“The Covenant Way: The Abdication of Husbands and Fathers”

Consider the man in the average Christian family. A Christian husband and father will usually have a general sense about his duties to provide and protect his family. He will understand that his wife and children need provision and care. He might even acknowledge the importance of spiritual growth for the wife and kids. But when the duty of providing that spiritual leadership falls on his shoulders, the average Christian man begins to look for someone else to carry that responsibility.

Who would you think usually decides where a family goes to church? I suggest it’s probably a group decision (that dad claims as his own) based upon the following considerations:

1. Who has the best program where the children can learn to be good little boys and girls?
2. What church provides the best opportunity for the wife’s spiritual growth?
3. Where is the place we all can feel comfortable with the style of worship?

So the family takes a journey into the marketplace of religion to find the place where everyone can be happy. Dad wants everybody to be happy. If the family is happy he’s happy. Most men want their wives and family engaged elsewhere because when mom and the kids are busy being happy they leave him alone. Men love it when they can “outsource” their role as husband and father.

George Whitefield admonished husbands and fathers – “Let me exhort all governors of families, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, often to reflect on the inestimable worth of their own souls and the infinite ransom, even the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which has been paid down for them . . . and you will no more neglect your family’s spiritual welfare than your own” (emphasis mine).

Each Christian husband and father leads his own covenantal church family with all the duties and privileges that attend that calling. This calling cannot be delegated to others. The faithful Christian man then leads his family to join together with that larger covenant family of God to renew covenant in Christ by Word and Sacrament in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. A covenant home and a covenant church - this is God’s best way to “love your wife as Christ loved the Church” and to see your children and your children’s children embrace the benefits of redemption through the covenant of grace.