Healing the Orphan Spirit- Part 3- Fathers in the Church
Healing the Orphan Spirit- Part 3
Fathers in the Church
By Ron Wood
Picture a dining table in a typical home. Seated around the table at dinner time are the mother, her two small children, and at the head of the table, an empty chair. The empty chair belongs to daddy, but he’s not there. Where have all the fathers gone?
In too many homes the father is either physically absent due to divorce or emotionally absent due to his own issues that have never been dealt with. So the wife feels the pain of betrayal or the struggle of poverty from being a single mom, and the kids feel abandoned or rejected from an AWOL man. The girl never feels the security of a strong man’s protection and thus falls prey to the affections of some young stud. Or the boy battles insecurity or lack of confidence since he never heard his father’s voice saying to him "You are my son!"
The personal economic cost, the vacuum of manly values, and the social chaos are perpetuated into the next generation. Fatherlessness is the primary factor in unwanted pregnancies, gang membership, and grinding poverty in American homes. Why does this happen? Because a man-- a key man for that real family-- abandoned his post and reneged on his duty. In the human situation, there is no substitute for a faithful father.
Years ago if people walked into the church you could assume they came from a two-parent home with a pretty good idea of how to live a successful life. The role models were still intact. But for pastors to say to young people today, "Receive the Lord and when you die you’ll go to heaven," is an inadequate answer to their confusion as they come from the culture of MTV, materialism, drug experimentation, biblical ignorance, dabbling in the occult, sexual promiscuity, gender blending, welfare addiction, and failed families. They need a new lifestyle based on God’s word; built on kingdom values.
If men are not masculine and emotionally whole, if they are given to insecurity or fits of anger, if they are over-controlling or abusive, they will kill romance, alienate their kids, and distort the image of our Heavenly Father they were meant to model. This is true in the home, the church, and even in business. Since so many men are damaged emotionally and never get healed, it is no wonder that so many churches led by these men are also filled with spiritual orphans; people who are saved, but still alone. These people never get adopted into the family. They carry their unhealed hearts like invisible scars.
Somehow, the version of church we’ve created and marketed in the 21st century has become anti-masculine. The virile DNA of our founding apostles and prophets has been genetically snipped out. One author* who has researched this problem writes "Western Christianity has become part of the feminine world from which men feel they must distance themselves to attain masculinity." He also says, "Men can be taught to be men only by other men, and all too many pastors are not real men."
Primarily, the modern church has been mothered but not fathered. Despite being prejudiced against women and having mostly men for leaders, the modern church has taken on a decidedly feminine culture. Manliness often seems out of place. To be a real man of God, most men think they have to become emotionally vulnerable like a TV preacher weeping into his handkerchief or like a patronizing pastor who holds your hand and says it will all be okay. Most men see this and mistakenly think, "Real men aren’t needed here."
For years I’ve declared, "The time will come when it will be more important for you to know what apostolic father adopted you than what denominational mother birthed you." I’ll say more on this subject in the next section on The Coming Revival.
It is time for fathers of families and fathers in the faith to arise and pay attention to the next generation. For too long, men have sacrificed their offspring on the altar of their success. They have lived well while their children have been left to themselves. It is the same attitude in mothers who abort their babies or in fathers who abandon their children that is anti-child, alien to God’s nature, and for which we must all repent. When my first son was born, I remember returning home that evening alone to our house, falling to my knees in awe and gratitude and crying out to God, "Father, I know how you feel!"
Real fathers invest in their children and provide an inheritance for them. It is time for fathers to lay up riches for their children, both naturally and spiritually. The only treasure you can take to heaven is your children. Apart from imparting biblical vision and kingdom values to your offspring, there is no real success in this life. To succeed without successors is in reality to fail.
If you read between the lines in the New Testament, you’ll discover spiritual bonds, fathering relationships, by mature men in Christ toward the young leaders they were mentoring. This was the case for the elders and the deacons, both men and women. It was so natural and so common-place that it was taken for granted as THE method of reproducing new leaders in the movement known as The Way, the early church.
Today we use impersonal methods to mass-produce new leaders. We send them away from their local church and trust strangers in distant seminaries or Bible colleges to finish our job. We institutionalize young leaders rather than apprentice them. Yes, biblical knowledge, sound theology, and awareness of church history are important for church leaders, but nothing can take the place of being equipped under the wings of an experienced God-called man or woman. And it shouldn’t happen for only a few paid staff members.
