Dale Partridge - What is a Christian Home？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to our home. My name is Dale Partridge, and I'm here with my wife, Veronica.

00:00:08.800 Hi.

00:00:09.740 Our hope is to help you cultivate a glorious Christian home. This episode is titled,

00:00:15.360 What is a Home? Now, if you're new here, each episode is broken into two parts. Part one

00:00:20.420 is available for free on every podcast platform. Part two is only available in the Relearn app.

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00:01:14.800 access. Well, in today's episode, we're going to be sharing our perspective on what is a home.

00:01:23.540 In part one, we're going to be talking about really the father, the mother, and the child's

00:01:30.020 role in the home.

00:01:31.420 And then in part two, we're going to be talking about the actual physical homes part of the

00:01:38.880 home, meaning the building, the actual ambiance of your home, as well as the location of your

00:01:46.140 home, where you live, and why that can contribute to this culture that you're trying to establish.

00:01:53.160 in your home so let's begin and we will open up and we do have a sleeping baby that is we do on

00:02:02.740 veronica right now yep and so we'll see how far we get on my chest so hopefully hopefully we can

00:02:07.920 get through this but if not we'll just hand them off to our 10 year old yes we have a 10 year old

00:02:12.960 now that's weird she just turned 10 so um okay what is a home and i'm really not asking the

00:02:19.440 question, what is a house? But I'm asking the question, what is a home? Now, I gave a definition

00:02:26.000 that I wrote out. And I wrote, a home is a sacred space where your generations are cultivated,

00:02:35.260 nurtured, and instructed to glorify God. I think that's a pretty simple definition. And I want to

00:02:43.600 just break that down just for a moment here. It's a sacred space. It's not a secular space.

00:02:48.240 It's a space that is connected to God.

00:02:51.560 It's a God-ordained space.

00:02:54.000 And it's where your generations are cultivated.

00:02:58.140 And the purpose of that cultivation is obviously to glorify God.

00:03:01.640 That's the purpose of the human life.

00:03:04.020 And so it's really the soil of where your descendants will grow from.

00:03:09.600 And the home done right can change not just the lives of your children,

00:03:17.060 but the lives of your grandchildren and so you know veronica and i have often talked about the

00:03:22.420 idea of you know raising we're not just raising boys no yeah we're raising somebody's future

00:03:29.700 husband future leaders future you know others future fathers future employees or business

00:03:39.220 owners yep yeah protectors whatever it is that they end up doing i think that perspective is

00:03:45.140 important because when you're parenting you're not just raising your children in a sense you're

00:03:51.880 actually raising your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren your how you establish the

00:03:59.100 home under your care your direct care will indirectly disciple and shepherd and parent

00:04:07.100 in a way your grandchildren and i think we can see that with generational sin and generational

00:04:12.980 problems you know we have friends that are uh the votebergs and the johnsons right they're like what

00:04:20.940 third or fourth or fifth generation christians yes and kind of give give a yeah just going to their

00:04:27.840 their you know um just going to their house or going to family gatherings we've been to a couple

00:04:33.520 of the family's weddings and birthdays and it's just so fruitful and amazing to watch because we

00:04:43.680 were not raised that way um we weren't raised in christian homes not that we're raised in atheistic

00:04:49.920 type homes but um just you know very cultural california southern california cultural homes

00:04:59.440 yeah um and so to see that i remember seeing that type of family multi-generational christians

00:05:09.440 under one roof celebrating together and enjoying one another and getting along and just the fruit

00:05:17.120 from grandma to parent to child to grandchild it was just so cool to see all of those generations

00:05:26.720 together and what a incredible blessing it was it wasn't like anything we had ever seen growing up

00:05:33.920 yeah to inherit uh you know to be essentially a child of a christian home with christian parents

00:05:41.440 with christian grandparents with great grandparents that were believers as well you have by god's

00:05:47.760 grace been sanctified generationally and you're starting to essentially see the fruit of that

00:05:54.800 that you you were raised in a home that has been so far separated from so many of the ills and sins

00:06:01.280 of the world and so i just want to really point out that when we're raising our kids we're raising

00:06:07.760 our grandkids and we're raising our great-grandkids and we're raising essentially our generations

00:06:12.480 to the glory of god now we live in a time where the house or the home has been reduced to

00:06:21.040 a place of transactions it's like a it's a tool it's where we can eat and sleep and we can store

00:06:28.600 our belongings yeah it's like just your shelter it's your shelter yeah it's uh we can we can play

00:06:34.940 house we can play roommates there's a lot of that stuff going on in the culture but it has not been

00:06:39.980 viewed as a place to essentially build civilization um i think that historically we didn't necessarily

00:06:47.540 think of it as a place to build civilization either we just lived in a generation in the

