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I went to IBYP a couple times.

When we homeschooled, we had friends who did his homeschooling program and they fit right in with that cult mentality about how children were supposed to behave, etc. They had all the answers.

Turns out one of their sons moved away from home as a young man and was living with his girlfriend and had rented a separate apartment that he claimed he was living in and his parents thought he was really living there the whole time he was living with his girlfriend.

Clearly, God spared us from getting sucked into what he had to offer.

After reading this article, I am going to find all our materials and shred or burn them or somehow dispose of them.

I went to one of his seminars while I was still a student at Moody Bible Institute. I learned some useful things, but never even knew he was regarded beyond measure by anyone. I was very naive in those days.

Which is why church discipline is so important. Lots of people in church are naive and idealistic about their leadership, and the elders have a duty to protect them. Groups of any kind, including churches, tend to become defensive of their own folks, and that can lead to some very poor judgment. Better to follow the path set forth in Scripture and endure the pain of temporary chastisement, than to allow evil to fester within the church.

But church discipline is harder to apply to these parachurch organizations. The entity can run on its own, so its not really accountable to a local assembly. That’s bad. That leaves distant third parties trying to intervene in things they have little to no knowledge of, and with no personal investment in the outcome.

So of recent times I have a diminished regard for these churchless ministries. I was in a church once where a pastor fell into sexual sin. They followed the Matthew 25 protocol, dealt with it openly, and did not hesitate, though with sorrow, to defrock the young man. In a culture like that, this error of defending the indefensible becomes much more difficult, and though it carries some short term pain, is really better for everyone.

Peace,

When we homeschooled, we had friends who did his homeschooling program and they fit right in with that cult mentality about how children were supposed to behave, etc. They had all the answers. Turns out one of their sons moved away from home as a young man and was living with his girlfriend and had rented a separate apartment that he claimed he was living in and his parents thought he was really living there the whole time he was living with his girlfriend. Clearly, God spared us from getting sucked into what he had to offer.

This has been bothering me all night.

I am going to leave you with something my grandmother told me when I got married.

She told me do not ever have children if you are not willing to get them to Sunday school every week.

It is not a guarantee that your children will grow up to do right or remain Christian but it gives them a greater chance if they do fall away into evil to find their way back to God because they will always know what He is expecting of them and that He loves them enough to accept them. It is much harder for the child that has never known God to understand or even find Him. So if you are not willing to take on the responsibility, do not raise children.

Tell me is the teaching at your church so great that you never have a child fall away into sin? If not why does it matter what one boys life mean to the teachings as a whole? Do you judge the teachings of your church this harshly or your family?

Sometimes I really do not understand the logic of others and maybe that is my biggest problem.