Yesterday, September 11, 2011, marked the 10th anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history. But it also marked the ten year anniversary of the founding of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches. The very day the Twin Towers fell, our founding meeting took place in San Antonio, Texas.
I had called on leading pastors and laymen to gather here to discuss the crisis of church and family, and to seek biblical solutions. Many came. They travelled from the East Coast and the West Coast at great personal expense, just to pray and talk and seek the wisdom of the Lord.
In those days it was not uncommon for Christian parents (especially home educators) to receive significant persecution for simply wanting to have their children in the meeting of the church and declining kiddie church. There were charges of disloyalty and extremism against home educators for refusing to place their children in church schools and youth groups. Many church leaders were unable and unwilling to defend the modern youth-centered, family-dividing practices from the Bible, but entirely willing to condemn those who raised biblical concerns about the practices. On the other hand, some families grew so frustrated that they responded in error, sometimes even giving up on the local church altogether. These “lone rangers” wrongly isolated themselves from lawful church authority and became church renegades. Others responded to persecution with divisive and inappropriate attitudes directed at church leadership.
Several years ago Vision Forum Ministries spun off the NCFIC as an independent organization under the leadership of Scott Brown. This week, the NCFIC is offering some of the following thoughts on the anniversary of its founding:
The anniversary of 9/11 marks a day in the history of the United States, which recalls to mind the horror and the tragedy that swept our nation as the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon was hit, and the heroic actions of the passengers on Flight 93 prevented the terrorists.
On that day, our family parked our car at the Pentagon just before it was hit. We heard the explosions and vividly remember the pandemonium of that day.
While this tenth anniversary of 9/11 will be marked by tears, reflection, and remembrance, we desire not to forget but recall God’s kindness that He has showed us for the past 10 years since the attack. This event will always be etched in our minds and hopefully we will learn lessons from it.
In God’s providence, He ordained that on September 11, 2001, a handful of Christians would gather to address an important issue that effects families all across the nation. They gathered for the purpose of rebuilding the church and family. They felt these two pivotal institutions (church and family) were in a state of collapse.
Peter Bradrick, a teenager who was at this gathering with his father, remembers how iconic the collapse of the Twin Towers was that day in their minds as they considered the tragedies of modern family life. “As we watched the towers collapse, we wept together for the tragedies that had struck our nation.”
These men were full of hope. They gathered, not to curse the darkness, but to light a candle of hope. They came determined to plan positive solutions that were drawn from the Word of God alone. From this time, the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC) was founded, and a powerful movement was launched that God has used to affect thousands of churches and families.
Scott Brown, Director of the NCFIC, stated, “These men were meeting because of an outcry from families who were desperate. They saw their children being destroyed in their youth groups and concluded that the current structure of the church was harming their families. The fathers were hungry to become the fathers they had never been. Their wives were stricken with a sense of resolve to do whatever it took to return to biblical family life. They did not know what to do. In response to this outcry, the NCFIC was born. Pastors and church leaders from across the nation gathered with Vision Forum Ministries and the newly formed NCFIC in San Antonio for the first-ever ‘Summit on Uniting Church and Home.’ At issue was the necessity of encouraging a reformation and praying for a revival concerning the relationship of the family to the local church.”
Doug Phillips, who organized the meeting, remembers: “It was a time when God was turning the hearts of many fathers to their children. Biblical patterns of discipleship were being rediscovered and implemented in the homes of many families. Yet, a glaring dichotomy still existed in those churches which practiced unbiblical family segregating and teen-culture-driven philosophies of church life.”
The purpose of the Summit was to identify the basic issues which must be addressed for reformation to take place in local churches across America in order to return to a biblical order in the family and in the church. Specific concerns included:
The difference between an biblical family culture in the local church, and the prevailing age-segregated, youth-driven philosophy of ministry;
The role that fathers should play in the meeting of the church, and the necessity that local churches formally train them to be shepherds at home;
The importance of treating the meeting of the church as a family gathering of believers, not merely an evangelism outreach to the lost;
The dangers of transforming the purpose and freedom of the church to grow as a body of believers because of the introduction of wrong philosophies of debt;
Reasons why reinforcing the New Testament model for worship will encourage revival, and much more.
Several important decisions were made. First, it was discussed that a committee of church leaders should be formed to draft a confession to be promoted and adopted by local churches as a declaration of commitment to biblical principles for uniting church and home. Second, plans were considered for a national conference to address these and related issues. Third, it was proposed that a database be formed for churches who subscribe to basic principles of Christian orthodoxy (by affirming the historic creeds) and who believe in uniting church and home (by affirming the confession).
Since that time, over 700 churches have identified with the NCFIC’s Confession for Uniting Church and Family. Additionally, the discussion about complementary roles of church and family life has spread to homes, seminary classrooms, blogs, Facebook pages, radio talk shows, and churches all across America.
National Debate
The NCFIC has recently been ushered into the national scene with the release of the film Divided the movie, which has gone viral with almost 100,000 views in the past months. God has used this film to launch a fever-pitched discussion, with responses that range from heartfelt thankfulness to outright vilification of the message. (The film can be seen free online until September 15, 2011.)
The Reflecting Pool
Now ten years after the collapse of the Twin Towers, there is a reflecting pool where the buildings once stood. The Towers will never be rebuilt.
Ten years after the founding of the NCFIC, we also want to reflect on the many mercies that God has wondrously wrought in churches and families. To Him be all the glory.
We have the joy of reflecting upon the tens of thousands of teenagers, who have experienced what it is like to grow up in families, where fathers lead those families in the worship of God every day.
We can look back and reflect upon the radical gospel changes that churches and families have made as they have embraced the idea that Scripture is sufficient for all things that pertain to life and godliness.
We can look back and reflect upon the thousands of youth who have been equipped in churches by listening to the preaching of biblically-qualified elders.
We can look back on a generation of youth who have been personally enriched in churches, where the older mentor the younger without age-segregated youth culture.
We can look back and reflect upon how the fatherless were blessed to have spiritual fathers and mothers, instead of peers to guide them.
We can look back and reflect upon the many churches which have engaged the struggle to be governed by God and His Word alone.
We can look back and reflect on how many babies have been born as parents have embraced the proposition that “children are a heritage from the Lord” (Ps. 127:3).
We can look back and reflect upon how many of our girls were not lost to feminism, but rather, have become mothers and keepers at home.
We can look back and reflect on how many of our young men became men earlier than we did and are now ten years ahead of where we were at their age.
We can look back and rejoice in the small beginnings of fulfilling the Great Commission, to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).
This is our reflecting pool.
God is a good God to His children, and He has given us one way by which we are to come to Him. That way is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
God, in His wisdom, has commanded us how to communicate that glorious gospel to the future generations.
In the midst of tragedy or joy, our gaze must be Godward. In remembering the terrors of 9/11, we must remember the only true God, who holds all things in His hand. In reflecting on the founding of the NCFIC, we must remember the only true God, who guides all things for His glory.
May we be a people who remember and never forget the sovereignty, goodness, and mercy of the Lord.