The Need for Fathers

For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.  - 1 Corinthians 4:15

In my field, I work with many troubled youth.  Some of these children may just be starting out on the wrong path, while others are already so far down that path that rehabilitation seems like a pie in the sky dream.  Why is that some youth are going to the prom, while others are spending their birthdays in juvenile detention?  The truth is that there are many factors.  We all know this, and that's why we are here at UrbanMinistry.org.  We're here to address these issues, to exchange ideas and resources, and hopefully to work toward breaking down some of these barriers.  Yet, if there is a factor that I find almost all of the young men I work with have in common, it is the lack of proper fathering.

I am a strong supporter of individual responsibility.  I do not believe that these young people should be excused of the consequences of their actions based on the fact that they have hard lives.  Should we work with them and offer to help?  Absolutely.  We are biblically mandated to do so, but if you take away the responsibility of the individual, then we have given an excuse for lawlessness.  There would be no need for a Messiah if we could all stand before God and say, "Well, if only my father had been there more often."

That being said, the lack of fathers in the lives of these young men and women is crippling them.  I cannot tell you the number of calls I get every day from the mothers of these children begging me to do something.  Instead of "wait til your father gets home" it has become "wait til I call your probation officer."  In effect, they have me fill the traditional role of the father. 

When I was growing up, my father was an alcoholic.  He was abusive.  I have witnessed things many people might be shocked to hear about.  I was physically abused.  My father and mother have been so drunk that my younger sister and I had to care for them as though they were babies.  My sister and I had to protect them and we grew up in a web of lies and excuses.  I never had a father figure to show me how to "be a man."  There was never anyone there to show me how to throw a football or hit a homerun.  There was also never anyone there to teach me how to be a man of God. 

I didn't grow up in juvenile detention.  I was an A student, and almost no one knew my family's dark secret.  Yet, on the inside, I too was crippled by the lack of fathering.  This all changed in September of 2003.  I was a senior in high school and I had life figured out.  All I wanted was a good education so I could make enough money to never be a manual laborer as my father had been.  I wanted to be the opposite of everything he was.

That year, I met a man named Richard.  He was the assistant youth pastor at a church I had started attending.  I basically started attending church, because a cute girl asked me to go. I ended up meeting God, and my life was changed forever.  Richard took me under his wing along with two other young men from our church.  He began to teach us, to challenge us, to develop us into men of God.  Through that time, a lot of wounds were healed, a lot of questions answered, and manhood was finally bestowed on three teenage boys who would may have never found it otherwise.

Now, five short years later, my wife and I are in the process of adopting my two nephews.  I am now a father.  I now have the knowledge of how to help them become all that God wants them to be.  I can teach them what it means to be men of God, and they can have manhood bestowed on them.

My call, my plea to the church is a simple one.  These children need fathers.  All children need fathers, but especially the broken youth.  The gang members.  The drug users.  The ones you find in juvenile detention.  They need fathers.  How many men in the church will take a troubled kid under his wing?  How many will stand up and answer the call to father these young people?  Make no mistake, it will not be easy, but the rewards are eternal.