Hello! I'm new to the Puritan Board so please excuse me if I'm bringing up an old subject. For years I was a Southern Baptist then a Charismatic then back to the SBC and now a Reformed Believer. I am a single Dad raising two young boys on my own. I have also been a member of a very "Seeker Sensitive" SBC in the recent past. I'd like some advice from some of you more experienced guys and gals. Right now I have two choices: (1) Take my boys to a Seeker Sensitive Southern Baptist Church with a "Calvinistic" Pastor. This church has lots of kids around the age of my boys with many activities for them to participate in. They really don't want to go there but they prefer the church that I'm referring to as choice number (2) a small PCA church (which holds to my present beliefs) which has no young people (except my kids and some we bring with us) but has a pastor, board of elders and the elder's wives who are excited about having young people visit and have promised to catechize my boys if I will bring them there. My personal conviction is to have my boys catechized and brought up in the truth of the Lord in a Reformed PCA church. Some people who care deeply about my boys and myself think that the boys belong in a church where they can fellowship with children their age. So ... what do you guys think about my situation?

__________________
Kevin - PCA - Mississippi

"What, for some, is sin, others do to the glory of God. And the good Dr. Pentecost's remarks notwithstanding, I intend to go home tonight and smoke a cigar to the glory of God. It is a kind of incense drifting to Heaven." - Charles Spurgeon

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" - 2 Corinthians 9:15

Welcome, Kevin!


I can understand the sentiments of those who think your children should be with others their age. My congregation doesn't have any other college-age guys.

But although I can understand the sentiment, I don't agree with it, and think you should go to the PCA church. Since you will not be at church all week I'm sure you will be able to find friends for your sons outside of church (as I have found friends to spend time with during the week). When they're at church they need spiritual edification!

__________________
Davidius
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

And though the really inspired artist may complain that, with the majority, piano-playing is mere strumming, and painting little more than daubing, yet, the exuberant feeling of having a share in the privileges of art is so overwhelming, that the scorn of the artist is preferred to the abandonment of art training in education. To have laid a production of your own, however poor, upon the altar of art becomes more and more the characteristic of an accomplished civilization. - Abraham Kuyper

I have three teenager boys. You can email me or use an Instant messenger if you want to discuss this. I am a single Dad who has my boys full time.

AIM Credocovenanter
Yahoo puritancovenanter
MSN puritancovenanter

email me at puritancovenanter at yahoo dot com.

Welcome to the board.

Randy

__________________

R. Martin Snyder
1689er PuritanCovenanter's MySpace Page
Harmony Baptist Church (Member)
"Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation."William Symington

Go the PCA church, especially since your boys want to go there (if I understand that correctly). To me that shows a sign that they have a desire to be under good teaching. I have the opposite problem, my older daughter wanted to be at the old church, because that is where all her friends are. We felt the good teaching where we are is better for our family, and it's proving now to have been the right decision.

Go with the better church. God will honor that in the end.

__________________
J Baldwin
Keowee Presbyterian Church, PCA
Pickens, SC
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

Check Out My Blog: http://reflectjoy.blogspot.com/

IMHO, that's an easy choice: The PCA Church. Although one ministering aspect of the Church is fellowship, that doesn't mean your boys can't get great fellowship from older folks. I glean much from the elder men of my church. Your boys will have school and friends outside of church. Also, it's great concerning the Catechism training, and will serve as an excellent supplement to your own Family Worship and Instruction to your boys.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules-Signature Requirements-Suggestions?

Kevin:

First of all, welcome.

Second, special programs and groups are all nice and good but nothing will replace the pure preaching of the Word. By joining the PCA church you will be provided with an opportunity to show your children this principle in a very tangible way.

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
Church Blog

"there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loves us more than Jesus Christ"
Belgic Confession, Article 26

My boys did the same thing for a few years. Then it got to be like pulling teeth to get them to go. Less kids made it so they didn't have to get involved as much. And that might have been good for them up to a point.

Now they are involved with a Church that has kids with their passions for sports and a passion for Christ. They are growing. In fact Joshua Caleb is an Evangelist. He is taking on his Science teacher right now. And he aint doing to bad. And he is winning his schoolmates away from evolution.

