Randall Murphree
AFA Journal editor
January 2015 – This interview with Dr. Matt Friedeman is condensed from its first appearance in AFA Journal in June 2010. Friedeman, the father of six, is a professor at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.
AFA Journal: How has the father’s role in the family changed in American culture over the past two generations?
Matt Friedeman: We are reaping the whirlwind of the breakdown of the traditional family. Since the early 1960s, any lay observer and certainly the serious researcher can see how the church has lost membership, crime has skyrocketed, education has suffered, sexually transmitted diseases are epidemic, societal and familial dysfunction is rampant – we are just flat in a mess.
The main driver behind “the mess” is the incidence of out-of-wedlock births. Today in my state, over half the babies are born to a mother-only constellation. In the 1960s, researchers would not have believed it could happen. Today, it is normalized.
We made a deal with young unmarried mothers in President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: Have a baby out of wedlock, and the government will give you money. Have more kids, we will give you more money. And the only way to turn off the spigot of funds is to get married or get a job. Our young people having babies outside marriage figured out that system in a hurry, and one wonders if our nation will ever recover.
Fathers have thus been marginalized and have marginalized themselves in this culture. Added to this general degradation of family life and fatherhood, the influence of popular culture precipitates further breakdown.
AFAJ: Where is the church in “the mess?”
MF: Well, if the church is willing to have the blame laid at our feet (and we should be), the good news is we are the major change agents in making it right again. We can be a major part of the solution.
Someone once told of a store where some wiseacres slip in and change all the prices on the items on the shelves. So the rubber ball has the price tag of a speedboat, and the speedboat the price tag of a baseball mitt. Next day, as people start filing through the checkout line, confusion reigns. Who switched the price tags?
That question is a pertinent one for our culture. And the church should, first with its own members and then increasingly with the culture at large, start getting the price tags right.
AFAJ: What is one thing you’ve done that you would recommend to other parents?
MF: When our oldest child, Caleb, was a year-and-a-half old, we decided to get out a piece of paper and write down what we wanted our children to be like by age 18. What measurable qualities and characteristics should we work to instill in them? We call it our Age 18 List. That simple exercise gave our family direction. It told us the things we needed to change to become the kind of parents our children needed in order to become the people we felt God wanted them to be.
AFAJ: What kinds of things are on that list?
MF: Lots of things. For instance, we wanted them to give their lives to Jesus and be open to ministry as a vocation. We wanted all of them to play an instrument. We wanted them to know Latin, Greek and Hebrew. We wanted them to be athletic but not to be overly enamored with spectator sports. We wanted them to minister to the needy. We wanted them to be virgins when they married and to wed holy spouses for the glory of God. We wanted them to love their church.
That’s only a few. But as we set our sights on these things and created a culture of love and discipline in our home, God has worked in all of our lives.
AFAJ: How do fathers bring families back to a biblical foundation?
MF: Teach them the Bible. And it is primarily the father’s job. When Caleb was eight, I asked him some theological questions that any son of a seminary professor should know. He was an incredibly bright child and knew all the biblical stories, but he didn’t have a clue about theology. So I decided to write a catechism that we could teach to him and his siblings, to instill basic biblical and theological literacy.
Mealtimes are substantial for our family. Years ago, we learned that as the Jews went into exile, they decided that, without a temple, the home should become their holy place and the dinner table would be the altar. That is where they taught their children faith.
So we picked up on that. This is what we do: As we gather at the table, I read aloud a selection from C.S. Lewis or another great Christian author, or a missionary story. Then we sing a hymn together. (We bought hymn books for every member of the family.) Next, we review a section from the catechism. Then we recite together a memorized portion of both the Old and the New Testaments followed by a creed (Apostles, Nicene or Athanasian) or one of several famous lengthy Christian quotations we have learned. Lastly, we recite a famous prayer of one of the saints and then we pray for our meal.
That daily practice keeps the biblical worldview refreshed.
AFAJ: How does a dad teach his children values?
MF: Basic principle: Just because your culture does it, doesn’t mean you have to. The culture says to shuffle off your kids to school. We homeschool. The culture says have multiple TVs in your home. We have none. The culture says experiment with dating and sex before marriage. We practice courtship and teach that the first kiss either party should experience is at the marriage altar. The list goes on.
The word in the biblical Hebrew for holy is qadosh. It means, basically, different. We need to be different than the world around us. Too often, we are not.
AFAJ: How does a dad teach children to have an impact on our culture?
MF: For Christ, the two operative words for disciple-making were “Follow Me.” You see those words dozens of times in the Gospels. It is true for parents. Whether or not parents ever actually say “Follow me,” they communicate it just by being Mom or Dad. And children generally do follow.
Jesus called disciples to Himself and then led them into a world to preach, teach, heal, and take on the demons. The point for fathers is that disciple-making, which fatherhood is, means going out to the abortion clinic to counsel, or to the prison to preach, or to the nursing home to minister, or to the inner city to build low cost housing – and taking your kids with you. Children learn by what they see modeled, and they internalize godly counsel that is enfleshed.
The world won’t be changed unless we intersect with it. Our children won’t know they are supposed to compassionately challenge culture unless they do it with us and see the model. 
Matt Friedeman’s book and DVD Discipleship in the Home give practical wisdom, biblical guidelines, and creative solutions for discipling children. Available at afastore.net (877-927-4917 – limited stock) and online booksellers.
