houses; so to Recover the Pious Practice of those Precious, Duties unto their Primitive platform. by Phillip Goodwin, p. 401-402 (1655)

I'm really looking forward to preaching at Calvary Revival Church Chesapeake in Chesapeake, VA for their 15 year anniversary, where my friend Carlton McLeod is pastor. Here are the directions.

Last night Dan Horn, Jason Dohm, Steve Breagy and I met with Heritage Christian Church in the Boston area for an elder examination. The elder candidates were Dave Eckerson and Brian Fournier. We asked them many questions about personal life, theology, and practical church situations.

I delivered a final charge with the following points:

1. Trust in the ordinary means of grace – preaching, prayer, singing, fellowship, the Lord’s supper, baptism.

2. Exalt the Word of God. God leads His people through His Word. Devote your conversations around the Word of God.

3. Act like missionaries. Preach the gospel to yourself, to one another, and to whomever you meet. If Whitefield was with someone, he did not want to be with them for more than 15 minutes without speaking of Christ to them. Send out missionaries.......

My fellow elder Dan Horn, in speaking about church discipline said this:

We need to consider the nature of authority, love, justice and mercy. Our understanding must start with the fact that we can never be more loving than God, more just than God or more merciful than God. When we look at the texts of scripture on church discipline, it is easy for us to lean toward our own view of what is merciful, rather than trusting that following the commandments of God is always the most merciful and loving act. Christians always must bear in mind what the Lord requires of us, but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). We also need to keep in mind, that if we do not fulfill the responsibility of the authority that we are given, we are showing hatred, not love (Proverbs 13:24).