Nurturing Faith at Home by Pastor Alex John

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Pastor Alexander John:
Welcome, everyone. We will now start the recording. I want to say welcome to the Family Conference 2020 presented by Rhombus University. The topic covered in this presentation is “Nurturing Faith At Home.” And our speaker is Pastor Alexander John, serving as the lead pastor of India Christian Fellowship, San Diego, Pastor Alexander John has 27 years of pastoral experience dealing with the immigrant community. He has a master’s degree in theology and counseling psychology and has worked clinically with adolescence and families. Pastor Alexander is married to [Blessy 00:00:43] and has three children ages 21, 14 and six. And now, I want to welcome our speaker, Pastor Alexander John. Welcome.

Pastor Alexander John:
Thank you. Yes, I really appreciate your introduction and help to facilitate this session. Welcome, [inaudible 00:01:04] and all of you, those who are listening us. And we are grateful for you taking the time to join together for this session. And we asked Rhombus University and Rhombus Counseling, this is our passion and our burden [inaudible 00:01:27] and in grace with the Christian community especially, with the word of God and also to encourage them to live life that is fulfilling, abundant life that Jesus offers. So that is the overall theme and prayer and burden and passion of us. And we are grateful for your time that you take time and seriously. So today we’ll cover the topic “Nurturing Faith At Home.” That would be the point, the topic we are going to discuss. I’ll try to speak slowly, because of my accent some of you may not get it exactly.

Pastor Alexander John:
So Dr. [Hayden 00:02:09] always tell me to speak slow. I’m a fast speaker. I always have so much information to cover. So I think that if I don’t cover it at this time, that would be… That’s not good. So I go fast, but I try to be slow. And in between if you have questions, you can put on the chat box also, we address all those things at the end together [inaudible 00:02:30] in between. So I will pass on it and if you have questions, you can add that also.

Pastor Alexander John:
I am basically from India. I lived in this country for the last 23 years. And I planned it, searched here in San Diego for multilingual church and for Indian immigrants predominantly, but others also love Jesus and love Indian people also come so we have a multilingual congregation. And we do the service in English over there.

Pastor Alexander John:
We meet on [Parkway 00:02:59] community church every Sunday morning. As [Eunice 00:03:02] said, I’m married and I’m married for 23 years. I have three children with three different ages. Our first son is 21 years old and our second son is 14, and we have a daughter, she’s six years old. So from all spectrum and I deal this every single day. So this is very dear to me, this is things are very come home when I talk these things. So we’ll start with first of all, we all know that to build any building, to build or to weather the storm that should house strong foundation. So the assumption that we make here is that all of us that we agree that the Bible is God’s word, and the foundation is we see in God’s word. So we start from there.

Pastor Alexander John:
And Jesus himself said in Matthew chapter seven, verse 24 through 27. Sorry, I forgot my… So Matthew chapter seven, verse 24 through 27, Jesus said, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and put them in into practice. He’s like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, stream rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand, the rain came down, the streams rose and the wind blew and beat against the house and it fell with a great crash.” So in order to weather the storm, to stand be who should how the foundation.

Pastor Alexander John:
So the Bible again says that, I quote my pastor, [inaudible 00:04:52] counselor, so I love to quote the scripture because that is practical. The scripture again teaches this in Proverbs chapter 24, verse three and four, “By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established. But through weak knowledge its rooms are filled with a very precious and beautiful treasure.” So before we go further, we need to define and to see what the biblical foundation or what the family look like, because there is so much of subjective preferences nowadays when you talk about family. So the keynote address, if you have heard that this is where Rhombus come from, Rhombus come from the biblical word “view” of Genesis 1:2, 1:3, and about everything else then we try to see things through that lens. So there is subjective preferences, there is political agendas, there are judicial system, all those things are trying to define what family should look like or what family is in the post-modern world.

Pastor Alexander John:
But we believe that the basic understanding is God’s design about a family, God’s design… What God says in family. So we go to the original model in Genesis chapter two and three. And the reason that we do that, why it is important to understand this biblical view of family, why each time… We maybe get bored each time you bring these Genesis two and three always. But that is very crucial to understand, because whenever you want to compare something you check it with the original. That is the way you try to see that. Whenever you want to compare something, you want to check it with the original. So that is… Let me see that I can do that slideshow. Okay. Whenever we want to compare something, where do you go? Of course, you go to the original. If you get a copy, if let’s say you want to make sure this is not a duplicate, how do you do it? You compare with the original.