00:06:52.760 1800s and back where the home just built the civilization it wasn't how it was today where

00:07:01.440 essentially um social media and and work and social life is the you know most formative

00:07:13.200 uh influences to build this generation and the culture of our civilization um and so

00:07:20.160 what what the home should be doing the world is doing for a lot of people and a lot of families 0.97

00:07:26.080 the world is essentially shaping us more than the home is shaping us and again this is a foreign

00:07:33.120 concept historically because there was no access to the world in the palm of your hand yeah yeah

00:07:41.600 there was no technology to have your cell phone in you know you plug it in next to your head when

00:07:47.600 you go to bed at night and then you wake up and it's the first thing you reach for just in our

00:07:51.920 culture and you know millennials and under basically it's just everything is at your

00:07:58.560 fingertips well and we had to work hard historically to culture our children to get them out into the

00:08:06.480 world if we lived in a small town and rural midwest in the 1700s right we wanted to get them

00:08:14.080 into a city and and to to get them to understand some of the civilized life yeah because back then

00:08:20.560 all they knew was home life working on their farm working with their hands helping their

00:08:25.840 mother churn the butter and milk the cow and yep mend their clothing um to be out in culture

00:08:33.600 to see things different from how things are at home was was culture shock yes now we are on

00:08:44.080 the opposite end where we're trying to guard constantly against the world infiltrating our

00:08:50.960 homes through media through shows the kids watch i mean that's me that falls under media yeah

00:08:57.680 tablets but we we also have like so much more travel i mean we are in cars and we have access

00:09:02.480 to more people we live in societies that are much bigger and lots that are much smaller and

00:09:08.380 we're closer to people then historically you'd be acres away from people and so there's just a lot

00:09:13.680 of influence on us that we need to guard in order to uphold the culture of our home

00:09:22.040 and i think a part of it is again just defining what is a home so that we can aim for that i think

00:09:30.560 when we when we don't have something to aim for we we miss it every time and when you have again

00:09:36.600 that that definition that i said earlier right it's a sacred space where your generations are

00:09:42.200 cultivated nurtured instructed to glorify god and that's a broad definition but i think it's

00:09:49.300 going to be helpful for us to have a discussion around that and so um i'll say one more thing is

00:09:56.520 you know i often say the quote um if you don't catechize your children the world will

00:10:04.060 and i think that's what we are talking about here actually i wrote a catechism called simple

00:10:10.480 theology it's a gospel catechism for kids and and we are we've done catechisms in the past we are

00:10:18.100 you know about to start that catechism with our own children i've ran through a lot of those

00:10:23.500 questions in the past with them but we need to proactively catechize our kids not just in the

00:10:30.100 gospel in all types of stuff which we're going to talk about because the the world will catechize

00:10:37.380 them around ethics and around virtues and around athletics and around philosophy and education

00:10:44.380 and economics and politics and relationships and sexuality i mean if you don't absolutely

00:10:52.720 catechize your kids in your home and use your home as an absolute machine of establishing and

00:11:01.620 cultivating that generation and what a safe space for that to happen and in a place where your

00:11:08.480 children you know you're catechizing them but they're also in a place where they can ask you

00:11:12.900 questions and you're the first person they're gonna hear these things from likely and you're

00:11:17.400 first person that gets to impart your knowledge and wisdom to them um you know when it comes to

00:11:24.280 the questions that they have it's a benevolent place right where you're you're having conversations

00:11:29.560 around very touchy issues that are coming from the people who love you most rather than the world

00:11:37.400 who says hey i want to talk about sex let me show you this hardcore pornography and so it's 0.73

00:11:43.080 it's you're hearing about sexuality from an an unloving and wicked parent all right like 0.80

00:11:50.980 if you count the media as a parent and and so instead of having the mom and dad talk

00:11:58.760 about the biblical view of sexuality you're getting you're going to get parented either

00:12:05.400 by the state or by the media um and so we want to make sure that we are controlling

00:12:11.800 that home and this of course this kind of outward attack on the home is certainly the cause of our

00:12:18.360 cultural collapse right when the home falls the culture falls um and i will say this if we go

00:12:23.560 upstream from the home uh the reason the homes fall is because the church falls um and when the

00:12:33.080 church is uh strong and it is constantly edifying and uplifting and sanctifying and teaching and

00:12:40.600 instructing and correcting and guiding mom dad and children when the church is strong the families

00:12:47.080 will be strong in the lord yes there is certainly spheres of authority there that are independent so

00:12:55.000 they're not necessarily dependent upon one another but they certainly complement one another

00:13:02.120 and so there's a big part of this around church which we will talk about in part two

00:13:07.160 um but when you when you lost this kind of god-ordained means to cultivate christian moral

00:13:18.380 virtuous cultures uh and when you don't have a a home um you essentially look to the world

