In 1997 Edith Schaeffer wrote a book entitled, ” What is a Family?” I read it when the youngest of our 8 kids was 10 years old, and it had a very profound impact on my thinking, and caused me to give great praise to my heavenly Father for the amazing gift He had given to Patty and I. Today we have eight children, I guess it is hard to call them children now with the oldest being around 45 years old. Today we have been married almost 51 years, we have six daughters and two sons, all who are married, with good marriages, and 27 grandchildren. They all love Jesus, each other, and us.

The term ”nuclear family” is one that consists of two parents, father and mother and children, one or more living together in the same house. The nuclear family is the basic unit of any healthy culture and society. There are many discussions today about what has gone wrong with America. There are many different issues and causes, but I am sure that the demise of the nuclear family is a major one. The percentage of kids raised in a ”nuclear family” has gone down every year. Right at the end of World War II the percentage of families with two parents was almost 80%, and today it is less than 50%.

Today in my life as a pastor one of my main activities is to pray for every person in our church every week. I pray for God to work in marriages, to give parents wisdom to train their kids to be champions, I pray for every husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church, I pray for divine protection around every kid so that they are not deceived and led astray by the devil and his demons, I pray that every person follows the Lord and serves Him with their talents and gifts, and I pray that every family is bound together by love.

I won’t know until I get to heaven what difference and impact my praying has had, but by faith, I believe it is great.