In July, Lord willing, we'll be having our fourth child. We know a few families with four kids, and one of them seems to have an incident almost weekly with other people's "dismay" over the sheer quantinity of thier children--as if they lived too close to a stork farm or something. Kids come via something much better than storks...

Today in the parking lot of the local grocery store I saw a bumper sticker that kind of sums up some of this American sentiment: "If I wanted to hear the pitter patter of little feet, I'd put shoes on my dog." It runs quite opposite of scripture's stance on children: that they are a blessing from God.

Anyways, because we are gearing up to join the number of the ridiculed, we are trying to sharpen up on our approach to parenting...learning more here and there. At a conference I was at last week , I was introduced to a great book on family. It is fairly radical to modern ears...though it wouldn't be to the generations that lived for 1800 years before us. It's called Family Driven Faith: Doing what it takes to raise sons and daughters who walk with God . My wife Nancy has been reading it and sharing the insights she is picking up along the way. It isn't about some practical tips to address your kids' behavior--its a deeper look at what parenting is about. There are parts of it you won't like (we don't) but that is becuase they confront us. We're not sure about all of it, but it challenges us to take a good hard look at our roles as parents of children--children that our culture wants to shape and mold--children that are not valued in a culture with bumperstickers and abortion.