Pastor Alexander John:
So whenever we go, we want to talk about marriage, when we talk about family, we go back to the original. What is the original intent and how it was designed? What was the purpose and plan of God? That is what we see in Genesis chapter one, two and three. So the family, we all know that the foundation of the… Foundation unit of the society. And marriage is the first institution that God has created. And there are three institution that is strong or that is that God created for the sustenance of the world and for the human being, how that work. It is family, it is the government and it’s the church. In order for the family, in order for the government and the church to work, the family, the unit should work well according to God’s principles. That is what we need to see that.

Pastor Alexander John:
So the institution was established by God. It is the foundation of… The cornerstone of civilization. So marriage do not flourish unless we follow the divine blueprint. So that is what each time we go back to Genesis. Genesis that we see marriage is sacred. God created… Because God is holy, God sees these things that are sacred thing and God created marriage in such a way. When we come to Genesis chapter two, verse 24 and 25, there we read the scripture, that is why a man leave his father and mother and is united to his wife. They become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

Pastor Alexander John:
Four things that we see in that two words there, one is they left, the primary relationship become the husband and wife, leave the parents, leave other relationship so this become focal point. And they cleave together, they united as husband and wife. Then they are giving that is intimacy, they become one flesh. And there is transparency in that relationship, they both were naked and not were ashamed. There is nothing to hide for them from each other. So these are way or design of marriage. That is the way the marriage should always work. Marriage is an intimate and it is an open and exclusive relationship. And as Christians, why do we get married? I remember that one of the misconception that people has is this, that they think that marriage make them happy. And those who are married, you know that is not the case here, right? It is not the purpose of marriages not to make us happy, rather the purpose of marriage is to make us holy. The purpose of marriage is not to make us happy. The purpose of marriage is to make us holy.

Pastor Alexander John:
I think that is the paradigm shift that we should have in our mind. Many things that we see in different ways there. It is not to our happiness there. So God designed marriage in such away. The fundamental purpose is to give him glory by loving God and by loving others. We’ll talk about the love a little later as we come. So God’s primary message to the world is that the gospel, the gospel is reconciliation. So that is the essence of gospel, especially this day and age and this week for this nation. And for us to understand that the gospel is the message of reconciliation to connect each other, bring back to God, bring back to one another.

Pastor Alexander John:
Since God is a relational God, God loves relationship. We see that in godhead the father, son and the holy spirit. There is unity in that community. We see that they always in fellowship, there is no bickering, there is no complaint. There is roles for the father and the son and the holy spirit, but they are co-equal and co-eternal, if you want to talk in theological ways, but we see that they always work in unity. So that is the way God has designed us also, as human beings also. So God created man to have a relationship with him. This is another important way, if you forget everything of what I say. So just remember this, one thing you remember is this marriage is not to make us happy but to make us holy. Remember that.

Pastor Alexander John:
The second thing I just want to take it today is this, if your relationship with the God is right, all other relationship will fall in place. If your relationship with the God is right, all other relationship will fall in place. So whenever there is an issue in our relationship, the first question you need to ask is to ourselves, “Am I right with the God?” If my vertical relationship is right, all horizontal relationship also fall in place. If my vertical relationship with the God is not right, all horizontal relationship will fall apart. Keep that in mind. So that is should be our attitude to understand. If my relationship… Any appropriate time people come for counseling in a church setting, in a Christian councilor setting, the first question I ask is, “How is your soul? How is your relationship with the God? Where you stand with the God today?” And that is where everything fall apart, remember that. So since God is a relational God, God created us for relationship. A relationship with him and relationship with one another.

Pastor Alexander John:
The 613 commandments in the Old Testament is concised in two things that Jesus said, “Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. Love your neighbor as you love you yourself.” Love the Lord, love yourself, love your neighbor. So that is why God created us. So that is an important thing to understand. So we come to the New Testament that we see Paul writes about these extensively in different places, Ephesians chapter five that we read. The same thing that we read in Colossians also. And Paul writes there what happened in 2 Colossians… Colossians chapter three, verse 18 through 21, the role and the responsibility of the husband, the wife, the children. The role and responsibility of husband, wife and children that is mentioned over there. So our faith must come with us. The faith must come home with us and we cannot just be Sunday Christian solely. We have to live our life 24/7. So there is no division, sacred and secular. Everything is sacred. That is the way have to look at our life.

