Fathers who want to make a lasting difference by leaving a positive legacy...
Friday, January 28, 2022
Looking forward to speaking at Hawthorne Gospel Church in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Sign up to attend if you live in the area. Saturday, Feb. 26th 8am https://hawthornegospel.org/men
Monday, July 13, 2020
Enjoyed a conversation on the hot topic of Toxic Masculinity
Honest Conversations by Heart Strong Faith is a popular podcast with hosts Rebecca Carrell and Liz Rodriguez. They take on tough topics through a biblical lens.
More than five years of research into toxic masculinity, family systems, biblical data, and gender studies have finally produced our new men's small group curriculum. No doubt you’ve heard about the unhealthy effects of toxic masculinity? The problem with those who have been so negatively impacted by unhealthy men is they often want to throw out masculinity altogether ... instead of working to reform and redeem broken men.
Now study, and live out, Christ-Centered Masculinity! This practical, 12-week study, shows men of any age how to leave a lasting legacy of love and service by practicing the highest ideals of masculinity…those of Jesus Christ. This material can be studied on your own. Or you can join up with a group of like-minded men and meet on a regular basis to work through the material. Whether you are currently involved in a men's small group, or wish to begin a new one, Christ-Centered Masculinity will challenge you and call you to living out higher ideals of manhood. Why not order your copy today and dive in!
With five children, mornings before school started were often hectic. And the night before? Well...how many times did one of our kids say, "Hey, I need a white poster board for an assignment by tomorrow morning!" Ugh... This article is a reminder, from our friends at Family Living Today, to stay organized during the critical back to school days... your children will thank you later.
Churches, Take Note: There’s Talk of Cutting Social Security
Photo courtesy Marco Verch
By: Herb Reece
I’ve
been saying for many years that America’s churches have abdicated to
the federal government their responsibility to provide for the needs of
their widows, widowers, and others. Biblically speaking, the church has
the responsibility to guarantee the well-being of those in its midst
with long term pressing needs. (See, for example, 1 John 3:16-18; Titus
3:14; Acts 4:34, 6:1-6; 1 Timothy 5:1-15, etc.) The church has
increasingly been marginalized in American culture because it has been
disobedient in this role. For example, how many churches do you know
with a “widow’s list” as described in 1 Timothy 5?
In its place, the federal government has stepped in to provide a
Social Security “safety net” for the elderly and disabled. For decades,
that safety net has worked fairly well. Social Security is one of the
government’s most popular programs. But with a national debt standing at
over 22 trillion dollars and another 1 trillion or so being added to it
every year, the federal government is going to have to cut something.
Recently, President Trump has proposed cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans on Capitol Hill say
Donald Trump may be willing to cut Social Security and Medicare if he
wins in 2020, reportedly describing the potential move as a “second-term
project.” (Yahoo News, August 29, 2019)
I’m not here to get into politics, nor to discuss the merits and
demerits of cutting Social Security. What I do want to say is that
America’s churches have a golden opportunity to step up to the plate and
assume their biblically mandated responsibility once again. If every
church in America took financial responsibility for replacing any cuts
to Social Security for just five of their widows, that would be 1.5
million widows the church would be helping.
Replacing for its widows the money the government cuts from Social
Security may sound like a radical concept. But it’s not a radical
biblical concept. It’s just the church doing what the church is supposed
to do.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
Herb Reese is an author,
public speaker and President of New Commandment Men's Ministries. Herb
has a B.A. in History from UCLA and a Th.M. in Pastoral Ministries from
Dallas Theological Seminary. He has done post graduate work in The
History of Ideas at University of Texas, Dallas and in Church
Administration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. After serving as a
pastor in three churches in Texas, Illinois and Colorado over a period
of twenty years, Herb founded New Commandment Men's Ministries, a
ministry dedicated to helping churches recruit, train, organize and
deploy teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single
parents. Herb has served as President of New Commandment since 2003 and
has helped over 900 churches develop men's team ministries in 49 states
and eight foreign countries.
The Pure Flix movie, UnPlanned, opened with a surprisingly strong box office this weekend. With the proliferation of new movie and television outlets, faith-based media options are now more popular than ever. Families currently enjoy the freedom to bypass the previous limited options coming out of Hollywood and are able to choose their own entertainment offerings. Companies such as Pure Flix, offer streaming media available in monthly package deals. (https://pureflix.com/)
The controversial pro-life movie, UnPlanned, was expected to bring in approximately $3Million this weekend but instead opened with a surprising $6M opening weekend. What does this trend portend for the traditional Hollywood media outlets? Watch UnPlanned trailer here...
