Let me introduce you to Steve Breagy, who has just been hired to serve the NCFIC to work as our church relations coordinator. With the approximately 800 churches that identify with the NCFIC, Steve will be communicating the vision and mission of the NCFIC and coordinating various projects. Steve serves as an elder at Moore Christian Assembly and is a regular NCFIC conference speaker. I first met Steve in April 2005 at the NCFIC Regional Conference in Raleigh. At that time, he was a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary getting his M.Div in Advanced Biblical Languages. Eventually he was installed as an elder at Hope Baptist church, and we served together as fellow elders. Then in July of 2009 we sent him out to plant a church in Southern Pines, NC — Moore Christian Assembly.

He has a delightful family that is very dear to us. His wife Kristina (married 20 years) and their children (Grace — 16; Stephen — 14; Shea — 10; Claire — 8; Samuel — 5; Philip — 3; Abigail — 1) are always sources of happiness to those who encounter them.

I am delighted to have Steve on board with the NCFIC. Many of you will be hearing from him from time to time as we continue our efforts to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life.

Here is a helpful insight into ourselves, our families, and our churches by R.C. Sproul Jr.

He starts with the following:

Broken homes are created by broken people. That is, before we can offer the balm of Gilead to those living in broken homes, we need to be perfectly clear how they got that way. For all the pressures assaulting the family, for all the allure of the world, and for all the temptations of the Devil, it is the flesh, our own sin natures, that destroy our homes. We are so self-deluded, however, that we have lost sight of how selfdestructive we are. We think we are but victims, when the hard truth is that we are villains.

David Brainerd was enormously sensitive to the condition of his relationship with God. When I read his biography, I was astonished at how “up” and “down” he was in his spirit. He had a moment by moment awareness of sin and his need for repentance. Here are some statements that communicate just how passionate he was:

“I know I long for God and conformity to His will, in inward purity and holiness, ten-thousand times more than for anything else here below” (pg. 79).

He prays, “Oh, that I may be always humble and resigned to God, that He would cause my soul to be more fixed on Himself, that I may be more fitted both for doing and suffering” (pg. 76).

“Oh that my soul may never offer any dead, cold services to my God.” (pg. 83).

Brainerd died young, but his death touched off a revival among men and platoons of them entered into missionary service for over two hundred years after he was buried. These missionaries were affected deeply by his disposition of sensitivity to sin and the need for God’s help to conquer it.

We should be about the business of remembrance—in our own lives, our families, our churches, and our nation. Enjoy looking through this brief book—a summation of many of God’s providences in and around the NCFIC during the year of 2011, with a brief glimpse into 2012.

A friend told me about this covenant and the story behind it. It helps us see our own days in light of needed reformation and the kind of covenant people that are necessary to accomplish it.

Stephen Williams, a New England pastor, drew up A Covenant for Reformation for his town in 1728. Here is the background of the story. Born in 1693, Stephen was ten years old when he was captured by hostile Indians, along with several family members and over one hundred fellow residents of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in the Deerfield Raid of 1704. He survived an eighteen-month captivity and returned to New England. Like his father, the Reverend John Williams (1664-1729) before him, Stephen attended Harvard College and became a minister. In 1716, he became the first minister of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and his influence was felt throughout the Connecticut River Valley. Williams was pastor when the Great Awakening swept the region in the 1730's and 40's. He lived to a ripe age, passing on in 1783, the year of peace with Britain that confirmed American Independence.

His portrait, attributed to Joseph Badger (circa 1755), conveys Williams' social and intellectual prominence, with 'Geneva bands' (two strips of white cloth hanging from the collar). The fact that he had his portrait painted at a time when very few people could afford to do so, also marked Stephen Williams as one of a relatively few contemporary New Englanders to leave a record of how they looked.

[A COVENANT FOR REFORMATION was printed in Boston in 1728. It is a half folio sheet broadside. The lengthy preamble calls for a covenantal reformation (assented to in Long-Meadow in Springfield, MA, August 22^nd 1728). Twelve numbered articles begin with a call for worship in families. The document ends with the calling of a Day of Humiliation (fasting and prayer) "for our Breaches of the Covenant." ]