Paul said this about several of his spiritual protégés, "I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me." (1 Corinthians 4:14-16 NASB)
These words from Paul could lead us to ask some diagnostic questions of ourselves. First this observation: Paul did not use manipulation or religious shaming as a method of coercing their obedience. He did use clean, clear warnings or precautions to admonish them, reminders like (and I paraphrase), "If you indulge in carnal pursuits, you’ll reap the things of the flesh; if you invest in spiritual things you’ll reap what the Spirit can give." Re-read the words from Paul in the verses above then ask yourself these questions: Who is my spiritual father? Who cares enough to admonish me? Whose way of life or ministry am I attempting to imitate? What spiritual family has adopted me? Who am I being a father or mother to as they grow up in Christ?
Today, we have thousands of powerful preachers and Bible teachers, but not many genuine leaders willing to devote the time or trouble to personally equip the emerging young leaders around them. In fact, many well-established senior pastors view people with gifts or callings in their flock as a threat to their own position or security, someone to keep down, not someone to value, to recognize, to rise up, or to release. They fail to realize that the greatest thing any leader can do is multiply ministries and send them into the world.
The leaders of western Christianity have almost universally adopted a fatherless form of church structure. This method can effectively merchandise Biblical faith to crowds while leaving individuals neglected as orphans within their own house. It has the illusion of success but sacrifices goals that go beyond preaching or teaching, that is, training and equipping. It is a weakened type of Christian structure that can’t mold emerging leaders for the church, much less for business or government. Real fathers in the faith lay enduring foundations that equip the next generation so they can go further than us. Our ceiling should be their ground floor.
For decades, I’ve prayed this life-text from the Psalms. It describes my purpose: "O God, You have taught me from my youth, And I still declare your wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come." (Psalm 71:17-18 NASB)
The next generation is vitally important to God. The church is always one generation away from graying out into retirement and declining into extinction. Christianity is multi-generational. We follow in the steps of the faith of father Abraham, who discovered that God keeps covenant from one generation to the next. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is a covenant-keeping God.
Earlier this year, I stood with my son, Scott, as we dedicated to the Lord his third child-- our first grandson-- Israel Barak Wood. I looked at my two children and my three grandchildren and realized that the Lord had been true to His word when he first called me to preach, when He told me that the Word he had put in my mouth and the Spirit that was upon me would not depart from me, my children, nor my children’s children. I was seeing the evidence that God had kept covenant even to the third generation.
Without intending to do so, an orphan spirit in a preacher or pastor uses people rather than invests in people. It values big crowds rather than a few disciples. It sacrifices long-range results for the immediate gratification of feeling good about itself. The orphan spirit is impersonal and performance-oriented. It won’t let people get close or be real. An orphan spirit treats people as disposable; as a means to an end, rather than the end itself, which is maturing in Christ and thus bearing much fruit.
The Bible offers this promise from the Lord, found in 2 Corinthians 6.8- "I will be a Father to you…" Our Lord Jesus said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14.18) and "…for the Father Himself loves you…" (John 16.27) What magnificent good news, that we can become God’s child simply by receiving Jesus and obtaining new birth! What a privilege to walk with God as our Heavenly Father!
But children cannot raise themselves. They are ushered into a world helpless as babies, and then go through years of childhood needing constant supervision. It takes work to raise a child. But they do grow up and the way you fulfill your role as a parent does necessarily change over time, whether you are guiding a natural child or a spiritual child, someone you are mentoring in the faith. As I said to my son when I performed his marriage, "I spent the first third of your life raising you, the next third resisting you, and this final third before your adulthood releasing you."
Most churches are filled with spiritual babies, still needing milk from the word, not meat, never being disciplined for righteousness sake, never being trained in the family business, never being put to work in the Father’s fields. It is time for the perpetual childhood of the believer to be finished and for mature sons and daughters in the faith to arise. This task requires spiritual fathers and mothers. Who are the spiritual fathers? Why don’t we see more of them fulfilling this role?
Being a father requires being present to the moment, knowing where your children are geographically and relationally. At home or in the church, daddy may live in the same space, but if he is distant in his affection or distracted in his attention, he will renege on his responsibilities. A renegade is a rebel. For that reason, Bible teacher Derek Prince used to say, "Most American men are rebels."
As we come to the fullness of time, and as the world stage is being set for the conflict of the ages and for the return of Christ, God is moving to raise up, restore, and repair the missing foundations in our lives. These foundations are not just spiritual gifts or fundamental doctrines, but they are also men with vision, virtue, and values embedded in their hearts and minds and lifestyles imparted from the Word of God. To be a man of God, first you have to be a man.
I pray with all my heart that I may play my part in turning fathers toward their children and children toward their fathers, to see genuine fathers in the faith arise and take their place to help rescue this demonized generation from despair. Amen.
*excerpts from The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity by Leon Podles, thanks to Andrew Strom for circulating the article in his email newsletter.
Recommended Reading: the excellent book, Fatherpower by my brother, Don Wood. Available at his website which is: www.fatherpower.com.