00:13:27.600 and that's the big dilemma and and this is why our country is is collapsing and satan knows this

00:13:33.640 satan really understands the value of the home the value of the home and he's a patient

00:13:41.120 incrementalist and he's a slow destroyer with strategy and when the church is asleep

00:13:47.820 and the church instead of instead of getting out there preaching the gospel upholding truth

00:13:55.720 fighting back if they just say lord come quickly and they hide in their house and they don't

00:14:00.700 actually go out and fight against these things we just get overrun and that's a big it's another

00:14:09.000 it's another conversation we'll have at some point but i'll say this satan gets this um and

00:14:16.740 this is why we have divorce rates uh that are still high and continuing to people are saying

00:14:24.520 they're dropping it's it's only because nobody's getting married um did you know uh i just looked

00:14:30.360 this up earlier babe that um no fault divorce so the idea that um you if you didn't have a reason

00:14:39.040 like adultery you could not get a divorce legally prior to 1969 now that's pretty recent well check

00:14:46.940 this out 1969 was the first state in the united states to legalize it and guess what state it was

00:14:53.020 oregon no california yep california yeah and two states that we that we lived in the last state i

00:15:00.980 don't know what the last state was but the last state to legalize it was 2010 so so we're not far

00:15:07.720 away from no fault to think of 1969 like our parents were my parents were born in 1960

00:15:14.920 yeah mine in the 50s and it's just like they were alive during that time that wasn't that long ago

00:15:21.440 where it was against the law

00:15:23.940 to get a divorce without reason.

00:15:27.620 Grounds, biblical grounds.

00:15:28.720 Yeah, where today it's like, 0.78

00:15:30.100 I do what I want when I want.

00:15:31.920 Yep, I just don't like it anymore.

00:15:32.940 You're not filling my cup, I'm out.

00:15:34.920 Yeah, so Satan's attacking the home through divorce. 1.00

00:15:40.640 The next thing I would say is sexual immorality. 1.00

00:15:42.560 So pornography, gay culture, fornication. 1.00

00:15:49.040 And I say gay culture because 1.00

00:15:50.720 it's not just homosexuality it's actually there are many people in this world today that aren't 0.68

00:15:58.360 gay but act gay they don't even realize it yeah because it's so infiltrated yes in our in our world

00:16:05.540 and culture has you know pulled this toxic masculinity thing where it's made men who may 0.85

00:16:12.480 not even be gay may not be homosexual become more feminine because they're so afraid of being

00:16:19.840 masculine because they're afraid of being torn down and by the feminists by the feminists and 0.59

00:16:24.580 even the feminist men out there like you need to be more emotional and sensitive and tender and

00:16:30.820 not that men cannot have those emotions but they need to be um expressing those things

00:16:37.800 in a way that god designed them to as men not in a way that god did not design them

00:16:44.680 too is women yes yeah the and i would say that when men start acting more and more effeminate

00:16:53.220 it eventually will materialize not with everybody but it has a trajectory to materialize

00:17:00.180 in homosexual-like actions and so if you start a kid off to be effeminate you know it's not a

00:17:09.300 shocking idea that 30 years later he's you know having perverted attractions to other men 1.00

00:17:15.640 so divorce sexual immorality pornography all the things uh feminism obviously is an attack on the 1.00

00:17:22.800 home let's get mom out of the home and destroy the home um let's let's convince mom that 1.00

00:17:29.940 submitting to a boss at you know some employment and earning a paycheck has more value than

00:17:40.640 shaping the generations of her family cultivating i mean i when you look at it you just are just

00:17:49.320 shocked because you're like how could we have believed the lie that a woman has more value

00:17:55.560 at work than in birthing and raising and shaping the morals and virtues

00:18:05.580 and character of like the next generation it is like the most vital 1.00

00:18:12.740 human role regarding you know um culture shaping and i think that's why feminism is so strong 0.50

00:18:24.540 I mean, yes, I don't want to say that like, you know, the dads aren't important. 0.99

00:18:28.140 The dads are vital, but it's like to drop mom out.

00:18:34.680 You know, I would say that, you know, single dads versus single moms, you know, I don't 0.68

00:18:41.840 know what situation is better, but sometimes with the babies, you really, you just need

00:18:47.440 mom.

00:18:47.820 i mean men are men are designed not to be nurturers of little children um i always tell

00:18:56.560 people you know you can you know you can use the table as an ironing board uh in a pinch you know

00:19:03.180 it's not what it's designed to do it'll work and that's how like a man is like caring for our six

00:19:09.240 month old baby it's like i i can be the ironing board right now in a pinch but at the end of the

00:19:14.960 day i'm not designed for this the way that you're designed for this yeah um the other two things i'll

00:19:23.660 say quickly is disobedient children obviously we have a culture of disobedience and then the last

00:19:27.560 thing would be independence and individualism satan is working hard to establish a constant

00:19:34.340 sense of autonomy uh where you know your your kids are not owned by you your family is

00:19:41.820 independent pieces, not covenant community of God.