A COVENANT FOR REFORMATION

Assented to in Long-Meadow, in Springfield, August 22^nd 1728

THE LORD our GOD, who is Holy in all His Ways, and Righteous in all His Works, has lately by many Rebukes of His Providence, shown His Displeasure against us in this Land: Particularly by a distressing War; and by very great and sore Sickness, especially in some Places; and by awful and distressing Storms, and Tempests; and by an amazing EARTHQUAKE on the Year past, whereby the Inhabitants of the Land have been greatly terrifyed; and very lately by a very sore and distressing Drought, whereby the Fruits of the Earth with us, have withered and languished, and were in danger of being wholly lost; whereby GOD is calling upon us, to acknowledge and confess our Sins, which are the procuring Causes of His Judgments. ‘Tis true, and ought with all thankfulness to be acknowledged, that GOD has not proceeded to Extremity with us, but in Wrath has remembred Mercy, has bestowed very many Favours upon us; gives us Health in a considerable measure; and favours us with Peace at present, and considerable Plenty; gives us a space to repent, and calls upon us, to amend our ways and doings, and obey his Voice, Jer, 26.13. We desire to be in the use of all proper Means to promote a Reformation; and particularly we desire to promise carefully to endeavour to reform those GOD provoking Evils, that prevail among us; and conscienciously to discharge those Duties, that are wickedly neglected. We would therefore (relying upon GOD’s Grace to assist us) solemnly give up our selves, to GOD the FATHER, GOD the SON, and GOD the HOLY GHOST: Looking for Help, and Acceptance, through CHRIST alone; who is the Mediator, between GOD and Man; Especially, for Grace to do the Duties, we now particularly promise to Endeavour conscienciously to discharge. Which are as followeth, viz. We promise,

I. THAT we will carefully, and religiously keep up the Worship of GOD in our Families.

II. THAT we will Endeavour to carry it becomingly, and obediently to those the LORD has set over us in Civil and Sacred Authority; and becomingly to Equals and Inferiours.

III. THAT we will carefully Endeavour to behave our selves Soberly, will not unnecessarily frequent Taverns, or Drinking Houses, or tarry long in them; we will endeavour to avoid the very appearance of the Evil of excessive Drinking.

IV. WE will deal justly with all Men, abstain from Violence, Fraud, and Oppression, carefully pay our honest Debts; or if disenabled by the Providence of GOD, we will take due care, to inform our Creditors of it, and desire their allowance and forbearance a-while.

V. WE will endeavour to behave our selves Chastly, and Modestly, avoid immodest Carriage, forbearing wanton Songs, lascivious Discourses etc. and will endeavour to possess our Bodies in Sanctification and Honour. And particularly we do declare our Abhorrance of that notion advanc’d by some of late, viz. that it is no breach of the Seventh Commandment for Persons that have made private Promises, to one another, to have carnal knowledge of one another, altho’ not joined in Marriage.

VI. WE will watch against unpeacable Behaviour, avoid ungoverned Passion, and Speeches, profane Murmurings etc.

VII. WE will not forget to Communicate to the Needy; as our Duty is, Heb. 13.16. Deut. 15.7,-12.

VIII. WE will be faithful to our Promises, and careful of one another’s good Name.

IX. WE will take particular Care of our Families, to give our Children good Education, and keep our Families under Government; will take care that our Children, and Servants, and those under our Care, do duly attend the Worship of GOD, carried on, in the Family, and in Publick; and particularly that they attend on the Publick Catechising: and we will take special Care that they be not out unseasonably at Night.

X. WE will not allow, nor wittingly Entertain, Company in our Houses unseasonably, nor any rude debauch’d Company in our Houses at any time; least we bring guilt on our selves.

XI. WE will carefully endeavour to keep holy GOD’s holy Sabbaths.

XII. WE promise faithfully to watch over one another, and chearfully, and willingly to give and receive Christian reproof as there may be occasion.

During the Reformation, when idolatry and superstition pervaded the church of Rome, the Reformers gave a clarion call to the church, to return to the sufficiency of Scripture and the efficacy of the God-appointed means of grace. In this endeavor, they fought to purify the worship of God from human inventions and manmade traditions, by restoring biblical order to the church. However, they also had to restore the biblical doctrine of the family, in a day when men had grown complacent, celibacy had become prized, and monastic life had come to be seen as more ‘spiritual’ than family life.

The Reformers and their theological heirs recognized that the natural order of the family was not only good, but also essential for the advancement of the Kingdom of God, alongside the institution of the church. God had appointed for elders to preach the Word in the church, and for fathers to gather this spiritual manna for their homes, by teaching the Word to their families daily.

This was likewise understood by the framers of the Westminster Confession, who declared that, “God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth…in private families daily, and…more solemnly in the public assemblies” (WCF 21:6, SLBCF 22:6). Familial piety could not be sidestepped in the pursuit of revival in the church, for as Richard Baxter said, “You cannot expect a general reformation till you procure family reformation.” For if religion “is not promoted by these societies [families], it doth not prosper, nor promise much for future increase” (The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, Vol. 4, 385). The prefatory letter to the Second London Baptist Confession similarly notes that the "spring and cause of the decay of religion in our day...is the neglect of the worship of God in families by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed."

