Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes

In a time where male headship and father/ discipleship of wives and children is almost nonexistent in the modern Christian home, this book in straightforward language and biblical teaching brings forth the mandate to Christian fathers/husbands. Voddie Baucham lays down the framework through scripture in a way that any man could grasp. Baucham doesn’t weigh things down with heavy theological words but supports his perspective and points with a thorough examination of scripture. I would give this book to any and every Bible believing Christian

Great book, a lot to learn

I am a big fan of Voddie Baucham. I particularly appreciated two other books of his: Family Driven Faith and What He Must Be if He Wants to Marry My Daughter. Some readers react strongly to Baucham because he is bold in his presentation, if not thoroughly biblical.The most recent offering was Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes (2011). Although he often speaks to dads, this one is directly addressed to fathers as he calls them to shepherd their families well.He includes several major sections in the book including: the need to equip family shepherds, family discipleship and evangelism, marriage enrichment, the training and discipleship of children, and lifestyle evaluation. In the first section, he writes about the 3-legged stool of discipleship revealed in Titus, which includes the need for 1) godly, mature men and women in the church; 2) godly, manly pastors and elders; and 3) biblically functioning homes. He writes, "if we are going to see a generation of young men rise to the occasion and begin to disciple their families, it will be due in large part to the reestablishment of the biblical paradigm of mature believers pouring their lives into younger Christians, and demonstrating godliness and maturity to them by their daily lives" (p. 30). We cannot underestimate the importance of strong biblical mentoring in the context of a local church.In the second section, he talks about putting the good news of the gospel in front of our children and helping them to get it right. Baucham tells his reader what the gospel is and what the gospel requires. He also calls for restoring the tradition of catechizing our children, which is an objective way of teaching our children biblical truths. There are many wonderful catechisms available for families who want to pursue this way of training. This process of catechism would seem to be linked with his call for family worship, daily times when the father instructs his wife and children in the truths of scripture.In the third section, Baucham rightly talks about the importance of marriage and honoring the marriage bed as a way to shepherd children. Children need to see their parents functioning well in the marital relationship. As a part of this section, he makes an unapologetic argument for the biblical mandate for male headship in the home which has been under attack not only from secular culture, but also from certain sectors within the church. Baucham rightly asks not what does society say, but what does the Bible say.In the fourth section, he talks about the training and discipline of children. He makes a distinction between formative and corrective discipline, a distinction that is good to consider. He argues that 90% of our discipline of our children should be formative which involves instructing, training, and rebuking our children, whereas corrective discipline deals with disobedience.One area in particular that I appreciated about section four was that Baucham spends some time writing a critique of Michael Pearl's To Train Up a Child, which is popular among certain homeschooling groups (as Baucham himself is). I have many friends who like this book and have used it successfully with their children, so I want to tread lightly. Essentially, Baucham views Pearl's work as theologized behaviorism and warmed over semi-pelagianism. Specifically, he cites example after example from Pearl's work that does not fit with scripture. For example, Pearl refers to children as "incomplete creations" and "not morally viable souls", which is inconsistent with the teaching of scripture. Baucham also points out a section in Pearl's work where he alludes to each child having to stand for themselves before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and decide for themselves, which leans toward an outright denial of original sin. Baucham comments, "the result is a child training approach that relies on behavioral modification as opposed to spiritual transformation. Instead of the child's greatest need being the gospel, his greatest need is a parent whose 'role is not like that of policemen, but more like that of the Holy Spirit," since the child is 'incapable of holding moral values.'" Baucham contrasts Pearl's approach with authors like Tedd Tripp (Shepherding a Child's Heart), who views children "not as morally neutral or incomplete beings, but sinners" which is grounded in Psalm 51 and other scriptures.In the final section, he encourages a lifestyle evaluation. He talks about the importance of church membership and having people who are able to speak into the lives of one another. He also discusses a fairly careful analysis of how we spend our time as family shepherds. He concludes with a brief, albeit important, section on how single mom's are to function in regard to this mindset and what is the role of family and church.On the whole, this is a very good book. I still prefer his earlier and longer book Family Driven Faith, though this is a short, worthwhile read. If you are father, I would commend this work to you.

