Interlock PrayerNet

A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Houston and New Orleans, Contrast in Righteousness by Larry Stout

In 1994, my wife and I had the vacation trip of a lifetime.  While visiting the States in July of that year, we had a 30-day Delta pass, which meant we could fly on stand-by status on any Delta Airlines flight within the continental United States.  We ended up making 27 different flights in those 30 days, visiting some 18 different cities.  We had no itinerary, we literally just picked up the schedule and picked out a city and, if we knew someone there, we called ahead and asked if we could spend the night.  If not, like Yellowstone National Park or Pensacola, Florida, we simply went sightseeing and stayed in a discount motel.  It was our chance to visit those places in the States that we had always wanted to see. 

What we are managing is not time, but our own priorities.  This is why whenever anyone tells me that they would like to do something but they do not have the time, I will correct them and say, “No, that is not true.  You have time.  What is true is that you have not made it a priority above other priorities that you consider are more important.” 

There is a lot of fervor about the display of the Ten Commandments in the United States, but maybe a little more display in our homes than on public buildings would be of greater benefit.  It worked in my home.

Debbie and I had three precocious, high-energy children in the first five years of our marriage.  Our primary problem in parenthood, however, was that we had completely different philosophies toward childrearing.  Debbie was much more of a disciplinarian, and I preferred a more laissez-faire attitude toward their childhood activities.  We tried to find some middle ground, but it never worked.  We were confusing our children because we were giving conflicting messages to them.  

After much prayer about the matter, the day came when I suddenly had a revelation – I am the father!  I should start acting like it.  So I sat down and wrote five rules that would become the new standards for the children’s behavior.  There would no longer be one set of rules when Dad was around and another when Mom was there.  There was one set of principles which we called the Stout Family Laws of Love.  

We made the children memorize these five laws, often reciting them during family meal times.  Debbie made posters of the laws and put them in their bedrooms.  We directly referred to them when they misbehaved.  Rather than resenting them, the children began to realize that as long as they stayed within the boundaries of these laws, they were completely free.  They could do whatever they liked.  But if they went outside the laws, there would be serious repercussions.  (These were called “events,” and I will leave a discussion of those for another day).  

The Stout Family Laws of Love really worked.  We saw an almost immediate change in our children.  They were not ‘perfect’ children, to be sure, but they learned discipline and self-control.  Once they got into their teenage years, we loosened the reins and eventually saw all of them develop into adults who have learned to live in a morally and socially responsible way.  

I never gave much serious thought to those laws that I drafted back in the early 1980s to deal with my three small children until I was asked to speak at a couple’s retreat for Matthew’s Baptist Church a couple of summers ago.  The question came up about child discipline, and I talked about our family laws.  At that moment, I realized how closely our family laws paralleled the Ten Commandments.  I put that in the back of my mind, and yesterday spoke at the Latvia Christian Mission’s Christian Teacher’s Conference on “Family Laws” where I developed this more fully.  The following is essentially what I shared with those teachers.  

The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 6 that we are to teach God’s commandments to our children.  But how do we do this when their little minds are unable to understand abstract concepts like “honor” or “coveting?”  Here is how I translated the Ten Commandments to our children without even realizing I was doing it at the time:

FAMILY LAW NUMBER 1 – THE LAW OF REVERENCE
“We will always be serious for family prayer and devotions.”  
The first four commandments tell us that we are not to have other gods, nor idols, nor to take the Lord’s name in vain and to remember the Sabbath.  What do these have in common?  They deal with showing reverence to the Lord.  We wanted our children to understand that time with the Lord was different than other times.  We liked to play games and have fun with our children, but when we were acknowledging God, this should not be the time for clowning around.  So our first law was, “We will always be serious for family prayer and devotions.”  We did not have to add that they should be serious in church, because if they practice this in the home, it will automatically transfer to their behavior in church (and it did).    

FAMILY LAW NUMBER 2 – THE LAW OF RESPECT
“We will always obey our Mommy and Daddy the first time they speak.”
The fifth commandment says to honor your parents.  However the word honor is an abstract term and needs to made concrete for small children.  What would they be doing if they were honoring their parents?  They would obey them.  So we made the second family law, “We will always obey our Mommy and Daddy the first time they speak.”   The ‘first time’ part of the law was important, because kids learn quickly when their parents mean what they say.  They figure they can safely ignore the first and second command, but once the voice gets raised and has a little threatening tone, then they had better listen.  We wanted our children to not develop that pattern.  So we put the bar up high, and it worked.  