00:19:51.000 You know, you're like, again, it's part of globalism, right?

00:19:53.920 The idea that we're all just kind of one big human race.

00:19:56.880 We don't have nations or tribes or states or local or whatever it might be.

00:20:02.000 So there's just a massive thing around individualism and independence that Satan knows.

00:20:05.740 So all these attacks, right?

00:20:07.180 Divorce, sexual immorality, feminism, disobedient children, independence and individualism.

00:20:11.820 all at the center of the attack on the home and so i'm just going to say this the home

00:20:22.300 when its members are rightfully and joyfully carrying out their roles becomes this machine

00:20:31.020 to produce generations of people uh and when everyone is operating in their roles it will

00:20:39.180 produce quality results you know minimal sin minimal pain minimal conflict um maximum virtues

00:20:46.380 maximum maturity and so um there's just so much value in the reality of a biblical home

00:21:00.300 so i want to start with talking about what is the father's role i know i've been talking a bit here

00:21:05.980 but veronica will get a chance to talk in a minute because we're going to go about what is the

00:21:09.340 mother's role so we're going to i'm also the type of person that is just content not talking

00:21:14.300 so it's not like uh dill's overrunning me here i just i just listen yeah she's got to be encouraged

00:21:21.980 to get out in front and have some conversation here um so what is the father's role i i think

00:21:28.300 i've broken down basically five points for every one of these five points right so we have the

00:21:33.340 the father's role the mother's role the children's role the home's role and the location's role or

00:21:38.380 the destination's role and so the father's role i'm going to say point number one is vision

00:21:45.820 a husband a father needs to have vision for the home uh you know where there is no vision that

00:21:50.860 people perish i don't know exactly what proverb that is but vision is such a vital part now

00:21:57.900 our home i i've just or i'm just naturally like this i'm a visioneer and i'm naturally

00:22:03.020 not like this so i actually i am very blessed by that gifting that the lord has given you because

00:22:09.260 when i feel overwhelmed or i'm stressed out or something i'll often just come back to you and be

00:22:14.700 like okay where are we going again what's the point of this and you're very good at keeping me

00:22:19.340 on track so i know that there are couples out there that that have husbands that struggle with

00:22:25.420 vision um we have guys in our church that we love that are good godly men uh it's something that

00:22:30.460 needs to be cultivated if it's not currently a strength and vision i think needs to be from you

00:22:38.780 know maybe mission statement to where are we going what what's the what's the 10 year what's the what's

00:22:44.140 the two year the the 10 year the the the 30 year what's our great grandchildren like having some

00:22:49.580 of that long-term vision um around values and morals and ethics and career and business and

00:22:56.460 investment and estate planning all of those things and having vision for expectations for

00:23:07.420 where kids and family and parents and home should be at certain points on that timeline

00:23:13.800 I think is another expectation not expecting 15 year old results from your 10 year old and not

00:23:19.780 expecting certain numbers, a certain amount of wealth too early or understanding when you're

00:23:27.520 behind. And if you're in your 30s and you still don't have a savings that's sufficient and you've

00:23:34.720 been married for 10 years, there's a problem there. And so how do you have a vision? And I

00:23:41.640 think you can execute that vision with schedules. So you take that long-term vision and you

00:23:47.340 orchestrate a day-to-day operation short-term goals yeah that essentially achieve that long-term

00:23:53.020 vision right so i think it's a very masculine thing the second thing is provision you need to

00:23:56.940 be a provider you need to be able to provide for your family i i've been i was in the business world

00:24:02.140 as i told you guys in the last episode for many many years 20 years or so and i learned to be a

00:24:10.780 great provider of income in that season of life when i got into ministry i thought i'm totally

00:24:18.060 done talking about business um and then i realized that the number one discipleship for men

00:24:25.020 is often i mean outside of just maybe gospel doctrine is to teach them how to make money

00:24:32.380 and how to save how to budget yeah how to be good providers for their families yeah and especially

00:24:38.540 that the younger guys who are newlyweds yeah how to control your spending so provision and now

00:24:44.140 provision can also include provision of spiritual and theological uh training and it can be a

00:24:53.980 provision of other means so uh the the next thing would be protection and protection is going to be

00:25:01.020 from front doors and security systems all the way to modesty in the way that your children

00:25:08.540 you know dress and and your wife dresses to spiritual care to training them in sexual and

00:25:19.060 gender ethics uh so that they're not attacked by so the protection is a wide range of of means but