Voddie Baucham's "Family Shepherds" gives a good amount of really good material for fathers who want to step up in taking the initiative in leading their wives and children spiritually, and while I really enjoyed the various steps offered in the book, and usually enjoy everything I read from Voddie, with this I came away feeling that it didn't go quite far enough or deep enough.Voddie outlines the importance of the role of family shepherd and lays out, among other things, the importance of family worship, the primacy of the marriage relationship, training and discipline of children, as well as regular corporate worship. All of these are great, but so many of these sections seemed superficially breezy without really packing in material that men need to hear. The assumption I had with this book is that shepherding is a responsibility that many men have neglected in recent years, thus the importance of this book was calling and guiding men back to this task. An excellent intention, but so many parts of the book, such as the importance of catechism, left me a little dry, as Voddie speaks of the importance of catechism, but then leaves the section with "do your research to find the best catechism to fit your doctrine." What? This struck me as a cop-out. Again, in today's world Dad's aren't doing this, so why would he leave this point so open-ended? So, are fathers just supposed to jump onto Google and look up whatever catechism they can find? Rather, instead of skimping, Voddie could have easily jumped into the importance of something like the 1689 London Confession, or the Westminster standards, or any Biblically-solid catechism to help men get started, instead of leaving them dry. I would have loved more here, even as an appendix, with a sage hand pointing to some sound sources to get started.Likewise, addressing the importance of singing hymns as a family: an excellent point, yet WHAT hymnals? Why does Voddie leave it to fathers to know what song books to use? Should we just go to Lifeway and pick up a generic "hymnal" on the shelves, just because some of the songs look "Biblical"? Why not offer up some specific examples, such as the Trinity hymnal, and justify it with some of the many reasons that back this a solid, Scripturally-sound hymnal to incorporate? We use, and love, the trinity hymnal, but it's details like that which would have really served to help point men to the right resources. Our Trinities are a little worn, and I'm always open to find other Biblically-solid hymnal to incorporate, so why couldn't there be more specific examples here?I do agree with Voddie's remarks about the "3-legged stool, and think that is a good outline, but I found his second requirement for church leaders as being "Godly, manly pastors and elders" to be a little bit skimpy in his description. "Manly" elders? Pastor/theologians who come to mind that I greatly appreciate, such as Wayne Grudem and Edmund Clowney, aren't exactly the model of what I consider "manly", but rather as examples of well-educated teachers with an extraordinary understanding of the Bible. I think one of the issues I have with this Voddie's comment on elders, as well as with Grace Family church in general, is the practice of lay-eldership, or men without formal seminary training, serving as elders and teaching. "Manliness" isn't that big of a concern to me as much as men serving that are "not a novice" (1 Tim. 3:6 - neóphytos) if I'm expected to submit myself and my family to their leadership. Lay elders who work full-time in the market and then are expected to teach on weekends is no different than asking a guy who read a bunch of books on heart surgery to do my triple-bypass. No thanks. Maybe this sounds harsh, but I don't believe that deacon-qualified men should serve as elders, and Voddie could have put a little more Scriptural backing into what the Bible really says about the role of an elder, above and beyond just just qualities like "manly".The Michael Pearl/pelagianism discussion (p. 116-118) was an entertaining detour. I'm amused (and a little alarmed) by this bearded, knife-throwing arminian, so it was interesting to to read Voddie's attack on Pearl's skewed behaviorism model. Voddie was right on spot regarding discipline, and this day and age, there can't be enough said about the need for Biblically-consistent discipline of children. The extensive references to Cotton Mather's teaching were a perfect outline to follow, and I really gained a lot from that particular section.Family Shepherds is definitely worth the read, but again, it didn't go far enough for me. Sadly, I was also disappointed that there was virtually NOTHING about the father as the homeschooling leader. This was a notably huge absence, as I firmly believe that one of the family shepherd's principle responsibilities is to be actively involved in the homeschooling of the children - and I don't mean necessarily teaching every subject, but rather being extremely well-aware of what the curriculum is, including the worldview of the curriculum and the Biblical orientation it follows, and offering as much support as possible to the mother who labors to educate the children. A family shepherd, on a day off for example, should be completely capable of sitting down, picking up a teachers instruction manual, and jumping right in to be able to help guide and instruct their child, just as competently as the wife does, without excuse. A family shepherd should actively be seeking out ways to incorporate additional education after work, on weekends, etc, whenever possible, with a positive, engaged interest in the love of learning in their children. As a personal aside, I also believe that a family shepherd should be capable of picking up a spatula every now and then, being able to navigate a grocery store, and also change a diaper or two (thousand.) Family shepherds should loathe the Asherim that is television.At the close of Family Shepherds, I found that even the resources in the appendix were disappointing, as these "tools" seemed more like copy-and-paste excepts from Grace Family's weekly bulletin, and felt more like a promotional vehicle for the church, and less of actual family shepherd tools. While I respect all that is put into the Grace Family church bulletins, to me, far more practical that simply seeing the list of family names to pray for would be to see, for instance, how do some of the different families of Grace Family conduct family worship? What are some of the general outlines that they follow? What songs do they use? Any Biblical study material they could recommend? Particular catechism? If (according to the appendix) the officers of Grace Family supposedly call/visit their members once a month, then there should be a wealth and bounty of practical examples to share of family worship framework examples, right? (e.g. "Jim and Tammy" follow this particular model: Jim opens with prayer, their oldest daughter plays a solo hymn on the piano, the oldest son reads a chapter from Old Testament, father then reads a study guide based on the chapter, etc, etc. Another model is the Smith family, that uses this general outline: etc, etc...) Again, this book exists because Dad's aren't naturally performing as family shepherds today - so give Dad's more resources and actual tools and examples to help them! I seriously don't think Voddie could have overdone it with examples. Pack in more punch, instead of leaving me dry, which is how I felt at the end of reading.A side-note on the graphic design, when I took the book out of the Amazon envelope, I was studying the lower middle portion of the book for awhile, as it appeared initially that mold spots were growing on the cover (had the book been damaged at the Amazon factory with moisture?) Apparently that's the design, but the seeming appearance of mold dots on a smooth paperback cover didn't make a great initial impression.

This was overall an amazing book, very typical of Baucham. I love this book as its similar to family driven faith, but specific to a fathers duty. The only thing I would change would be the fact that the book at times, left the reader wanting to know specifics of how to implement his suggested practices into their lives. Aside from that, this book is still a must read.

Great read, inspiring, biblical, must read

A good overview of the role and responsibilities of a father. Easy to understand and a good reminder of the weightiness of God's commands

Great book

Timely truth! Wait and see ...