Fathers in the Church
By Ron Wood
Picture a dining table in a typical home. Seated around the table at dinner time are the mother, her two small children, and at the head of the table, an empty chair. The empty chair belongs to daddy, but he’s not there. Where have all the fathers gone?
In too many homes the father is either physically absent due to divorce or emotionally absent due to his own issues that have never been dealt with. So the wife feels the pain of betrayal or the struggle of poverty from being a single mom, and the kids feel abandoned or rejected from an AWOL man. The girl never feels the security of a strong man’s protection and thus falls prey to the affections of some young stud. Or the boy battles insecurity or lack of confidence since he never heard his father’s voice saying to him "You are my son!"
The personal economic cost, the vacuum of manly values, and the social chaos are perpetuated into the next generation. Fatherlessness is the primary factor in unwanted pregnancies, gang membership, and grinding poverty in American homes. Why does this happen? Because a man-- a key man for that real family-- abandoned his post and reneged on his duty. In the human situation, there is no substitute for a faithful father.
Years ago if people walked into the church you could assume they came from a two-parent home with a pretty good idea of how to live a successful life. The role models were still intact. But for pastors to say to young people today, "Receive the Lord and when you die you’ll go to heaven," is an inadequate answer to their confusion as they come from the culture of MTV, materialism, drug experimentation, biblical ignorance, dabbling in the occult, sexual promiscuity, gender blending, welfare addiction, and failed families. They need a new lifestyle based on God’s word; built on kingdom values.
If men are not masculine and emotionally whole, if they are given to insecurity or fits of anger, if they are over-controlling or abusive, they will kill romance, alienate their kids, and distort the image of our Heavenly Father they were meant to model. This is true in the home, the church, and even in business. Since so many men are damaged emotionally and never get healed, it is no wonder that so many churches led by these men are also filled with spiritual orphans; people who are saved, but still alone. These people never get adopted into the family. They carry their unhealed hearts like invisible scars.
Somehow, the version of church we’ve created and marketed in the 21st century has become anti-masculine. The virile DNA of our founding apostles and prophets has been genetically snipped out. One author* who has researched this problem writes "Western Christianity has become part of the feminine world from which men feel they must distance themselves to attain masculinity." He also says, "Men can be taught to be men only by other men, and all too many pastors are not real men."
Primarily, the modern church has been mothered but not fathered. Despite being prejudiced against women and having mostly men for leaders, the modern church has taken on a decidedly feminine culture. Manliness often seems out of place. To be a real man of God, most men think they have to become emotionally vulnerable like a TV preacher weeping into his handkerchief or like a patronizing pastor who holds your hand and says it will all be okay. Most men see this and mistakenly think, "Real men aren’t needed here."
For years I’ve declared, "The time will come when it will be more important for you to know what apostolic father adopted you than what denominational mother birthed you." I’ll say more on this subject in the next section on The Coming Revival.
It is time for fathers of families and fathers in the faith to arise and pay attention to the next generation. For too long, men have sacrificed their offspring on the altar of their success. They have lived well while their children have been left to themselves. It is the same attitude in mothers who abort their babies or in fathers who abandon their children that is anti-child, alien to God’s nature, and for which we must all repent. When my first son was born, I remember returning home that evening alone to our house, falling to my knees in awe and gratitude and crying out to God, "Father, I know how you feel!"
Real fathers invest in their children and provide an inheritance for them. It is time for fathers to lay up riches for their children, both naturally and spiritually. The only treasure you can take to heaven is your children. Apart from imparting biblical vision and kingdom values to your offspring, there is no real success in this life. To succeed without successors is in reality to fail.
If you read between the lines in the New Testament, you’ll discover spiritual bonds, fathering relationships, by mature men in Christ toward the young leaders they were mentoring. This was the case for the elders and the deacons, both men and women. It was so natural and so common-place that it was taken for granted as THE method of reproducing new leaders in the movement known as The Way, the early church.
Today we use impersonal methods to mass-produce new leaders. We send them away from their local church and trust strangers in distant seminaries or Bible colleges to finish our job. We institutionalize young leaders rather than apprentice them. Yes, biblical knowledge, sound theology, and awareness of church history are important for church leaders, but nothing can take the place of being equipped under the wings of an experienced God-called man or woman. And it shouldn’t happen for only a few paid staff members.
