Family Centered Church Movement

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The good father: the family-centered church movement (1)...

The family-centered church movement can trace some significant part of its beginnings back to my friend Kerry Ptacek at Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Church outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Kerry and I met when he was working for the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a Philadelphia-based conservative lobbying organization of the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). The Lay Committee published the Presbyterian Layman and several of its employees—including Kerry—attended Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Church then pastored by my dear friend, Ben Sheldon.

Kerry and I were talking on the phone one day when he told me he didn't allow his wife to attend Bethany Collegiate's women's Bible study. Knowing the godliness of Ben Sheldon and his wife, Amy; knowing also the orthodoxy of Bethany's history and doctrine; I was shocked and asked Kerry why he'd made this decision?

Kerry responded that Scripture commanded wives to ask their husbands at home...


The good father: teaching your children to submit to authority...

Patriarchal homeschooling enclaves are dogged by rebellion against authority. Ask me. Ask your pastor. Ask anyone.

How does it happen that a movement promoting the authority of the father of the household also ends up promoting rebellion against the authorities God has ordained outside the home?

First, the children of patriarchal homeschooling families grow up being taught not to trust...


The good father: older women and younger women...

A friend and I were talking on the phone one day when my friend told me he didn't allow his wife to attend his church's women's Bible study. I knew his pastor was good and his church was good, so I was shocked. "Why not," I asked?

He told me Scripture says wives should ask their husbands at home. He was referring to 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35:

The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

Knowing he hadn't been a Christian long, I probed to see if there was some harm the women of the church may have done to his wife; some emotional slight or alienation that might explain his decision...