The question “Who am I?” has thrust itself to the forefront of my attention at three periods of my own life.
Period One
When I left high school, a Christian teacher gave me a farewell present of Die­trich Bonhoeffer’s famous book The Cost of Discipleship. Among the additional pieces it included was his poignant poem “Who Am I?” It is deeply self-reflective, probing, and honest: Is he really the person whom others admire for his poise and dignity when he himself experiences hidden struggles?
Am I then really that which other men tell of?Or am I only what I myself know of myself?Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressingMy throat, yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,tossing in expectation of great events,powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance. . . .
There is something honestly biblical and Christian about such self-probing. The Apostle Paul knew this contrast between the internal and external realities of life. Bonhoeffer’s final resolution is, like Paul’s (1 Cor. 4:1–5), altogether healthy: “Whoever I am, Thou knowest O God, I am thine.”
Period Two
I encountered the same words “Who am I?” a couple of decades later, in the discovery that they were the most commonly used title for poems written by high-school students. The question was not so much self-consistency but the quest for maturity. There was nothing surprising about this—nor necessarily unhealthy. The teenage years are times of personal growth in self-knowledge: What are my gifts and aspirations? What kind of character am I becoming? What do I want to do with my life? What, and who, will be really important to me? All these are questions that our experiences invite us to ask, think through, and answer. They are part of the process of healthy maturation.
Period Three
But when the question “Who am I?” is asked today, although the words remain the same, the tone and the nuance have changed dramatically. By and large, the question today is not one of mature self-examination or an expression of personal growth but a question of self-invention. Frequently it has become genderized and sexualized. Now the refrains sung by the siren voices of the world sing to young sailors beginning their journey on the sea of life are:
You can be anything you want; you alone choose your identity.
While you alone must choose, we will tell you what your choices are and define the field of discussion—although, of course, you can choose to be and self-identity as you please; there is total self-autonomy.
And fundamental in your choice is the question of your decision about the gender and sexuality you will choose for yourself. That will almost entirely define you and dominate your thinking.
And among other things, we are informing you, dogmatically, that answering this question will involve your considering the possibility that you have been born in the wrong body.
In addition, by way of warning, be aware that to regard our parameters as misguided or erroneous or, worse, to deny their validity is to commit sin. It is a transgressing of our norms that we will seek to silence. Breaching them will require your re-education by our people and expose you to marginalization and perhaps complete exclusion.
While it is not yet said quite so universally and boldly, our societies have been moving in the direction of silencing the biblical view of human nature. We need to understand that inevitably when there is no place for God in our thoughts, a right understanding of man as made in His image will also be rejected. Nietzsche-like, would-be thought leaders implicitly cry out, “If there is a god, how can I bear not to be that god?” and—in fulfillment of Romans 1:32—will urge others to share their distortions to make them seem “normal” and eventually normative. (“Equality” was never the goal.)

Keeping our children in church every Sunday is HARD. It is hard being the only adult able to correct and train on a weekly basis. It is hard to constantly be leaving service to discipline a toddler and continually coming back in. It is hard, but it is so worth it. There is no better use of my time than to teach our children the importance of corporate worship together.