00:25:29.260 you need to be a protector you need to always be on guard um yeah how many times that you know we

00:25:35.200 both do this and in our own ways but there's a show on and i hear just some subtle you know

00:25:42.700 message that's gayness or trans some type of agenda agenda and i'm like let's turn that off

00:25:50.940 we're done with that yeah my protection you know comes up boom i mean i still remember you doing

00:25:56.600 that with a book that i was that we had gotten and i'd never read it before and i sat down and

00:26:01.740 with our this is years ago sat down and read it with our and you like overheard it from the kitchen

00:26:06.460 or living room or something and you're like let me see that book and i gave it to you and it's

00:26:11.820 completely went over my head and now looking back i i can see it but at the moment i was like i don't

00:26:18.380 i don't see what you're talking about um and and uh you had one of the boys throw it in the fireplace

00:26:25.340 yes yes exactly and that's part of the catechism right it's catechizing your kids to show this is

00:26:30.620 is what this, this deserves fire.

00:26:35.280 The fourth thing I would say is catechism.

00:26:38.780 And I'm specifically talking about theological catechism,

00:26:43.500 taking your kids theologically.

00:26:45.520 It doesn't mean you have to do a catechism.

00:26:47.640 It means you are constantly bringing them up in the nurture

00:26:53.120 and the admonition of the Lord.

00:26:55.920 That's literally an instruction.

00:26:57.180 It says, you know, fathers, you know,

00:27:00.400 raise your children, the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. And for example, right now, I'm

00:27:05.680 reading a five part series on biographies for children. Right. Of great theologians of the

00:27:12.580 past. Yeah. Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield. Um, what's it called? Um,

00:27:21.060 man, what's right there? Grab it. Cause then I can tell people that are going to ask trailblazers.

00:27:25.480 trailblazers yeah they have a five-part series that you can grab really good well that's the

00:27:31.640 one on just preachers and teachers there's the trailblazers has other you know five-part series

00:27:36.680 on other you know missionaries or whatever and they're good for like me i even enjoy them okay

00:27:41.640 they're really enjoyable to listen to and even like your five-year-olds can enjoy them i mean

00:27:46.280 even at night you know at the end of the night the kids will be like jonathan edwards jonathan

00:27:50.840 edwards jonathan edwards yeah they want they're like eager to hear you read more

00:27:55.480 And you get so many opportunities to preach the gospel or have a discussion around something because of that.

00:28:00.240 So that'll look that way at times for me, or it'll also manifest in actual catechisms or just theological discussions or whatever it is.

00:28:11.080 But we have a time basically every day that I do that with the kids.

00:28:15.660 The fifth and last thing for fathers for building godly homes is joviality.

00:28:22.660 you know this is a this is a one that i would say i was naturally good at and then i got sick

00:28:31.060 and sickness has a way to take joy out of your life it just kind of wears you down after a while

00:28:40.460 um but yeah you are generally naturally a very happy person um but yeah the last

00:28:48.760 four years i would say three or four years has been a little bit harder for you

00:28:53.540 in that area so joviality it's just essentially being positive uplifting positive uplifting

00:29:05.560 k love i just don't listen to that but um you know i think the joy of the lord is our strength

00:29:11.660 like our strength in the face of trials and difficulty is the joy we don't have conditional

00:29:18.680 joy we have unconditional joy um we can have joy in all circumstances because of of god and the

00:29:26.620 gospel and so i would say an example of this would be like do you have are you pessimistic

00:29:33.580 or are you optimistic do you have hope as a father are you looking down at your generations

00:29:41.280 and like it's only going to get worse he's always negative and cynical cynical about whatever

00:29:46.480 whatever the topic is it's just going to get terrible and are you are you conveying that

00:29:51.900 that drudgery of a life and future and you're or are you like optimistic and in the fight and

00:29:58.460 uplifting and let's go let's get it um that joviality is is very important so i'll close

00:30:06.460 this section just on the father's role which is a scripture deuteronomy 6 6 through 9 and these

00:30:11.420 words i command to you today shall be on your heart you shall teach them diligently to your

00:30:16.300 children shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you

00:30:21.580 lie down and when you rise up you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be like

00:30:27.660 frontlets between your eyes you shall write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates

00:30:33.260 end quote i would say that that passage of scripture is written to the men this is a

00:30:37.260 patriarchal culture when this is written and so men you really do need to essentially model and

00:30:45.740 demonstrate that reality yeah lead your home in that way yeah all right so we have a baby that's

00:30:51.020 starting to wake up which is perfect timing for veronica to start taking her part yeah isn't this

00:30:55.660 so typical of motherhood as soon as uh somebody needs you for something your kid needs you for

00:31:00.700 something else yes so do you want to start i i have the five things for a woman is or mother is

