"In 2003, 68 million of the 94 million men in the United States did not attend church." - Focus on the Family
"There were 12.9 million single-parent homes in the United States in 2006. The father was absent from 10.4 million of these households." - US Census Bureau
"Researching biographies of leading atheists from the past three centuries, Paul. C. Vitz, a former atheist and professor at New York University, discovered that practically all of their fathers were either abusive, distant, or absent." - Focus on the Family
The importance of fathers:
"According to statistics, when fathers are the first in their homes to become Christians, there is a 93 percent probability that their families will follow. If the mother becomes a Christian first, this chance plummets to 17 percent. If a child becomes a Christian first, it falls to 3.5 percent." - Focus on the Family
"Compared with daughters from two-parent homes, a girl is about five times more likely to have had sex by age 16 if her dad left before she was 6 and twice as likely if she stops living with her dad at 6 or older." - USA Today
"Boys who don't have their fathers in the home between the ages of 12 and 22 are 300 times as likely to get in trouble with the law ... (This factor) trumps race. It trumps ethnicity. It trumps IQ. It trumps income. The best predictor is whether or not they have their fathers in the home." - Richard Land, President, SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Church, what will our response be? Will we continue to let our families fall apart or will we boldly come alongside all parents and call out men to be the godly role models and spiritual leaders of their families?
Imagine...what if there were no more divorces within our churches? ...no more adultery? ...no more sexual immorality? ...no more 'love' based on feelings for one another? ...what if dads were no longer abuse, distant or absent?
- How would individuals be different?
- How would marriages be different?
- How would children be different?
- How would families be different?
- How would our churches be different?
- How would the world be different because our families would no longer be following the world's pattern for living?
- How much more effective would we be at raising children to know God and passionately pursue a relationship with Him?
- How much more effective would we be at living out God's unconditional love to a world so desperately in search of it?
Now, go change the world!
Statistics obtained from Southwestern News, A publication of Southwestern Baptist Theol. Seminary, Winter 2011, Volume 69 No. 2
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