Pastor Alexander John:
And there is roles and responsibility to each of us, husband have responsibility and the wife also has responsibility and the children also have responsibility. And we are living in a day and age actually, everybody want to live their own life, that nobody want to take a responsibility of anything else in their life. But that is not the biblical understanding. We have roles. And also we have a responsibility that you do. But our relationship meant to be mutual and equal and I will talk about the wife should submit to the husband. That is not like a control issue there, rather than the immediateness to worse come, the husband should love the wife as Christ love the church. So what is a balance here? The husband is the head and he should understand the pain, the feeling, the emotions of the entire body. He should love and serve the wife or the family the way Christ has sacrificed and love and serve the people, as that is a model that Paul is writing and describing over there.

Pastor Alexander John:
So the biblical view of marriage is a partnership. It is fulfilling each other, it is not only one person. There is no… If a selfish person cannot be happily married and live. A selfish person… So the selfishness is the one. So how Christ has loved us? Christ didn’t love perfect people, right? Christ didn’t love perfect people. The Bible says this, “Even when we are enemies, even when we are imperfect, even when we are sinners, Christ died for us and he demonstrated his love.” So that is the way you show love. We are not waiting for other person become perfect. I’m not talking about any of the abusive relationship, any of those things and you involve another person to do anything they want to. No, we are not going any of those places. We are trying to bring in here the roles and responsibility as a Christian, how they conduct their life.

Pastor Alexander John:
So there is roles and responsibility, submit to one another, Ephesians chapter five, verse 2 talk about submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. So the Lordship of Jesus is an important essence in all these places. But the role, when we come to the mutually, what the wife need, what the husband need, the wife need love and care, the husband need respect and honor. That is the expectations there. That is what the Bible bringed here. There is love and care, respect and honor, and both will resemble the nature of God through their lives and make sure that the purpose is in this relationship to make us holy, not just to make us happy. So husband’s responsibility is mentioned more, many places in the scripture than the wife, because husband has more responsibility as the leader. When Adam and Eve… We see that when Eve first to get the fruit and disobeyed God, but God made Adam as responsible for that because it was his responsibility also.

Pastor Alexander John:
So when we come to the biblical understanding… It look like… Yeah. Biblically it’s about… We talk about love, love, love. And again, there is a problem with the love that we see in the modern days, what happened with the love? Love is defined as a feeling, right? We fall in love, that’s what we say. It is like a feeling. And one day we fell in love, the other day we just fell down so there is no more love, people leave. But you understand that the scripture teach us again the other third thing, if you remember everything I say, it’s one thing is to remember is that biblical love is a work. It is a command. It is an action. There is something to do about it. It is verbal. It is not only just saying it, “I love you.” But it’s something to be done. That is why Christ love the church. That’s why Christ is still loving each of us.

Pastor Alexander John:
So the Bible says in Corinthian chapter 13, verse four and five, “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It does not proud. It does not rude. It is not self-seeking.” And you read the list goes on and on and on. So the both parties, I would say, but the more responsible they come to love. The best definition I ever heard about love from a biblical understanding is from Dr. Voddie Bouchum. This what he says, “Love is an act of will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object.” Love is an act of will, that is… Unpack it, it’s going to take another one hour, maybe. Love is an act of will. Now we choose to love, that is what love is. We choose to love.

Pastor Alexander John:
But there is emotions attached with that. So emotions will not just… We are not stop loving because there’s no emotion, but if there is will the emotion will follow. And there is an action involved with that on behalf of the object that we love, which is not self-seeking. It is not what I want to getted. That’s a God caste. That is a biblical understanding of love. So this is the foundation of… In a minimum, we can say that in the limited time that we have, so God instituted marriage and the family, God designed this. God want people living in harmony and in unity because God is a relational God. So marriage, the purpose of marriage is to make us holy. And that is an important thing that we should never forget. Our relationship with the God should be right for all of our relationship to fall in place. And the third thing, biblical love is a command. It is a work, it is an action that we have to do.

Pastor Alexander John:
With that in mind, we go further in the family unit, what other things comes. In the family unit that we see, the next thing is the parenting. There are so many things we can talk about parenting that a few times that we left. There are different styles of parenting, depends on the way you are brought up and all these things. We see, we read the LeMasters’ parenting style, one of the famous parenting style.