We had the privilege of worshipping with some friends last Sunday. Jacob team preaches with another faithful pastor, meaning from time to time we as a family get to travel and be visitors with other churches we otherwise wouldn’t ever get to see. It is always such a privilege and a treat when we get to worship together as a whole family in the pew. Since becoming a Pastor’s wife, I will never again take for granted the entire family sitting together during worship. But this post isn’t about that. This post is about giving thanks for what I observed in our children during this service. Our children have been sitting through church services for their whole life. They are used to sitting through a worship service. Services are often interactive, including singing together, responsive readings, prayer and a sermon. Whenever we attend another church, we have the same, if not higher, expectations than on a regular Sunday. This past Sunday we asked a lot of our kids ages 2, 5, 8 and 11.  They have amazed us in the past in their ability to be flexible to various orders of service and to learn from God’s Word from a multitude of different preachers.
Last Sunday was one of those days.  We asked them to wake extra early so we could drive a little over an hour to a friend’s church. We then asked them to sit quietly during the entire service, which was different from what they were used to. A wonderful service, but different. We then asked them to eat quietly at a table and play calmly while we had lunch at the church with some friends. Unfortunately, due to the weather we were unable to play outside, which was the original hope. We asked a lot of our children and they exceeded our expectations in a new environment. 
Children Can’t Sit Long
Thinking back on the worship service, I had several reasons to give thanks. Our normal Sunday service runs about 1 hour and 10 minutes. There are ample times when the children are active, responsive, up and down participating through singing and reading. We allow them to bring a notebook and pen, or a small toy for the younger ones, to use during the sermon to help keep their hands occupied and ears open. This week, I forgot to grab our church notebooks. A Big mistake! Or so I thought until we arrived at church. Again, our children surprised me! They were perfectly fine listening to the sermon without their notebooks. Not only did they sit quietly (well, all but the toddler) but they sat through a service that was 1.5 hours. An extra 20 minutes longer than they are used to. They were friendly and interactive with those who sat around us. And despite not knowing many of the songs included in the service, they began to sing along on the 2nd or 3rd verse as best they could.
So why am I telling you this? It is not to brag about our kids, or to brag about our parenting. It is to brag about God. To brag about the goodness of His Word. To brag about the all captivating Word that he speaks to all ages. I often hear parents, grandparents and well meaning friends say that children can not sit through the worship service. I hear that children are too young to sit still for that long. That they are not able to understand the sermon. The word of God written in Scripture is above their heads. We hear that children must have the story retold in an easier way. How foolish can we be to insinuate that the Word of God is too hard for our children? That we, sinful creatures can take the word of God and minimize it for our children. That we know better than God. It’s insulting to God and proves our selfish, sinful, conceited attitudes. 
Many children in our western culture have been told they can’t sit in worship. They have been led to believe that the Bible is too difficult for them to understand. That there are only certain stories worth learning about. Why these stories? Because some believe kids can only learn the “fun stories of scripture.” Children are taught about Jericho falling down, but are they taught about Joshua, Rahab, or Moses? Are they taught why the walls of Jericho needed to fall down? Are they taught of the victory of God in fulfilling His great promises to His people? Are they taught how destructive and devastating sin is? Are they exposed to the ultimate reality of God’s wrath against His enemies? Are they told of the grace of God in Christ? Are they taught about the significance of the return of
What Are Children Being Taught in “Kids Church”
For us at Redeeming Family, we desire (as do many who serve the church by volunteering with children’s ministry programs) to see the lambs brought to the great shepherd Jesus. Often the confusion we experience surrounding children’s ministry isn’t about motive, it is about method.
From our observations through years of participating and volunteering in a variety of capacities in multiple churches, the content of “kids church” is often lacking at best, and counterproductive at worst. Children might be taught that Jesus was a good man (rather than the God-Man) who died for them to save them from their sins. But are they taught the consequences of their sin?
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The Church has been richly blessed by the formulation and the preservation of the Apostles Creed. Perhaps it makes sense to recite it daily during family devotions, or when you get up in the morning. Keeping this creed in our hearts and at the forefront of our minds may assist in equipping us for remembering that every day serves as an opportunity for serving the Lord!

The Apostles’ Creed, as we possess it today, was not the first formally adopted or crafted creed. That honor belongs to the Nicene Creed. However, versions or parts of the Apostles’ Creed, serving as a baptismal confession, can be traced back to Irenaeus of Lyons (180), Tertullian of Carthage (200), Cyprian of Carthage (250), and Rufinus of Aquilega (390) among others. The creed of Marcellus of Aneyra from 340 reads:
I believe in God the Father Almighty.And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;Who was born of the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary;Was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried;The third day he rose from the dead;He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;From thence he shall come to judge the quick [living] and the dead.And in the Holy Ghost;The Holy Church;The forgiveness of sins;The resurrection of the body.
Despite the various articulations of the rule or standard of faith, there was a lot of unity on the core tenets of Christianity. Eventually, these various forms were merged into the Apostles’ Creed.
However, it took longer still for it to be universally adopted. In his History of the Christian Church (Vol. 1), Philip Schaff suggests that:
“if we regard, then, the present text of the Apostles’ Creed as a complete whole, we can hardly trace it beyond the sixth, and certainly not beyond the close of the fifth century, and its triumph over all the other forms in the Latin Church was not completed till the eighth century, or about the time when the bishops of Rome strenuously endeavored to conform the liturgies of the Western church to the Roman order.”
The Apostles’ Creed has as its foundation Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and the baptismal instruction in Matthew 28:19: “… baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” While the Apostles’ Creed is sometimes divided into “twelve articles of the Christian faith” it would be fair to suggest that there are three main divisions:

God the Father and our creation
God the Son and our redemption
God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification (cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 8).

A Hedge Against 3 Heresies
The Apostles’ Creed was articulated, not only as a baptismal confession, but also as a defense of orthodox Christianity. In the early church, Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism were threats to the unity and purity of the church.

Gnosticism

In his book, A History of Christianity (2 Volumes), historian Ken Latourette explains that:
“[Gnosticism] regarded pure spirit as good, but thought of that spirit as having become imprisoned in corrupt matter. Salvation was the freeing of spirit from matter.”
They also had a view of God that is quite convoluted. Latourette notes that, in general, Gnostics “held that there exists a first Principle, the all-Father, unknowable, who is love and who alone can generate other beings” and since love demands companionship, the all-Father brought forth other beings into existence who collaborated to create this world. “The present world was ascribed to a subordinate being, the Demiurge, who was identified with the God of the Old Testament.”
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