Paul said this about several of his spiritual protégés, "I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me." (1 Corinthians 4:14-16 NASB)
These words from Paul could lead us to ask some diagnostic questions of ourselves. First this observation: Paul did not use manipulation or religious shaming as a method of coercing their obedience. He did use clean, clear warnings or precautions to admonish them, reminders like (and I paraphrase), "If you indulge in carnal pursuits, you’ll reap the things of the flesh; if you invest in spiritual things you’ll reap what the Spirit can give." Re-read the words from Paul in the verses above then ask yourself these questions: Who is my spiritual father? Who cares enough to admonish me? Whose way of life or ministry am I attempting to imitate? What spiritual family has adopted me? Who am I being a father or mother to as they grow up in Christ?
Today, we have thousands of powerful preachers and Bible teachers, but not many genuine leaders willing to devote the time or trouble to personally equip the emerging young leaders around them. In fact, many well-established senior pastors view people with gifts or callings in their flock as a threat to their own position or security, someone to keep down, not someone to value, to recognize, to rise up, or to release. They fail to realize that the greatest thing any leader can do is multiply ministries and send them into the world.
The leaders of western Christianity have almost universally adopted a fatherless form of church structure. This method can effectively merchandise Biblical faith to crowds while leaving individuals neglected as orphans within their own house. It has the illusion of success but sacrifices goals that go beyond preaching or teaching, that is, training and equipping. It is a weakened type of Christian structure that can’t mold emerging leaders for the church, much less for business or government. Real fathers in the faith lay enduring foundations that equip the next generation so they can go further than us. Our ceiling should be their ground floor.
For decades, I’ve prayed this life-text from the Psalms. It describes my purpose: "O God, You have taught me from my youth, And I still declare your wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come." (Psalm 71:17-18 NASB)
The next generation is vitally important to God. The church is always one generation away from graying out into retirement and declining into extinction. Christianity is multi-generational. We follow in the steps of the faith of father Abraham, who discovered that God keeps covenant from one generation to the next. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is a covenant-keeping God.
Earlier this year, I stood with my son, Scott, as we dedicated to the Lord his third child-- our first grandson-- Israel Barak Wood. I looked at my two children and my three grandchildren and realized that the Lord had been true to His word when he first called me to preach, when He told me that the Word he had put in my mouth and the Spirit that was upon me would not depart from me, my children, nor my children’s children. I was seeing the evidence that God had kept covenant even to the third generation.
Without intending to do so, an orphan spirit in a preacher or pastor uses people rather than invests in people. It values big crowds rather than a few disciples. It sacrifices long-range results for the immediate gratification of feeling good about itself. The orphan spirit is impersonal and performance-oriented. It won’t let people get close or be real. An orphan spirit treats people as disposable; as a means to an end, rather than the end itself, which is maturing in Christ and thus bearing much fruit.
The Bible offers this promise from the Lord, found in 2 Corinthians 6.8- "I will be a Father to you…" Our Lord Jesus said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14.18) and "…for the Father Himself loves you…" (John 16.27) What magnificent good news, that we can become God’s child simply by receiving Jesus and obtaining new birth! What a privilege to walk with God as our Heavenly Father!
But children cannot raise themselves. They are ushered into a world helpless as babies, and then go through years of childhood needing constant supervision. It takes work to raise a child. But they do grow up and the way you fulfill your role as a parent does necessarily change over time, whether you are guiding a natural child or a spiritual child, someone you are mentoring in the faith. As I said to my son when I performed his marriage, "I spent the first third of your life raising you, the next third resisting you, and this final third before your adulthood releasing you."
Most churches are filled with spiritual babies, still needing milk from the word, not meat, never being disciplined for righteousness sake, never being trained in the family business, never being put to work in the Father’s fields. It is time for the perpetual childhood of the believer to be finished and for mature sons and daughters in the faith to arise. This task requires spiritual fathers and mothers. Who are the spiritual fathers? Why don’t we see more of them fulfilling this role?
Being a father requires being present to the moment, knowing where your children are geographically and relationally. At home or in the church, daddy may live in the same space, but if he is distant in his affection or distracted in his attention, he will renege on his responsibilities. A renegade is a rebel. For that reason, Bible teacher Derek Prince used to say, "Most American men are rebels."
As we come to the fullness of time, and as the world stage is being set for the conflict of the ages and for the return of Christ, God is moving to raise up, restore, and repair the missing foundations in our lives. These foundations are not just spiritual gifts or fundamental doctrines, but they are also men with vision, virtue, and values embedded in their hearts and minds and lifestyles imparted from the Word of God. To be a man of God, first you have to be a man.
I pray with all my heart that I may play my part in turning fathers toward their children and children toward their fathers, to see genuine fathers in the faith arise and take their place to help rescue this demonized generation from despair. Amen.
*excerpts from The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity by Leon Podles, thanks to Andrew Strom for circulating the article in his email newsletter.
Recommended Reading: the excellent book, Fatherpower by my brother, Don Wood. Available at his website which is: www.fatherpower.com.
<< Home