Pastor Alexander John:
The one is Martyr model, people just sacrifice and die and do and everything for their children. Or there may be Buddy or a Pal model or friendship, your children is your friends. You’re just to go, as it is, there is no boundaries that is set apart. There is no exercise of authority, any of those things. There is a Police / Drill Master rather extreme of it, everything is like a police, everything is direct and commanded, do this, don’t do that, those kind of thing. There is a Teacher / Counselor model, people say that it is just teach them what needs to be done and model them through their lives. And there is a… Another model is like a coach model, they just teach them how to play the game, the athletic coach model.

Pastor Alexander John:
So there are so many different kinds of parenting things are there, but we try to focus with the Christian parenting later. But one other thing, I don’t know how many of you’ll be benefited is what we are trying to say, those who come from different cultural backgrounds when we are living in the dominant culture, parenting is very daunting task. It is very challenging and is very difficult also. I came from India, as I said, so I grew up in a different way set of rules and expectations, and coming from collective society, moving to Hinduism society, lot of things that happen. So I don’t know your background and things, but this is what we do with that or we try to learn all these things.

Pastor Alexander John:
Now, my children, they all of them are born here in US. And I again, grew up in India, so they look… Indian parents used to say that they are like coconut generation. They look brown outside, but they’re white inside. For the Chinese people or Japanese people or Asian people, they say they’re like a banana generation, they look yellowish outside but they’re white inside. And you can associate with any culture like that, those who have different cultural backgrounds. But remember that every family has its own culture also. So culture itself is a big subject, we don’t have the time to go much further with any of those things, but each family has their own culture, also cultural expectation. And whenever it comes each family, the way that you are brought up, that become your parenting style for sure.

Pastor Alexander John:
There is a developmental age of parenting style, when the children are like… The small children, elementary schools, one through six, they say that you are the caretaker. When they become, seven to 12, you are the controller, do this, don’t do, more like a drill master. When they become teenagers, you become the coach, you tell them what to do and they have to take responsibility and play the game for their life. And you can only watch, you can’t do much of it. When they become 18 and above they become adults. What do you do? You become a consultant. You have totally no control the decisions, what they make it. So there are so many different ways we can address parenting issue, but we come to again, the Christian parenting.

Pastor Alexander John:
And those who come the east, just a blanket statement, we say those who come from east and those who come from west, there are two different kinds of parenting styles. Those who come east again, even oriental society, moving to a time oriented society. From a collective community versus individualistic in understanding the strong traditional value system to a kinship structure that comes. A tendency to make sacrifices for children that is more or less, most of the parents does that, especially for the Eastern culture that is very [inaudible 00:23:27].

Pastor Alexander John:
And we see there’s the indirect way of suggesting things for the children, their parenting style is that. Some people like more direct means of structuring their children. So there is different ways that we see that. But unfortunately those who come from a different backgrounds, there is an identity crisis and confusion that always in the children’s life that we see. How we address that, that you was one of the major point, I want to bring it if you are from that kind of a background. If you have questions, we can discuss that also later.

Pastor Alexander John:
It is difficult, it is not easy anytime at all. So they are living in three different culture. They are, if you are Christian you are a Christian culture at home and you are a national identity or whatever upbringing that come, you go out, there is a different culture over there, whether the pop culture or popular culture. So when they go to the school they go, all those things are shaped them and influence them into their lives also. So that we see. So how we go further here, what we are able to it, the Christian parenting… We have a… Our time is limited, so we’ll go to the Christian parenting. What is the purpose again for the Christian parenting? We use Bible.

Pastor Alexander John:
When you got time just to Google it actually how many books are written about parenting. You go to Amazon and just put a parenting book actually, thousands of books will come. So there is all kinds of information, all kinds of things that come over there. But remember this, for us, Bible is the manual for Christian parenting. And the Bible directly and indirectly commanding us to do the biblical way of parenting. How that happened? The biblical parent of it is not cultural parenting because this for a thousands of years, this is what exactly has been done. So the model of biblical parenting or Christian parenting, we look at God himself. God is our model. And the Bible says, God is as a father, right? That intimate paternal relationship of a provision, protection, all those things that comes in such a… So Christian parenting, the model is God himself, God portrayed as a father. And the method of Christian parenting is not by rules and regulations, it is by modeling. And there is another statement that we make later to connect these things, to understand.