(a very interesting article from: Acculturated Magazine)
Parenting:
The Ridiculous Crusade for Gender-Neutral Toys
(By: Jonathan V. Last)
Gender-neutral toys
Christina Hoff Sommers—who literally wrote the book on the war on boys—notes that there’s a movement afoot to de-gender toys. Target has pulled the “boys” and “girls” labeling from their toy aisles. The White House recently hosted a “summit” on the perils of gender-specific toys. Time proclaims that “the next generation of kids will play with gender neutral toys.”
This is crazy on two counts. First, the kind of people who obsess about gender-neutral toys don’t, as a demographic fact, have many children. In America these days, childbearing tends to be the counter-cultural province of people who aren’t social justice warriors.
Second, even if you give kids gender neutral toys, they’ll gender the heck out of them on their own. Trust me, I know.
In my house, we’re basically hippie parents. We don’t read Dag Hammarskjöld to the kids at bedtime, but we do use a “peace rose” to, as the consultants say, facilitate reconciliation following interpersonal conflict. We favor natural fibers for linens and clothing, occasionally have family meetings where we whiteboard our concerns, and are suckers for the organic food scam. The kids go to a hippie Montessori school where they “choose their own work” and don’t get grades. And we’ve always favored the kind of constructive, creative toys that the non-gender toy people love. Not on purpose, mind you—this wasn’t an ideological decision, it just sort of happened. My son has never owned a single action figure and my daughters own only one Barbie doll, which was a gift from a relative close enough that we couldn’t return it.
Yet it turns out that gender stereotypes exist for a reason. When he was four, our eldest, a boy, discovered that sticks make for highly effective swords. Later he realized that the removable flag from the Safety Turtle was an even better weapon, since it could be used as a sword, spear, or lance. Every time he went outside he made himself a weapon and went off to battle imaginary villains.
His sisters, meanwhile, gravitated toward decidedly less aggressive play. They use sticks as fairy wands and carry little Ziploc baggies of glitter which they sprinkle as “pixie dust.” In their games, there are no “bad guys,” only perilous situations— “Don’t fall off that cliff!”—where they have to help one another with their “magic.”
Over the years we’ve noticed that whenever a “non-gendered” toy is introduced into their habitat, the kids appropriate it along stereotypically gendered lines. Example: A few years ago there was a Rainbow Loom craze, where kids took tiny rubber loops and wove them into bracelets. Everyone was doing it. We bought thousands of the things for our kids. The girls wove bracelets that they collected and gave to their friends. The boy also wove bracelets—until he realized that he could use the rubber loops to weave a long elastic cord that he was then able to tie to a flexible piece of wood. He used the Rainbow Loom to build a workable bow. He never made another bracelet.
rainbow loom
We never taught our kids any of this stuff. They just arrived at it on their own. Because—I understand that this is a radical concept—boys and girls are different.
As I stare at my children’s play room right now, here are the toys I see: A 5-foot-tall cloth teepee; a large set of Magna-Tiles; a Q-Ba-Maze; Moluk Bilibos (which are even weirder than whatever you’re picturing right now); and about 30,000 Legos. Like I said, we’re hippies.
moluk bilibo
Here is what the children do with those toys: All of them use the teepee, the girls as a “fairy house” and the boy as a fort. The girls use the Magna-Tiles to build interesting geometric shapes. The boy most recently used the pieces from the Q-Ba-Maze—which is a modular marble-maze contraption—to build a “laser blaster.”
And when it comes to Legos? The girls spend hours designing princess castles and houses, with intricate rooms for their Lego minifigures. The boy has created a series of fighter jets, each one with more missiles and cannons and bombs than the last.
One of the oddities of modern life is that polite society currently insists that you are “born this way” if you are homosexual or misgendered. But when it comes to boys who like to play with swords and build fighter jets? For some reason, this is viewed as a societal construct that should be eradicated so that they’ll want to play with dolls.
As we’ve discovered at my house, this is a project that’s doomed to fail.
When Google executive, Forrest Hayes, 51, installed surveillance cameras in his luxury yacht he probably had security reasons in mind. Now, Santa Cruz, California police say the hidden cameras reveal images of the prostitute Hayes hired coolly stepping over his lifeless body and calming taking one last drink of wine before pulling down the blinds and quietly exiting the boat. Hayes, a married, father of five, found Alix Tichelman, 26, on a sleazy website where older men hire younger women for "arrangements," i.e. prostitution. Tichelman is shown on the yacht videos injecting Hayes with heroin among other activities. When complications set in and Hayes began to struggle for his life, Tichelman showed no signs of offering assistance or calling 9-1-1. Among her Facebook postings were these gruesome thoughts, "Really nice to talk with someone about killing sprees and murdering people in cold blood...and they love it too, no judgment, yay!" she wrote on her page.