00:31:07.340 nurture manage glorify educate and festive learning festive learning yeah um yeah nurture

00:31:16.300 um i feel like that's pretty self-explanatory in the word alone um manage the home i think

00:31:23.500 that's a big thing at least in our home in our family culture um there's a role that i take on

00:31:32.380 most of that um because because you are a pastor because you're in full-time ministry

00:31:38.300 me managing the home is my way of ministry to you and into our church body um to free up your time

00:31:49.660 so that way you can go carry out your pastoral duties um so i'm carrying a lot of that um at home

00:31:58.620 and to glorify glorify just to beautify and whatever comes in your home um whether that's

00:32:08.380 you know meals or money money yeah it comes in using it wisely um educate we homeschool not

00:32:17.900 everybody homeschools um but to even if you don't homeschool um to take your child's education

00:32:27.900 seriously um thinking about ways that you can direct everything back to christ

00:32:35.980 um because everything everything is is rooted back into scripture and back into christ

00:32:41.740 um whether it's science or math all of those things can be brought up in scripture um and

00:32:49.020 then festive learning is or yeah catechizing through celebration um you know decorating

00:32:55.180 making the holidays fun making birthdays fun experiences um you know whether it's the way

00:33:02.460 that you decorate or the things that you do the traditions that you guys create um i know lots of

00:33:07.660 families do this you know our daughter just turned 10 and so we always have a time on each

00:33:12.940 one of our kids birthdays where we have time to encourage them and um talk with them and we go

00:33:19.660 around the room yeah go around the room each sibling and each parent will say something that

00:33:24.540 they you know what we love about that person and things that we're um happy to see that they've

00:33:30.620 grown in and what we're hoping for for them in their future um just this little small i mean

00:33:37.740 at least this is my approach um i try and do small um ways to celebrate and to have very little

00:33:46.140 traditions that are not super overwhelming for me on my part but have meaning and things that

00:33:51.900 you know it gives the kids something to look forward to um you know for christmas the night

00:33:57.420 we get our christmas tree i usually will read them a book called the legend of the christmas tree

00:34:03.020 and like which is like history of that or um reading them things about sorry i've got a baby

00:34:10.620 that's a little wiggly um about the story of saint nicholas and who saint nicholas was

00:34:18.220 or you know we've got valentine's day coming up who is saint valentine um and so i just use those

00:34:24.380 opportunities as teaching moments but also still make them fun um yeah yeah and i think you've done

00:34:32.380 a good job of trying to create again yeah catechizing through celebration you're upholding

00:34:36.140 the vision through the daily and monthly and weekly or whatever rituals that we do in traditions

00:34:41.740 in our home that show because celebration what celebration does is it shows our it shows what

00:34:51.100 is valuable um it teaches like you know this is why i'm actually writing a book right now on

00:34:57.020 christmas and um holidays by a country a timetable dominion if you want to call it that it actually

00:35:07.880 really demonstrates to a culture in a city what's valuable what should we celebrate what should we 0.89

00:35:13.000 love what should we uplift why do you think that pride month is a thing because it's it's it's not 0.70

00:35:18.200 Oh, it's not a day. 0.91

00:35:18.940 It's an entire month to lift up

00:35:20.960 and teach the culture what we should care about.

00:35:24.160 And so in a home, you can have these little holidays,

00:35:28.420 these little memorials,

00:35:29.360 these little moments that we teach our kids

00:35:33.160 what is valuable.

00:35:35.440 And we do that through a variety of things

00:35:37.820 throughout the year and your family does too.

00:35:41.060 And if you don't, the world will.

00:35:43.160 That's why we should take timetable dominion,

00:35:45.380 um, which will be a part of what I'm talking about in that next book. But, um, so the children's role

00:35:52.200 as I have a six month old in my hands right now, um, you know, there's five, five points again for

00:35:59.140 this. And this is the last point for this section. Part one is we have obedience, honor, apprenticeship,

00:36:05.780 assistance, and propagation. And, um, you know, again, I think of Ephesians, uh, chapter six,

00:36:14.520 right uh children obey your parents and the lord for this is right you know honor your father and

00:36:19.360 mother this is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that

00:36:23.220 you may live long in the land and so obedience as you guys probably know if your parents

00:36:28.980 is a constant battle i mean we are constantly training our kids at different levels of obedience

00:36:37.940 right so you know when you're tiny and you're six months old and he wants to bite you you know you

00:36:42.980 do a little hand tap and say no no no you know or when they're older you might be you know doing

00:36:49.860 other forms of discipline and spanking or whatever it may be and then you have timeouts and taking

00:36:54.220 things away and whatever it is but then as you get the kids a little bit older aria is 10 and

00:36:58.560 i'm having a lot more conversations around that and trying to instill morality and and understanding