WOW! Thanks for all the advice from all you concerned brothers and sisters! It looks to be unanimous! I am so impressed with the "old folks" at this church. I think the boys enjoy the attention they get from them and they (the boys) have long understood how important it is to me that they learn truth above all else. They've seen the "touchy feely" stuff at the "Charismaniac" church. I'm amazed at how much they really do understand. I realize that the Lord is in control and all things work according to his will and his timing. But I do wish that they had been brought up in the PCA from birth.

Oh yeah, and

Thanks! I DO feel very welcome tonight!

Welcome! Kevin, God bless you. I'm a baptist and even I agree that you made the right decision.

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Welcome! Kevin, God bless you. I'm a baptist and even I agree that you made the right decision.[/quote]

HA! I'll bet that you're a Reformed Baptist! Once I was in a conversation with the pastor I had at the SBC and I asked, "So, you might call yourself a Reformed Baptist?" He very quickly and adamantly replied, "No! I would say that I am a Southern Baptist who leans towards Calvinism" It wasn't long before I came to realize that a truly reformed person shows it in how they live, not whether or not they believe in predestination. Of course baptism is and I have no doubt that a Baptist can be reformed. But after two years of sitting under his preaching I heard almost nothing that would give anyone a hint that he was a Calvinist. Not long ago I heard from a couple who left his church. At a church dinner he walked up to this couple and said, "So, you two have been going here for a while (a few months). When are you going to join our church?" The week after the boys and I joined the church I asked to come to a meeting. There I was shown a video and given one to take home. "Together We build" or something like that. The past two years the church has hosted a huge thing in the parking lot of their huge new church. It used to be held in a mall. It's called "Outdoor Extravaganza!" Retailers set up booths and sell four wheelers and outdoor supplies. That was probably the straw that broke the camel's back with me. Well, besides the fact that my theology had become so radically different.

First of all --

I guess I missed your post yesterday. I see that you have been given very good answers already, so I won't belabour the point, except to say, that I agree, you should go with the PCA church.

May God bless you with a church that preaches and teaches the Word of God and feeds both your own soul and that of your sons!

__________________
Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
________________

"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
-- John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.

"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk

Welcome!

I would say go to the PCA. Having youngsters there will encourage the older brethren and may encourage other families to come who were put off in the past....

__________________
Name: Richard
Church: Church of England, UK

to the PB. Nice to have you.

__________________
~Jay~
Husband of ENS, father of J II. | Indian Trail, NC
Teacher Aide, Union County Public Schools, NC
Communicant Member, Precentor | Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte, NC | Presbyterian Reformed Church

Hey old man.

I wondered when you were gonna have time to say HI.

__________________
Steve Butts - Former SBC-er
Three Forms of Unity - Bradenton CRC - Bradenton, Florida
(A conservative member in a conservative congregation)

"It is a good thing God chose me before I was born, because he surely would not have afterwards." — C.H. Spurgeon

Welcome!!!

__________________
Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church

Student of Theology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
My Blog

A very warm to the PB from another Reformed Baptist!

I also say join the PCA, but you might want to recommend that they use the following more biblical confession, which you can get for free:

The young Baptist's confession

__________________
Satch Chikhlia, Reformed Baptist, Surrey, England

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Colossians 3.1

http://www.book-academy.co.uk For FREE downloadable pdf commentaries recommended by C.H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon's works, and Great Puritan works.

Actually, much, much worse. I'm an ex-ABCUSAer. My region of 300 churches pulled out of the ABC a couple of years ago. The church I am a member of is a mix of mostly Arminian folks (athough I did do a multiple month study of TULIP for my Sunday School class recently where many of the church leaders attend, including the sr. pastor's wife -- heh, heh, heh).

Now that you explain more about the fact that your pastor is only "Calvinist leaning" and that the church had an "Outdoor Extravaganza," I am even more convinced in the wisdom of the advice to go with the PCA option.

While the Lord has/is/and will use broader evangelical churches to bring people to himself, if there is a reasonable choice, why muck it up. A good Reformed church would certainly be my preference if a choice was available.

First, .

Second, PCA is similar to SBC - they're spread across the theological spectrum. Hopefully, you're in a PCA church that is on the "right" side. I'm perplexed you haven't visited a Reformed Baptist church yet, but I'll forgive you.

__________________
Will Shin
Pastor/Church Planter
Grace Reformed Church
Rockville, MD