Prostitute, Alix Tichelman, 26, in court for initial hearing on murder charge
Hayes’ family, trying to remember the good times, released a statement to the media saying, ““Forrest will be remembered above all as a loving husband and father.” So read his obituary, which was published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “More than anything else he enjoyed spending time with his family at home and on his boat. His brilliant mind, contagious smile, and warm embrace will be missed and cherished in memories by his friends and family.” How sad. The Google IT executive who previously worked for Sun Microsystems and Apple apparently led a secret life. Police are unsure whether the heroin injection was a one -time event or whether Hayes was a regular user. Authorities have already confirmed this was not his first dalliance with Tichelman.
Forrest Hayes, 51, died after being injected with heroin and left for dead on his luxury yacht
This story should remind all husbands and fathers; you are leaving a lasting legacy. Either positively or negatively spouses and children live with the memories and moments spent with their husband and/or father. No man can be perfect. There’s no use trying. But how will you be remembered? It’s not in the one-time events where we make the most impact as dads. Sure, the photos from the Grand Canyon or Disneyworld go up in our offices or on the walls of our homes. But it’s in the daily routines, the little things in life, where we often leave the most lasting impact. Did my dad ever play catch with me in the back yard? Did he attend my school’s drama production where I played a supporting role? Was he loving, kind, involved? Did he show up? Was he faithful? These are the questions wives and children ask.
Santa Cruz, CA harbor where Hayes' body was discovered
Father wounds hurt. And they leave a mark. One day children will look back and remember the good times and the bad. They ponder the high and low points. If you are a dad and you are involved in a secret, double life; let the warning of this pathetic story shock you back to your senses. If you are addicted or struggle with gaining freedom from destructive habits, seek help. If not for the sake of your family it might be for your own life.
New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy missed the season's first two games to be with his wife during the birth of their first child earlier this week. Everyone was really happy, right? Well...no. A couple of radio talk show hosts in New York criticized Murphy's decision. Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason said, "Quite frankly I would've said 'C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day. I'm sorry, this is what makes our money, this is how we're going to live our life, this is going to give our child every opportunity to be a success in life. I'll be able to afford any college I want to send my kid to because I'm a baseball player,'"
Excuse me?
Mets second-baseman Daniel Murphy is receiving criticism for missing two major league baseball games in order to be present at the birth of his first child. What would you have encouraged Murphy to do?
Full disclosure. My wife and I have five children. I have been present at the birth of each of our children. And also, I must reveal that my wife is a Neo-Natal Nurse Practitioner. So, maybe we know a bit more about the dangers that can occur during a routine delivery. In fact, there's no such thing as a "normal delivery." After our first two children were born and there were no complications, I began to reason, "How hard can this be? We've got this down pretty well." Then our third child, Evan, was born. It was a difficult labor. Phrases like "failure to progress" and "breech" were being thrown around. After I saw my wife's limp leg flop over the side of the delivery table I excused myself from the proceedings and quietly slipped out into the hall of the Baylor Hospital in downtown Dallas, Texas praying, "Please, Lord, help us have a healthy delivery." I was desperate. Everything was moving in slow motion. A couple of neo-natal doctors appeared in the room to assist.
After experiencing that event, I can't imagine encouraging a dad to be anywhere else except by his wife's side during the birth of their child. I don't care if the dad is a CEO, a Hollywood actor, or the best player on a Major League Baseball team. You will never get that moment in time back.
Another sports talk host spouted, ""To me, and this is just my sensibility, assuming the birth went well, assuming your wife is fine, assuming the baby is fine — 24 hours, you stay there, baby is good, you have a good support system for the mom and the baby, you get your ass back to your team and you play baseball," Craig Carton said. Can you hear all of the assumptions in that lame prediction? Assuming the birth goes well? Assuming the baby is fine? Assuming your wife is fine? Hey, buddy, moms can die during childbirth! Not all babies make it through the grueling delivery process! Dude, not all births go well!
Another radio sports blowhard, Mike Francesa bloated, "I don't know why you need three days off, I'm going to be honest. You see the birth and you get back. What do you do in the first couple days? Maybe you take care of the other kids. Well, you gotta have someone to do that if you're a Major League Baseball player. I'm sorry, but you do … Your wife doesn't need your help the first couple days, you know that," Francesa opined. What time does Francesa get off the air and go back to his cave?
