Trails Church Base Camp

How do we be healthy launch team members of the Trails Church?

The Health of our church “depends on the willingness of its members to inspect their hearts, correct their thinking, and apply their hands to the work of the ministry.” (9Marks)

A Healthy Launch Team Member is a Biblical Theologian

We want to be those who strive to have our theology built upon the Bible - to test all things against God’s Word and to rely upon His Word above everything.

Commitment to being a Biblical Theologian, in essence, is these two things:

How does studying biblical theology work to promote health in our church?

So, how do we grow in being biblical theologians?

1. Read a good book on biblical theology.

2. Study the Scriptures Thematically.

3. Adopt the New Testament’s Attitude toward the Old Testament.

4. Study the Old Testament with Jesus and the New Testament in View.

5. Study the Books of Prophecy in the Old Testament.

6. Know and Agree to support our Statement of Faith, and encourage others to know what our Statement of Faith teaches and professes.

7. Seek doctrinal unity and avoid needless disputes, and help teach others to do the same.

One last note: Quarreling

Our church will be healthy as we, as launch team members, strive for personal health and corporate health.

Serving @ The Trails Form: https://forms.gle/CvqKwgrd3Z74oVDG6

In this episode, we discuss how the canon of Scripture was developed and also some attributes of Scripture.

Psalm 119:97-104

Canon of Scripture

- Old Testament

- New Testament

As Christians, we ultimately affirm that scripture is self-authenticating.

How did the early Christians know which writings came from God and which did not? They spoke of “receiving” or “inheriting” the authoritative books from each previous generation. They saw these books as having authority because they came from God, not because any church or leader put a stamp of approval on them. But they didn’t just accept them blindly. They had four criteria for demonstrating that their acceptance of these books was legitimate.

Attributes of Scripture:

In this episode, we begin talking about the importance of gender and how God created men and women to display something beautiful about Himself.  Specifically, we speak to men and raising young men in this episode.

Recommended Resources:

Future Men by Douglas Wilson

Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schultz

Bringing up Boys by James Dobson

Created for Work by Bob Schultz

For Guys Only: The Marks of Manhood, Dr. R. Albert Mohler

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001093.cfm Hold Fast in a Broken World by Douglas Bond

The Masculine Mandate by Richard Phillips

Stand Fast in the Way of Truth by Douglas Bond

What is Systematic Theology?

the word “theology” derived from two Greek words, theos, which means “God,” and logos, which means “word” or “message.” Thus, when we speak of systematic theology we mean the orderly arrangement of the study of God into logical, topical divisions.

What is our intention in studying theology:

Key features of systematic theology.

1) it should be biblically grounded.

The Bible alone is the inspired and inerrant Word of God, finally and fully authoritative for faith and life and sufficient for all that we need to know pertaining to life and godliness. We don’t need additional books, we don’t need additional experiences - no, the Bible is inerrant, infallible, and sufficient.

So, systematic theology is biblically grounded.

2) historically informed.

3) contextualized.

4) Lastly, our systematic theology should be and must be, lived out.

the Doctrine of the Word, the Bible

Ought we to correct and discipline our kids?  And to what ends?

I. The nature of our children shows their need for correction and the wisdom it imparts.

Total Depravity

II. This rod is a key tool for driving out foolishness

Proverbs 23:13-14

Prov. 29:15, 17

The rod of correction brings wisdom to the child by: (1) providing an immediate demonstration of the foolishness of rebellion; and (2) imparting to the child a proper fear of punishment.

Hebrews 12:11

A Parental Exercise

An Act of Faith

An Act of Faithfulness

A Responsibility

A Rescue Mission

Ephesians 6:1-2

Prov. 13:24

And there may be lots of other questions that you might have in learning to raise your kids - and one of the joys of having a church community is that we can ask these questions and grow together, especially by connecting with some other godly parents and processing through these things together. And I would encourage you to do so.

Hebrews 12:11: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

What Do You Do When You Can’t Get to the Heart?

The Biblical Basis for Obedience

Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.”

Two qualifying statements to this sentence:

Eph 6:2, “ ‘Honor your father and mother’ “—which is the first commandment with a promise — “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Definition of Obedience: Obedience is the willing submission of one person to the authority of another. And this submission is essentially manifested in two ways:

For the child, obedience is more than just doing what he is told.

It means doing what he is told—

Practical Tip to help when you are asking your children to do something: have them come to stand before you (physically) before you give them a command.

Teaching Obedience - from our perspective as Parents

- A Call for Consistency.

- The same rules, the same standards.

- A Call to Encouragement. (Book suggestion: https://www.amazon.ca/Future-Men-Raising-Fight-Giants/dp/1591281105)

- Discernment in our parenting.

- Remember to be gracious with our kids.

