Bryan Chapell spoke in the chapel at Covenant College today. I've heard him speak a few times now and he has always impressed me with his speaking ability. I mean the guy has a PHd in speech so I would imagine he would know a few things about addressing an audience.
Today he talked about the fact that the church (through Christ) is the hope of the world. And he emphasized how the kind of change that the church makes in the world starts in small places: in the individual life, in the home, in a community.
Chapell made some similar comments when I heard him speak last at the General Assembly for the PCA held in Chattanooga in the summer of 2005. Chapell was the only speaker I remember that was able to turn what should have been a mundane report (on the happenings at Covenant Theological Seminary where he is president) into a rousing and convicting plea to the church. He spoke then of the current generation of men entering seminary being distinct in that they are largely a "fatherless generation." I remember feeling thankful that Chapell was willing to address this fact, because I come from a fatherless home and I have felt the weighty effects of growing up without any kind of fatherly guidance. To be honest, I hate talking about this part of my life. I guess, to put it bluntly, I dont like the pity people give me when they hear I didnt have a dad. Because, in my experience, there has always been a huge negative side to getting people's pity. It feels good for a moment to have someone understand my lack in this area, but then I cant help but feel that when somebody pities me in this area, they also begin to question my manhood. I never liked the idea of appearing weak, less capable, or more of a "mama's boy" in front of people. And I distinctly remember the way that certain families in my church used to treat me as a "special case" when I was a kid and I hated that. So for most of my life Ive played down the whole fact that I'm "fatherless." I dont want this part of my life to affect me one way or another, for good or for bad. I dont want it to be a factor at all in the kind of person I am or in the kind of person I am capable of becoming. For me, I want the fact that I dont have a father to be like the fact that I dont have blonde hair and the fact that I dont have any ingrown toenails. I want it to be an irrelevant factor, easily overlooked.
But I guess Chapell reminded me today, as he did two summers ago, the kind of effect that one man can have on the world. Ultimately when one man chooses to live his life faithfully to the gospel, this begins to have a huge effect on those around him and this in turn can go on to effect all kinds of change. And so I guess I shouldnt underestimate the effect that a man has on his family. And conversely, the lack of a godly man has a huge effect on a family. I know it has had a huge effect on me. Its not irrelevant and I shouldnt treat it as such.
On the other hand, while I do want to acknowledge the effect that this has had on my life, I don't want "fatherlessness" to feel like more and more of a handicap. I know that it can be very debilitating at times. There are just a lot of situations that I dont know to deal with or respond to well because Ive never really had anybody teach me. But I dont want to just sit back and complain about this. I want to accept this more and more as a reality in my life, as an obstacle that I absolutely must learn to surmount, or I will just keep making many of the same mistakes. I guess Im saying I need to grow up and be a man. I'm far past the age where I should be waiting for a man to come into my life to show me the ropes. I need to be that man for other people. And while this seems like an impossible task to me at times, I understand that making blind men see and lame men walk should have been impossible as well, but Christ was able to handle that just fine.
I dont really know what it is Im trying to say with this post. I guess Im just trying to say that "fatherlessness" is a big obstacle for my generation of men, but it is an obstacle that can be surmounted through Christ and it must be surmounted if we truly are to become a generation of hope to the world.
Posted by todd at September 15, 2006 03:46 PM