Another disclosure. As I mentioned we have five kids...and I have also written five books. The one book that my wife helped me write, Congratulations, You're Gonna Be a Dad! is actually the book that has sold the most copies. (And yes, she lovingly reminds me of this fact from time to time.) In this book we encourage new dads to be fully present in the days leading up to and surrounding the birth of their first child. Family experts agree incredible bonding and emotional imprinting takes place in the first few hours and days after delivery. Experts tell us newborns can actually recognize subtle differences in factors such as touch, smells, and voice patterns. Again, these are moments that a new dad will never get back. Of course we realize there are some circumstances, such as military service, that cannot be avoided. But...golfing, a business trip, or a baseball game? Come on
Although he didn't have to miss a Major League Baseball game to do it, author Paul Pettit was present at the birth of all five of his children. Thankfully, Evan, far left, made it through an incredibly difficult delivery and is now an engineering student at the University of Arkansas. Not all deliveries end well. Pam, center front, assists families with babies in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit at historic Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas.
And so, in the midst of this current cultural firestorm over paternity leave, dads being present at the birth of their children, and sports talk radio hosts spouting misogynistic nonsense...Dynamic Dads honors NY Mets second-baseman Daniel Murphy for skipping three days of Major League Baseball work to be present at the birth of his first child. Way to go, Murph! (By the way...real men help change diapers too.)
Kudos to NY Mets 2nd baseman Daniel Murphy for being at his wife Tori's side during the delivery of their first child
Unfortunately, from time to time, we at Dynamic Dads are forced to warn our readers concerning the activities and practices of other organizations. It brings us no joy to issue a rebuke to another organization. However, we are open to others examining Dynamic Dads and if the need ever arises, would welcome investigation into our beliefs and practices. It seems the same can no longer be said for Bill Gothard and the Advanced Training Institute.
Numerous Christian media outlets are relaying allegations from various families alleging Gothard has secreted away teenage girls to his ministry site in Oak Brook, Illinois. Gothard, never married, stands accused of counseling, holding, touching, kissing, and "mentoring" young women. Witnesses are claiming Gothard spends an inordinate amount of time with these teenage girls forcing others to ask, "why?" Of course men counseling women is no sin. But the Bible cautions against older men "training" younger women (Titus 2:3-4). Of course, Gothard never having married is no crime. (Oprah Winfrey has never married and yet she has made a career of dispensing advice on marriage and parenting.) If evangelicals are going to accuse Woody Allen of improper behavior in this regard then we should not shy away from a complete and thorough investigation of Mr. Gothard who finds himself facing similar rumors. Today, Dynamic Dads calls on the legal authorities in Oak Brook, Illinois, to undertake an investigation into the practices of Bill Gothard and the Advanced Training Institute. These allegations are serious and from all accounts appear to be quite credible. Multiple witnesses are involved and have come forward. Fathers everywhere should seriously consider whether sending their teenage daughters away to "learn" or "serve" at ATI Headquarters is a healthy idea.
In addition to legal authorities (local police and local child protective services agencies,) Dynamic Dads calls upon pastors and ministers in the town of Oak Brook, Illinois to thoroughly investigate these serious allegations which have arisen against Mr. Gothard. As far as we understand, Mr. Gothard has not been arrested or charged in a court of law. By all accounts the ATI Ministry operates under a cloud of secrecy. Bill Gothard has built a reputation of acting on his own apart from the local churches and parishes he purports to serve. However, the court of public opinion has looked into these credible stories and found Mr. Gothard wanting. He should come forward and completely open his ministry activities to the light of day. Nothing less will quell these rumors and allegations. It's the least he can do for the families he attempts to serve.
Dad, Christmas time is a hectic time. Make sure you take time out for the simple things during this time of year. Spend quality and quantity time with your family if at all possible. Look for ways to encourage giving to others who may be less fortunate. Work on establishing new family traditions that can be passed down to sons and daughters. Make the effort to spend time with extended family as this helps your own children learn they are a smaller part of a larger whole. Attend a Christmas or Christmas Eve faith service so that everyone remembers the REAL reason for the season. Merry Christmas, Dads!
From a 10 year-old boy: "My friend has a grandfather who plays with him and shows him a lot of stuff. My grandfather lives far away. How can I get a grandfather? I want one."
Did you know that 95% of all people over age 65 who have adult children also have grandchildren? That's about 60 million Americans! Did you know that the average age at which Americans become grandparents is 45 and that a majority of men expect to become grandfathers at age 52? That means men today can expect to spend the majority of their adult years in this critical role.