Recognizing the necessity of family religion for the propagation of the Gospel, the Puritans diligently expounded the doctrine of the family and the duties enjoined to heads of households. One such treatise was the classic Of Domestical Duties, by the Westminster divine, William Gouge. In it, he beautifully relates the necessity, utility, and efficacy of the family for the building of God’s Kingdom. Below is a short excerpt from his work, which can be found through Chapel Library:

The family is a seminary of the Church and Commonwealth. It is as a beehive, in which is the stock, and out of which are sent many swarms of bees: for in families are all sorts of people bred and brought up: and out of families are they lent into the Church and Commonwealth. The first beginning of mankind, and of his increase, was out of a family. For first did God join in marriage Adam and Eve, made them husband and wife, and then gave them children: so as husband and wife, parent and child, [which are parts of a family] were before Magistrate and subject, Minister and people, which are the parts of a Commonwealth, and a Church. When by the general deluge all public societies were destroyed, a family, even the family of Noah, was preferred, and out of it kingdoms and nations again raised. That great people of the Jews which could not be numbered for multitude, was raised out of the family of Abraham. Yea even to this day have all sorts of people come from families, and so shall to the end of the world. Whence it followeth, that a conscionable performance of domestical and household duties, tend to the good ordering of Church and Commonwealth, as being means to fit and prepare men thereunto.

Besides, a family is a little Church, and a little Commonwealth, at least a lively representation thereof, whereby trial may be made of such as are fit for any place of authority, or of subjection in Church or Commonwealth. Or rather it is as a school wherein the first principles and grounds of government and subjection are learned: whereby men are fitted to greater matters in Church or Commonwealth. Whereupon the Apostle declareth (1 Tim 3:5), that a Bishop that cannot rule his own house, is not fit to govern the Church…

This is to be noted for satisfaction of certain weak consciences, who think that if they have no public calling, they have no calling at all; and thereupon gather that all their time is spent without a calling. Which consequence if it were good and sound, what comfort in spending their time should most women have, who are not admitted to any public function in Church or Commonwealth? Or servants, children, and others who are wholly employed in private affairs of the family? But the forenamed doctrine showeth the unsoundness of that consequence. Besides, who knoweth not that the preservation of families tendeth to the good of Church and Commonwealth? So as a conscionable performance of household duties, in regard of the end and fruit thereof, may be accounted a public work. Yea, if domestical duties be well and thoroughly performed, they will be even enough to take up a man's whole time. If a master of a family be also an husband of a wife, and a father of children, he shall find work enough; as by those particular duties, which we shall afterwards show to belong unto masters, husbands and parents, may easily be proved. So a wife likewise, if she also be a mother and a mistress, and faithfully endeavour to do what by virtue of those callings she is bound to do, shall find enough to do. As for children under the government of their parents, and servants in a family, their whole calling is to be obedient to their parents and masters, and to do what they command them in the Lord. Wherefore if they who have no public calling, be so much the more diligent in the functions of their private callings, they shall be as well accepted of the Lord, as if they had public offices (Of Domestical Duties, Treatise 1, Ch. 8).

We would do well to heed to Gouge’s words, as we live in a day when the fires of family piety have grown cold due to our turning away from the Gospel. The glory of the Gospel is that it promotes in its recipients an ordinary piety. Gospel holiness does not consist of the rash taking of monastic vows or the forsaking of one’s earthly duties – but rather, it involves the invasion of Christ into every detail of our ordinary lives. The quiet and unnoticed duties fulfilled by the faithful keeper of the home, the industrious father, and the obedient child, are precious in the sight of the Lord – and as Gouge says are truly “public callings”.

May we resolve to return to these pleasant paths of God and embrace His perfectly wise rule for family life – for the spread of the Gospel, the strengthening of His church, and the glory of His Son.

Aashik Rao is a member of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Long Island, NY. He has a passion for reformation and for bringing the gospel to bear on family, church, and society. Aashik is also studying to receive a B.A. in financial economics and to work as a financial professional. You can contact him at aashik.rao@gmail.com.

ChristianityToday posted an article today, asking the question: "Should Sunday School Be for the Whole Family?" 

As evidence mounts that children would benefit from more integration into adult church life, some advocates face criticism for taking a good idea too far. See the whole article here.