00:37:04.820 and comprehension behind that i like what doug wilson said he said that um you know a lot of

00:37:12.500 parents are real loose when they're small and then they become teenagers and all of a sudden

00:37:17.000 they tighten up yeah it needs to be flip-flopped and it needs to be flip-flopped where you should

00:37:22.060 be super tight like you're living in an absolute you know uh authoritarian you know compound well

00:37:31.320 still loving your child yeah but like you're just like they have very little freedom when they're

00:37:37.200 little and so the leash is really short when they're young and as they get older you give them

00:37:42.860 a little bit more slack you give them a little bit more slack and they you know they turn five

00:37:47.060 six seven and they have an issue you tighten that leash up again a little bit and by the time they're

00:37:51.280 13 14 15 they can walk off leash you should be if they're not off leash you got a problem right

00:37:57.940 and so i'm i'm planning for five years from today that i want aria to be able to be essentially

00:38:06.900 off leash but living in our home so that she can she can make decisions on all types of things

00:38:14.820 as she would when she's 18 but under the protection of you of yeah of our home and and because

00:38:22.200 i don't want to have to learn guidance i don't want to have to say like learn those things when

00:38:26.920 she's 18 to 21 like i want her to have that stuff well because yeah when a lot of teenagers in

00:38:32.640 today's culture is yeah i'm 18 whoo i'm at a mom and dad's house and they go crazy yeah um where

00:38:38.880 if they have a lot more freedom while they're still under your roof you know you get to um talk

00:38:44.320 with them about some of the decisions and choices that they've made and why and um you know have

00:38:48.960 some of those deeper conversations with them yeah i think uh one of doug's kids said that um when

00:38:55.120 they turned 15 you know they said you can watch any movie you want the only rule is that you have

00:39:00.960 You have to watch it in our home

00:39:02.240 and you have to have a conversation about it

00:39:03.700 at the dinner table.

00:39:05.940 And so, you have the freedom to have those things.

00:39:09.120 You just need to be willing to be ashamed

00:39:13.020 if you watch something that was shameful.

00:39:17.000 So obedience, honor, I would say,

00:39:19.760 we have a son named Honor.

00:39:22.580 Honor is a form of respect

00:39:26.380 and we don't honor our fathers.

00:39:29.860 we, I believe that passage of scripture is specifically talking about, I would say it's

00:39:34.580 directly talking about our, our fathers, but it's indirectly talking about our forefathers

00:39:38.940 in a variety of dimensions. And so we live in a generation where we want to trailblaze new paths.

00:39:45.400 And the Bible actually says, take the old paths, like before you break out a new road

00:39:50.740 in a new way, why don't you learn why that road is built and why there was a fence on the right

00:39:58.220 side so you don't crash before you start going the other way be humble enough to realize

00:40:04.760 i'm i'm part of a historical reality here and there's things that i don't know you know one

00:40:12.440 one author said uh you know denying history is like uh being a leaf not knowing that you're a

00:40:19.320 part of a tree and honor is is like humbly coming to to dad and mom and going why did we do it this

00:40:30.460 way and and if it's biblical and godly maintaining that that honor and respect um in a variety of

00:40:41.460 so that's a short definition um i'll say the the uh the next one is apprenticeship

00:40:48.480 and you know i don't know would you say that we're we're trying to make are we training aria to be

00:40:57.240 you know uh a girl boss or are we training her to be you know a mom and a mother and a wife i mean

00:41:06.700 we are offering apprenticeship now certainly we wanted to learn we wanted to have a good education

00:41:12.780 and and we want to yeah i mean i would say apprenticeship is just allowing your children

00:41:17.040 to come alongside you and whatever it is that you're doing um which is not always easy for me

00:41:23.080 i can tend to be like let me just do it it's just easier easier for me and quicker but there is i

00:41:29.200 I always need to be reminded of the value it is to have my children at my side when I'm folding laundry or washing dishes or making a dessert or dinner, whatever it is.

00:41:43.500 You know, I do that more so with Aria and you will be doing that more so with the boys.

00:41:49.460 I've noticed it more as they're getting a little bit older that, you know, you're running to go do something, run an errand and you'll bring one of the boys with you.

