July 17, 2000
MOLLY ROSS, granddaughter of BGCT Treasurer Roger Hall, gets a big bite of enjoyment out of the Texas Baptist Family Reunion at Glorieta, N.M. About 1,400 children, teenagers and adults alike enjoyed a week of learning, recreation, worship and fellowship July 1-7. (Photo by Melody Loggins/BGCT)
1,400 Texans converge on Glorieta
for second Family Reunion week
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___GLORIETA, N.M.--The church must be a family and help families, Duane Brooks told participants in the Texas Baptist Family Reunion July 1-7 at Glorieta Conference Center.
___Brooks, pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, was one of two keynote speakers for the joint worship sessions during the week of conferences and recreation sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___He used the well-known passage from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as a text for suggesting how to instill spiritual values in children. That text says: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
___If children are to learn the spiritual values their parents and grandparents embrace, they must be taught those values, Brooks said. "Our children will not automatically get the theology we want them to get."
___Drawing an analogy from the relay race, he noted that transmitting spiritual values from generation to generation requires diligence at every juncture. "The relay race is rarely lost in the back stretch, but in the passing of the baton," he said.
___When God first told the children of Israel they must love God with all their heart, soul and strength, this was a radical notion, Brooks explained. All the cultures around them were taught to fear their gods.
___The key to understanding the text's command to love God is not found in the words
___Parents and grandparents cannot teach their children to love God if they do not demonstrate love for God themselves, Brooks warned. "Be careful. The things we love are the things our children will love."
___Parents cannot relegate this responsibility to others, he said. "Talk about God's teachings with your children. All of life is an occasion to impart God's wisdom."
___Likewise, parents must impart God's blessing on their children, Brooks said in another message based on the Genesis 27 account of Jacob and Esau seeking the blessing of their father, Isaac.
___"Children were born to be blessed," Brooks said. "If they don't find their blessing in their family, they will find it somewhere.
___Giving children a blessing carries real power, Brooks said because "the power behind the blessing is the power of God."
___On a larger scale, churches must become extended families to those who come seeking God, Brooks said in his final message. "When people come to your church, unless they find a family there, they probably won't be back."
___There are many substitutes for traditional churches today, but none can duplicate the feeling of spiritual family, he said. "You can get religion on the Internet ..., but you can't get fellowship."
___
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