Pastor Alexander John:
So with the lack of time I go further, faster here. The Bible is the manual for Christian parenting. The model of Christian parenting is God himself. We emulate God through our lives. And the method is always through modeling. The goal of Christian parenting is one, it is to always to glorify God. It is to glorify God through our life. So how do we do that? Practical ways, that is our theme. This is introduction in one way, what is the… How we are practically, we are able to do that? The practical ways to do that is, number one, what are the thing that saves [inaudible 00:26:28]? When our people come for counseling, the question we talk about the family of origin, which family come from the birth or family of origin, the struggles they have, all those things that bring it. Because there are big roles that play in the life of children, big roles that play in the life of children.

Pastor Alexander John:
And the role of the parents is the big thing. The parents’ spiritual health is very crucial in nurturing the faith to the children. Remember that whenever you fly, remember that what they do, they give the instruction. Whenever the pressure goes down, what do you do? You take the mask and put it in your face first, then you try to help your children or someone else. So, as I said earlier, our spiritual health is very important to nurturing the faith at home. The spiritual temperature of the home is depends upon the spirituality, the spiritual health of the parents. That we should never forget. So the spiritual health is very crucial nurturing the faith to their children. And the second thing is that, be the number one representative of Jesus in our kid’s life. That is our responsibility. That is a fundamental responsibility of every parent. And three, and we have to balance our life and prioritize our spiritual care also to our life.

Pastor Alexander John:
Look at Jesus’ life always. Jesus had always this balance, his relationship with the God, his father and his relationship with that intimate group of people, then he went out to the crowd. And he spent time with the father, spent time with this intimate group of disciples, then he went to minister to the crowd. So in a modern world that we are living in, busy is a big thing and that is a challenging thing that we see. What we do those places, it is important to know that to balance our life, our work, our profession. Dr. David Jeremiah used to say that the four piece of priority, as a person your priority is God, as a partner your priority is your spouse, as a parent your priority is your children, as a professional your priority is your job.

Pastor Alexander John:
In that order, the things go. Sometimes we overlap certain things, but we have to make sure that we have to balance that to do it. So we’ll finish over here. Now, one more thing, I finish here, when we reinforce the thing, like how to create the rhythm, we have so much to cover here but remember that. Life is all about memory, which was that thing I will finish here. My life is all about memory, how you create memory is important. So you have to create a rhythm in your life and also you have to create rituals in your life. My understanding is this, the prodigal in Luke chapter 15, remember that? The prodigal came back home. The Bible says that he came back to his senses. We can easily understand that he remembered the father’s house. He wanted to come back.

Pastor Alexander John:
So my dear ones, my friends, this is my monition and my encouragement used to that. Life is all about creating memory. Every day you are making memory, so what do you do with that? You make sure that you create good memories. That memories will never depart from you. If you can’t remember, you cannot exist. You have no existence without memory. So remember that you create good memories. That is the importance of making rhythm into our life. There is daily rhythm, there is weekly rhythm. That is the Bible talk about also about that.

Pastor Alexander John:
So I pray that may God help us to use that principles, Christian principles, to live a life worthy of our calling for the glory of God. And also we will express God love through our life. And we will exemplify the gospel to the dying world. And the people see that these people have something different and they have something to offer. May God bless you to do that. Let me finish here because of the lack of time. And if you have question, anything else, I’m here to answer what else.

Pastor Alexander John:
Thank you so much. Our time is almost up and I would like to thank pastor Alex for a wonderful presentation. Now, I’m going to open up for questions and he’ll be right there to respond to them. So feel free to ask any questions. You can also put them on the chat box and I will direct them to him. Great. [inaudible 00:31:01] I think she didn’t have any question. And she said that was good information. And then we have a chat from [inaudible 00:31:13] I believe and it said, “Excellent presentation. Thank you so much.”

Pastor Alexander John:
Thank you. Thank you for listening.

Pastor Alexander John:
Yes. Otherwise, thank you so much pastor Alexander for such a wonderful presentation. I’m praying that we have really learned good tools that we can use in parenting our kids and nurturing really faith at home. And right now I pray that we will be blessed as we go to the next session. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining us and enjoy your next session.

Pastor Alexander John:
Thank you. Thank you.

Pastor Alexander John:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

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