00:41:58.300 or now usually both of them yeah yeah and i would say we live in a historically um historically

00:42:06.640 there's been a thing that like you would do what your dad did this is what you would do

00:42:14.700 like to branch off would be a you know a somewhat abnormal reality if like if your dad was a

00:42:24.080 carpenter. What was Jesus going to be? If his dad was a carpenter, he's going to be a carpenter's

00:42:28.720 son. And, and so there's his historically that you followed the generational paths regarding

00:42:37.180 labor and duty and provision. And there's actually a real benefit in that. For example,

00:42:45.580 I think about starting over when you could actually just take over where your dad left

00:42:50.680 pick up where he left off and lord willing leave it better than you found it yeah you're growing

00:42:57.300 in your skill if you're already that gifted and skilled as a young man no it's only gonna

00:43:04.320 get better and that's why i i tell people if you can start a business do it because you can't hand

00:43:10.240 down a job you can hand down a business and so i'm a pastor um are my kids going to be pastors

00:43:16.220 i i don't know but they might be servants of the church in some way our little one here who's six

00:43:21.820 months um his name's deacon and uh we always make the joke that maybe he'll become an elder in a

00:43:27.420 church and he'll name he'll be elder deacon or deacon deacon or deacon deacon um and so uh

00:43:34.940 we're we're you know we also have a ministry and we we do publishing and and it would be strange

00:43:42.140 for my for my family not impossible but strange for my boys to just go off and do something

00:43:48.700 completely different that's part of that individualism and autonomy um and independence

00:43:53.740 where we we just we want to make our own way when we we need to highlight the absolute blessing of

00:44:01.020 apprenticeship is that no you you can take over where i left off that's what heirs do um and

00:44:08.300 And so I just want to cultivate more of that in our home where our boys will be a part of like, it's an assumption. It's not a demand, but it's an assumption that like you guys are going to come and do work at ReLearn and you're going to do work at Kingsway and you're going to do work at Reformation Seminary or whatever we're doing at that time.

00:44:30.160 and i think our our job now is the children are young is you know we're we're the observers we

00:44:38.960 get to see how the lord has gifted each one of our children in these unique in whatever unique way he

00:44:44.240 is because they're not they're not all the same they all have different skill sets and things

00:44:48.640 that they're interested in and if we desire them to be involved in ministry desire them to be

00:44:56.640 involved in whatever it is that our um our family is doing sorry our baby's getting a little bit

00:45:03.360 a little bit rowdy here um we have to look at their at the unique way that god has gifted them

00:45:10.400 and their skill sets and their interest in and their and show them that there is a place for

00:45:16.080 them here in the ministry there is a play and just you know how to steward that skill into

00:45:23.040 an area that would suit them best and that god placed them in this family and that's evidence

00:45:29.840 enough that you are called to continue this legacy that we have in this family and so

00:45:37.200 that's another element um the last two are assistance and propagation and i would say

00:45:45.520 assistance really i think of first timothy 5 4 but if anyone uh if any widow has children or

00:45:52.000 grandchildren let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents for this is

00:45:58.880 good and acceptable for the lord and so the idea of assistance is that parents are a great assist

00:46:06.720 sorry children are a great assistance to their parents they should continue to help their parents

00:46:11.600 in the duties to uphold the vision and culture of that home.

00:46:17.600 And then the last thing I would say is propagation,

00:46:22.240 which is really the action of upholding or spreading a particular culture.

00:46:25.780 And so they should be not just culture submitters or culture learners,

00:46:29.860 but actually culture propagators,

00:46:31.760 which that would result in really multi-generational propagation.

00:46:36.280 And so that you're carrying out that patriarchal vision, 0.56

00:46:39.440 uh also the the the matriarchal blessings uh those things are coming out uh throughout multiple

00:46:47.760 generations and so those are the three things there's two more things that we're going to talk

00:46:53.220 about in part two um you know and we're going to talk about the dwelling the dwellings role

00:47:00.820 you know our actual home and we'll talk about our destinations role um you know uh these things

00:47:09.040 are vital to building a biblical and christian and glorious home a home and again the word glory

00:47:16.620 is it's something's glorious when it's doing what it's god given design is to do and so we want to

00:47:27.400 be glorious husbands and glorious wives because we are walking out our god-given design for those

00:47:32.980 roles and we want glorious homes we want a glorious home we want to know what that looks

00:47:38.780 life what is a glorious home and again i think this is part of it what we've talked about today

00:47:42.780 we're learning as well but in part two we are going to be talking about the homes the dwellings

00:47:48.940 role in building a great glorious home and i think we got a lot of fun conversation around that and

00:47:56.620 then the destination choosing a place to live where your descendants will will live for generations

00:48:03.060 and so that's going to be a great thing that's available in part two so on that note thank you

00:48:09.200 guys for listening to this episode of welcome home again you can listen to part two exclusively in

00:48:15.220 the relearn app you can check that out at relearn.org forward slash app and if you're a

00:48:20.360 listener a regular listener to welcome home would you leave a review you don't need to

00:48:24.080 write anything you could just tap the stars in your podcast app but leaving a review really

00:48:28.260 does help the exposure of the show. On that note, my name is Dale Partridge.

00:48:32.640 And I'm Veronica Partridge. And we will see you guys next time.

Dale Partridge - January 10, 2024

What is a Christian Home？

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