FAMILY LAW NUMBER 3 – THE LAW OF RELATIONSHIPS
“We will never hurt one another.”  
The sixth commandment speaks about murder, the seventh about adultery, and the eighth about stealing.  The first two are not practices we would expect from small children (nor subjects we particularly like talking about with them), but these three commandments do have in common an attitude about others.  All of them imply some action that could harm another person.  So we simply put that idea into our third family law, “We will never hurt one another.”  (Once David and Aaron were fighting a little too aggressively and I told them, “Number Three” and they instantly stopped.  A friend visiting with us at the time looked at me and said, “Number Three?”)  But we also applied the law to hurtful words as well.  We wanted them to see that we can hurt one another just much by our words as we can by our actions.  

FAMILY LAW NUMBER 4 – THE LAW OF COMMUNICATION
“We will always tell the truth.”  
The ninth commandment tells us to not bear false witness.  We wanted to put this in a positive context for our children so we rephrased it, “We will always tell the truth.”  This is always a challenge for young children, but we wanted to emphasize that trust is the basis of all relationships, and without truth, there can be no trust.  

FAMILY LAW NUMBER 5 – THE LAW OF CONTENTMENT
“We will always keep our house clean and neat.”
The tenth commandment speaks about coveting our neighbor’s possessions, and many Bible commentators have remarked that this commandment is perhaps the most difficult of all since it goes to the motives of the heart, not just an act of commission or omission.  The sense of the commandment is about appreciating what has been given to us by the Lord.  This idea got conveyed through our fifth law, “We will always keep our house clean and neat.”  We practiced this by having Best Room Contests every Saturday to see who could have the cleanest and neatest bedroom.  The winner got to display the Best Room Prize poster in their room for the next week.  Though we did not live as well as many of our neighbors or peers, I believe our children learned to be more content and appreciate the possessions they did have than others did because of our attitude of respect for what we had been given.  

Of course, the Stout Family Laws of Love are not holy writ that came down from Mount Sinai.  They were one man’s attempt to use God’s commandments to bring up his children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  The problem with children today is not going to be answered by more government intervention – but by better parental intervention.  

I loved the contrast in this ideology recently demonstrated in the halls of the US Senate.  Recently Hillary Clinton was passing Rick Santorum in the Senate corridors and commented as she walked by, “It takes a village, Rick.”  He replied back, “No, Hillary, it takes a family.”  

Larry Greiner wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review in 1972 that has since become holy writ in business vernacular – the concept of the organizational life cycle.  Just as people and products have a limited life cycle, so does any organization have a certain point where it peaks and then begins to descend.  This idea in and of itself is not particularly groundbreaking, but Greiner’s genius was to note that there were several demarcation points all along the organization’s path which represented turning points.  In other words, every organization faces cross-roads where it is either renewing itself or beginning to die.  As Franklin Roosevelt so eloquently said, “We are either living out a new vision or the death of an old one.”   

When I was a pastor serving in Norristown, Pennsylvania, I once had an occasion to make a house visit to a couple in my church. While I was there they had a neighbor visit and the four of us had an amusing conversation that went about half an hour. I then made my excuses and departed, and the neighbor then asked, “Who was that guy, by the way, he is really funny.

 My son Aaron recently attended a lecture at his school by Dr. Glen Swanson, an expert on the Middle East and the Islamic faith.  In relating the gist of the talk to me, I began to realize that I had missed something important.  (Both of my sons are brighter than me, so every conversation with them usually stimulates my thought processes.)  In this case, I had not fully appreciated the changes that we are witnessing taking place in the Islamic world.  I believe that these changes may be the beginning of a true breakthrough for the gospel message. 

When I bump into friends, they always ask, “So, Larry, how are you?”  My standard response is, “Busy.”  I stopped to think about that answer this week after I returned from Norway.  Since Debbie and Olya’s departure on the first week of August, I have been on a non-stop whirlwind of work.  Not only has the teaching schedule been intense, but keeping up with normal housework and yardwork also keeps me going without a break. This past week I had my normal work week till Wednesday, then left for Norway in the evening and returned very late on Friday night.  On Saturday, I woke up and thought about the heavy teaching schedule coming up, of the laundry that needed done, of the groceries that I had to buy – and then, I thought – no, I need to rest.  I was so tired, I couldn’t get myself motivated to do anything.  So for the entire day, I mentally and physically relaxed.  Sunday morning I woke up like a new man.