Tim Challies posted an excellent article on Scripture reading in church. Here are the guidelines we use in our church to help men prepare for reading Scripture.

Also, consider Unleashing the Word by Max MacLean on the same subject.

Pastor Kevin Ivy of Cleary Baptist Church in Mississippi and his family came to our Gospel-Centered Marriages for a Glorious Church conference two months ago. Here are seven observations that he has.

"…the business done in the home is nothing less than the shaping of the bodies and souls of humanity. The family is the factory that manufactures mankind."
Brave New Family, by G.K. Chesterton

Tonight, we cover the doctrine of the church, Chapter 26, the longest chapter in the Baptist Confession. 

Here is a panorama of the sound doctrine conference. Enjoy!

 Click on the image for a larger size

Jonny White, during his presentation on Chapter 20 of the Baptist Confession of 1689 - "On the Gospel and the Extent of the Grace Thereof," told this story of the indispensability of the power of the Holy Spirit to bring life. He spoke of a seminary professor who used to take his students to a grave yard. He would say, "preach…." Here is an audio clip of the story:

God chose to glorify Himself by saving man. Today, we began with talks on Christ the mediator. In addition, we covered free will, effectual calling, justification, adoption, and sanctification. The glory and sovereignty of God is evident throughout these doctrines.

Today, as approximately 100 of us considered the opening chapters of the Second London Baptist Confession, this message was continually declared: God's glory lies at the center of all of life.

Here is John Latham presenting on chapter 4 of the Baptist Confession of 1689, On Creation. John is an elder at North Gabriel Assembly in Cedar Park, Texas, near Austin.

The big theme of the NCFIC this year has been "Sound Doctrine for a Glorious Church." We have just completed 32 video sessions entitled Family Foundations in Sound Doctrine, showing families how they can apply a historic confession of faith, using the Baptist Confession of 1689.

The next phase of this effort to focus on Sound Doctrine for a Glorious Church is to bring leaders together next week to review the doctrine of the confession and to show how the doctrine is being attacked today and how men can defend the church against the attacks. There will be approximately sixty hours of instruction next week.

Our prayer is that through these sessions we will help men become better preservers of the faith, protectors of their families, and defenders of their churches in these times of moral slippage and theological confusion.

I will begin the conference at 8:00am Monday morning with a message entitled, Doctrine that Divides and Defends Against the Gates of Hell.

At this conference, we will do our best to exposit the varicolored, multi-textured elements of Christianity and to show how we might defend them in our generation and the generations to come.

Here A.A. Hodge diagnoses the trap that "dapper preachers" fall into by claiming that "the age has outgrown the doctrine":

Let us reverently remember the awful woe which the Holy Ghost denounces upon him who either “shall add anything unto” or “shall take away” aught from that which God has revealed in the Scriptures. Rev. xxii. 18, 19. It is certainly as impious, and perhaps more foolish, to refuse to see clearly what God has revealed clearly, as it is to attempt to understand in detail great undefined facts which God has seen fit to leave upon the verge of our horizon. We hear of some dapper preachers who claim that the age has outgrown doctrine. They have advanced around the circle to the place from which they started, and hope they are ready again to enter the kingdom of heaven like little children, as far as ignorance is concerned. Let it be remembered that systematic theology has its essence simply in clear thinking and clear speaking on the subject of that religion which is revealed in the Scriptures. A man can outgrow systematic theology, therefore, either by ceasing to be clear-headed, or by ceasing to be religious, and in no other way. I suppose some escape in their haste by both ways at once. - A. A. Hodge, The Atonement, (Memphis, TN: Footstool Pub., 1987), 22.

Click here for new NC abortion law that comes into effect today.

While working on my presentation of the doctrine of adoption for next week's Sound Doctrine Conference, I ran across this on adoption:

Extol and magnify God’s mercy, who has adopted you into his family; who, of slaves, has made you sons; of heirs of hell, heirs of the promise. Adoption is a free gift. He gave them power, or dignity, to become the sons of God. As a thread of silver runs through a whole piece of work, so free grace runs through the whole privilege of adoption. Adoption is greater mercy than Adam had in paradise; he was a son by creation, but here is a further sonship by adoption. To make us thankful, consider, in civil adoption there is some worth and excellence in the person to be adopted; but there was no worth in us, neither beauty, nor parentage, nor virtue; nothing in us to move God to bestow the prerogative of sonship upon us. We have enough in us to move God to correct us, but nothing to move him to adopt us, therefore exalt free grace; begin the work of angels here; bless him with your praises who has blessed you in making you his sons and daughters.—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, p. 240