Former President George W. Bush takes his granddaughter, Mila. trick-or-treating.
Researchers have found that grandchildren who have a close relationship with a grandfather are likely to perform well in school, display positive emotional adjustment, have higher self-esteem, and a greater ability to develop and maintain friendships. Grandfathers who report having close relationships with grandchildren describe the significant joy they experience as a result of the unconditional love they feel for their grandchildren. Spending time with their grandchildren and displaying photographs of them provides reminders of their connection to future generations. (Adapted from: Ohio State University Extension: Senior Series)
His sisters, meanwhile, gravitated toward decidedly less aggressive play. They use sticks as fairy wands and carry little Ziploc baggies of glitter which they sprinkle as “pixie dust.” In their games, there are no “bad guys,” only perilous situations— “Don’t fall off that cliff!”—where they have to help one another with their “magic.” Over the years we’ve noticed that whenever a “non-gendered” toy is introduced into their habitat, the kids appropriate it along stereotypically gendered lines. Example: A few years ago there was a Rainbow Loom craze, where kids took tiny rubber loops and wove them into bracelets. Everyone was doing it. We bought thousands of the things for our kids. The girls wove bracelets that they collected and gave to their friends. The boy also wove bracelets—until he realized that he could use the rubber loops to weave a long elastic cord that he was then able to tie to a flexible piece of wood. He used the Rainbow Loom to build a workable bow. He never made another bracelet.
rainbow loom We never taught our kids any of this stuff. They just arrived at it on their own. Because—I understand that this is a radical concept—boys and girls are different. As I stare at my children’s play room right now, here are the toys I see: A 5-foot-tall cloth teepee; a large set of Magna-Tiles; a Q-Ba-Maze; Moluk Bilibos (which are even weirder than whatever you’re picturing right now); and about 30,000 Legos. Like I said, we’re hippies.
moluk bilibo Here is what the children do with those toys: All of them use the teepee, the girls as a “fairy house” and the boy as a fort. The girls use the Magna-Tiles to build interesting geometric shapes. The boy most recently used the pieces from the Q-Ba-Maze—which is a modular marble-maze contraption—to build a “laser blaster.” And when it comes to Legos? The girls spend hours designing princess castles and houses, with intricate rooms for their Lego minifigures. The boy has created a series of fighter jets, each one with more missiles and cannons and bombs than the last. One of the oddities of modern life is that polite society currently insists that you are “born this way” if you are homosexual or misgendered. But when it comes to boys who like to play with swords and build fighter jets? For some reason, this is viewed as a societal construct that should be eradicated so that they’ll want to play with dolls. As we’ve discovered at my house, this is a project that’s doomed to fail.
Get your copy now...
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Numerous Christian media outlets are relaying allegations from various families alleging Gothard has secreted away teenage girls to his ministry site in Oak Brook, Illinois. Gothard, never married, stands accused of counseling, holding, touching, kissing, and "mentoring" young women. Witnesses are claiming Gothard spends an inordinate amount of time with these teenage girls forcing others to ask, "why?" Of course men counseling women is no sin. But the Bible cautions against older men "training" younger women (Titus 2:3-4). Of course, Gothard never having married is no crime. (Oprah Winfrey has never married and yet she has made a career of dispensing advice on marriage and parenting.) If evangelicals are going to accuse Woody Allen of improper behavior in this regard then we should not shy away from a complete and thorough investigation of Mr. Gothard who finds himself facing similar rumors. Today, Dynamic Dads calls on the legal authorities in Oak Brook, Illinois, to undertake an investigation into the practices of Bill Gothard and the Advanced Training Institute. These allegations are serious and from all accounts appear to be quite credible. Multiple witnesses are involved and have come forward. Fathers everywhere should seriously consider whether sending their teenage daughters away to "learn" or "serve" at ATI Headquarters is a healthy idea.
In addition to legal authorities (local police and local child protective services agencies,) Dynamic Dads calls upon pastors and ministers in the town of Oak Brook, Illinois to thoroughly investigate these serious allegations which have arisen against Mr. Gothard. As far as we understand, Mr. Gothard has not been arrested or charged in a court of law. By all accounts the ATI Ministry operates under a cloud of secrecy. Bill Gothard has built a reputation of acting on his own apart from the local churches and parishes he purports to serve. However, the court of public opinion has looked into these credible stories and found Mr. Gothard wanting. He should come forward and completely open his ministry activities to the light of day. Nothing less will quell these rumors and allegations. It's the least he can do for the families he attempts to serve.