IV. Some parting thoughts:

- Goals for our Parenting

Another reason why we parent is because we want our children to learn to live under gracious, godly authority.

Two dangers we need to avoid:

- Legalism.

- Licentiousness.

In this episode, we wrap up our Fear of Man study by thinking through an alternative to fearing man: Loving and Serving.  

Thanks for tuning into this podcast.  If you'd like more information about the Trails, visit: trailschurch.ca

In this episode, we are continuing our study on Parenthood, and how all of us, as church members, have this wonderful job of discipling the next generation. Last time, we talked about getting to the heart of the behaviour in our kids and how we are tempted to not focus on gospel roots, but rather on fake apples hung up by fishing line, and so, if you missed that episode, I’d suggest going back and listening to it before moving foward. For today, we’re going to talk about communication.

And in this discussion for today, we’ll cover why we communicate, what we communicate, how we communicate, and when and where do we communicate.

So let’s get started with the first one: 1. Why Do We Communicate?

And in answering this, we see two dominant reasons:

2. What are we to communicate?

   Practical Instructions and God's Word.  We are confident that God’s WORD, as it is applied by the Spirit, is able to transform our children’s hearts, desires, affections and will.

3. How Do We Communicate?

In addition to: Rules, Correction, and Discipline

We also are to use things like: Encouragement, Rebuke, Entreaty, Instruction, Warning, Prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

Rebuke: A rebuke censures behavior.

Entreaty (an earnest or humble request): It’s Proverbs 23:26 | It’s entreating your kid when you see them wandering away from the path of wisdom towards the path of folly. We entreat when you see danger like the pull of pornography or sexual immorality, or when you see a cold heart - and we earnestly, with tears in our eyes, beckon them to holiness and away from things that will destroy them.

Instruction or teaching: This is the process of providing a lesson, a precept or information that will help your children to understand and function in their world.

Warning: on guard against a probable danger.

Prayer as a communication: Now, Prayer is not communication with a child, but with God, but it nevertheless is an essential element of communication between the parent and the child. Understanding what and how our children pray is often a window into their souls. And vice versa: a child can see the parent’s heart as he or she entreats their holy God.

4. When and Where Do We Communicate?

Deut 6:4-9 | always and everywhere!

today's topic: We fear that people will harm us.

Welcome back to BaseCamp and to our study about the Fear of Man and how we all struggle to adequately fear God and live out our Christian faith in the cracks of everyday life. In the last few episodes, we have been talking about the fear of exposure and the fear of rejection - and in today’s episode, we will consider the fear of harm from other people. As we have already considered, our fear of others may be multi-faceted. So, Fear of Harm, as we will see, might be woven into our fear of exposure and/or our fear of rejection - and, as we’ve talked about, the solution to each of these fears is the same: fearing God.

Matthew 10:28: It reads, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell”

Physical Harm

Non-physical Harm

Some the ways our relationships with other people can be affected.

1) a cloud of shameful feelings may plague the person who has experienced physical harm in the past.

2) the person struggling with this fear of harm is also likely to struggle with trusting others.

3) Bitterness is a deeper sense of some of these other things.

So, what do we need to Know about the Harmful Person: the one who is harming others?

How do we, who have harmed others, move forward?

And so, how do we respond to the fear of harm?

Like a victim or a stoic?

How does the Gospel begin to address this fear of harm?

In this episode, we are talking about getting to the heart of the behaviours that our kids develop over time and how the Gospel shapes our everyday encounters with our kids.

We want to correct our kids, but we often focus solely on behaviour and not on the hearts of our kids.

Likewise, in our parenting, we should be concerned not just with the what of behavior, but the why. If we do not focus on the why, on where the behavior came from, we will miss the idols of the heart and, ultimately, miss the Gospel. Which, of course, will not lead us to glorify God and it will not lead our children to faith. Rather, our children will simply learn to be obedient to our whims and desires, and maybe even pretend upon a faith that they don’t have, only to rebel against this in their adulthood - it’s so easy to force behaviour onto people, isn’t it? That’s one thing that we’ve seen in this pandemic. But changing someone’s heart? That’s a miracle that only God can bring about.

I. The importance of the heart

Our children’s behavior is telling us something about their hearts, because all behavior flows from the heart.

A. The heart is the control center of behavior; so behavior reveals the heart.

B. Yet, is our parenting is often designed to control behavior?

Tripp observes: “A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable.”

When we focus solely on outward behavior, we encourage our children to become Pharisees.

Let’s try to fight against that by reminding ourselves to go after the heart of our kids. A great book to help us start thinking through these things is Parenting by Paul David Tripp - maybe grab a copy of that and read it to better think about how you might help your kids, and the kids of our church, grow in godliness in this way.