My son is in kindergarten.  One of the kindergarten students had their father come and visit the class and a little boy in the class was distraught and said, “Where you get a Daddy?  How did you get one of those?  Where can I get one?”

There is a generation that is growing up absence from a father.  So many children and teenagers grow up without a father.  Many of them do not have one that lives in their home others have a father that is so busy with work, that they rarely have a conversation with him.  In the community I live in it is very prevalent in the african american community.  In fact the statistic is about 70% of these students do not have a father in the home.  The great tragedy is not only that these children do not have  a male role model, disciplinarian, or father figure.  The great tragedy is that the church turns a deaf ear. 

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

This fatherless generation of teenagers and children need a male role model especially our young men.  How can they know how to be a man and lead if they have no role model.  This is why it is so important for men to rise up and begin to life coach this younger generation. 

One of the reasons that I coach middle school football is to build relationships with these young men.  Many of which will not have a father in the stands this season watching them play.  May god bless our coaches and help them to be the role model that these young men can emulate. 

Psalm 68:4 Sing to God, sing praise to his name,  extol him who rides on the clouds ^[a]€”
       his name is the LORD€” and rejoice before him.

 5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

“Where you get a Daddy?  How did you get one of those?  Where can I get one?”

His name is the Lord.  A father who loves unconditionally.

I have 4 brothers.  Craig is the oldest, manager at PMSC in Columbia (he left the company 3 times and returned and now manages those who stuck around the company.  Funny how that works.  Citadel Grad with a masters).  Calvin is a mechanical engineer that makes bombs at SRS. (Clemson grad) Len is a Senior Vice president of Bank of America in the global treasury division (Clemson grad. he’s 28).  Luke is an assistant principal of Lexington High School (Clemson and USC grad. he also is 28, 5 minutes younger than his identical twin.) Mom and Dad didn’t do that bad.  The funny thing is that we enjoy spending time with one another.  Every year we get away for a weekend.   Last year we all came up with a weekend destination and activities and then wrote a letter and mailed it to our oldest brother.  Each week we would draw out one of the activities, which would not be the one we would do, read it and file it away.  So this year we used one of those that was not chosen to do.  Destination:  Table Rock.  Mission:  Make it to the top.

The first day we spent on Lake Jocassee which is a beautiful 1000 foot deep lake in the valley of a mountain that was dammed up.  We putted around on a pon toon boat, explored 3 waterfalls that go into the lake and caught 0 fish.

One such waterfall was the last leg of Whitewater falls.  This is where I proposed to Leisa and she “happily excepted”.  That is an inside joke with my brothers that is another quite humurous story.  Not the proposal but the phrase.  Wish you knew the story.

At any rate, it was my desire to get up as high as we could on this waterfall because it kept bending to the right.  There would be a falls, a pool, a falls above it.  I could hear the rushing of water and I desired to make it to the top.  So final last words were, hey guys follow me.

I began to climb up a pretty steep rock face, wade across a pool, and then I saw a steep ledge that lead up to the vantage point of the next falls.  I secured my foot on the rock, and then took my other foot to see if the rock was slippery.  My “secured” foot gave way, and I planted my other on the slimy rock which also gave way, and I began my desent.  I first hit a rock with my forearm and it completely twisted the band of my brand new watch.  Then I hit the other rock with both shins.  I ended up about 8 feet down in the pool of water with my camera in my pocket.  I quickly saved the camera, and then checked to see if the brothers had seen what transpired.  Luckily that were still trying to make their way across the creek.  I hollered, “Go back.  Go back!”

I’m sure there is a spiritual illustration there, but I don’t have time to come up with it yet.  If you have a good one, let me know.  That will save me some time.

The next day we climbed table rock, with a bum leg and arm.  The highlights of this trip was the 50 year old man that ran past us and when we were half way up, ran past us again after reaching the summit.  The 65 year old lady that made it to the top the same time we did, that started 20 minutes after us.  And of course the view at the top.  It was quite spectacular.  Summit:  3000+ feet.  Close to that of Mt Everest I think.

On Sunday, I had a spiritual experience.  We went to a predominately African American church in Simpsonville, Bethlehem Baptist Church.  http://www.bbc1867.org/ It was unbelievable.  I say predominately because there were 5 brothers that were predominately white.  Let me say that the experience far out weighed reaching the summit of Table Rock.  Being a student minister I have had much experience in “white” worship, and let me say that I have never experienced the worship that I did at Bethlehem.  Their choir was unbelievable.  Everyone sang out and were on perfect harmony.  The men’s choir was 40 members strong and sang 5 selections and the gospel choir was fantastic and sang 3 selections.  The highlight was a 70 year old lady singing “I ain’t tired yet”  I can still hear the voices of the choir chanting that line as she sang.  The preaching was powerful and everyone was on their feet by the end of the sermon.  He walked through the passage of  Matthew 25 where Jesus challenges the people to love the destitute. 

The highlight of the day was when they introduced us during the welcome time as well as the other visitors and had us stand up.  It felt a bit akward, but the church erupted in applause.  Then the pastor said, “Welcome our visitors”.  Now in my church if we were to do this, it would take 2 minutes.  Shake the hands of those in front of you and behind you.  At Bethlehem this took 10-15 minutes.  Every person in the church came by to speak to us and not only that we had about 5 stay and carry on a conversation with us.  I connected with a guy from Blackville that played football against me in high school.

The service was 2 hours long, which was the quickest 2 hours I have ever been a part of.  A few things I thought about.

1.  Why is the most segregated time in American, during the AM hours of Sunday morning when there should be unity between the church of Christ?

2.  It is such a joy to be able to worship with brothers of another culture, not think of yourself as better than them, and appreciate their worship of God.

3.  If the church in America were somehow to come together, I would not want their culture to miss out on their worship.  I wonder if that soulful worship would be diminished.

It was a great weekend.  There is no one other than my immediate family that I would want to hang out with than my 4 blood brothers.