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South Bay SDA Church

God Fearing Families

Dan Towar

Patsy Towar

So we've come all this way and we are looking forward to being able to share with you some very precious things that have really made the difference in our family.

And we pray that what we share will be so significant that maybe you will put it into practice as well in your families.

We really believe in the message that we have this morning because we've seen that it works.

We've seen that God is working in our family and continues to work in the lives of those who are our precious legacy, our children and our grandchildren.

Yeah, our youngest daughter this morning called us and said, Mom, I'm praying for you.

And she said, it's about time you share your secrets.

So it's pretty good when your children are going to, they're knowing ahead of time that their secrets are being shared in front of the South Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church and they're willing participants even though they're not here personally as well.

Maybe I should just go ahead and introduce our family.

Our daughters Heidi and Melanie are very precious to us.

They are, they've been with us for a long time.

It won't say how long because we don't want to maybe go there.

But this is our extended family, our daughters Heidi and Melanie, and let's see I have my pointer over here so maybe that will work on both screens.

It won't work both screens at 1 time will it?

That's technology hasn't figured that out yet.

She is a registered medical social worker.

She has about 10 initials after her name.

She has a longer initial after her name than her actual birth name, if you know what I mean.

And her husband Christian is senior pastor at the Living Hope Church in Haymarket, Virginia.

Can I see a raise of hands of someone who might know Heidi and Christian?

Our kids are more well known than we are these days and so we praise God about that.

They also host the Hope Channel daily, Monday through Friday program called Wake Up.

They have a son, Elijah, and he's on the left here and their daughter, Mariah.

They're 14 and 12 respectively and they take care of horses and they shoe them and they muck out the stalls and they're just a very special both of them.

Yes they're homeschooled They happen to be homeschooled as well.

And then over to the right is our daughter Melanie.

And her husband Michael is the senior pastor at Campion Academy and their children Kena and Micah are 8 and 6 and they have a lot of big plans for their life.

We've just enjoyed 2 weeks with them at the Campion Church.

And by the way, we understand that you know Eddie and Sarah Sweezo.

How many of you know the Sweezos out there?

He's the head elder at the church where Michael and Melanie are pastoring.

So they've become very good friends and Sarah babysits the kids once in a while.

So that's a little bit of an introduction.

We'll give you more of the inside scoop this afternoon if you want to hear more at our presentation, Parenting for Eternity.

All right, well Let's have prayer and we'll go right from there into, if you wanna key it up first, John, the song we're going to begin with called Family.

Dear Father in heaven, we do wanna thank you today for the love of Jesus.

Your love transforms people's hearts and your love makes us family.

It's not just who was born to whom, but it's the love of Christ that brings a family, a true family, together.

And we ask that your presence will be with us today and inspire us Lord with hope and with grace and peace and with a discipline to see what would be possible by the workings of your Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus name Amen okay we're gonna sing a song called family We learned this a number of years ago when we were on vacation out by Glacier Park, and I hope it will be a blessing to you.

Oh, that's the closing hymn, the family of God.

It's all about family and it is a wonderful, wonderful song.

Diana Grakov

Parenting with a Purpose

Okay, so I am so excited that we can start our time together and unfortunately it's too short and I am gifted in long speeches.

So, but we'll, we'll, we'll, I'm going to do and try and do my best.

I am not an expert in parenting and I'm still learning.

I'm striving wholeheartedly to be the best parent that I can be for my children.

And if I'm to summarize my parenting journey with you in 2 sentences, it would sound something like this.

She did not know at all how to be a mother, but she was willing to learn.

With her whole heart, she has been crying out to God, and he has heard and has blessed tremendously.

So my husband and I, Stoyan and I, have 3 children.

3 young people who through the years have helped me understand God's love in a much deeper way than I ever did before.

And these 3 children have helped the unsuspected wretchedness in my heart to be revealed in its ugliest shape and form, which has made me numerous times feel completely broken and desperate and had thrown me on my knees to seek the Lord with my whole heart, and my children have made me look to God for strength every morning and pray with all my heart.

So this and much more has happened in my life because of my children.

Rhonda is now 22, and she's a senior at Southern.

She's majoring in religious studies, but heading to medical school by God's grace next year.

He's a freshman at Southern with interest in business.

She finished the home high school last December, and she went on a mission trip to Cambodia and Thailand for 4 and 1 1⁄2 months, and she came back last August.

So to be successful in anything, 1 needs to have a goal, to have a purpose, a clear objective, and then figure out how this goal can be achieved and make a plan.

Then use appropriate tools and while doing that, we need to have a good attitude, to be intentional, to be optimistic, persevering till the goal is achieved.

We cannot be successful parents if we do not have a goal for our children, a purpose in raising them.

And as Christian parents, we want our children to love God with all their heart, mind, and strength.

We want them to love people as themselves, to live to be a blessing to others, and do as much good as possible in their lifetime for God's glory.

And we want our children to have the love, the heart, the character of Christ.

We want them to be missionaries for God and his kingdom, and of course, ultimately have eternal life.

I would like us to read this verses in Psalm 127 verse 3 and 4.

Behold, children are heritage from the Lord.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth." So from these verses, 2 important things come at me.

They are His properties and they are given to us temporarily so that we can train them for God and we can enjoy them while we have them.

And second, children are like arrows in the hands of the parents.

Parents can determine to a certain extent which direction the arrow will go.

And this happens by faithfully training our children and helping them to grow physically, spiritually, and emotionally so that they can become all that God wants them to be.

Well, we all know great godly parents who have a child or children who are not walking with the Lord.

And if you are in a situation like that, I want quickly to say, Dear parent, always remember who your God is.

He is the Almighty 1, the 1 for whom there is nothing impossible.

That's why there is no place for despair.

He is still working and doing all possible to save all children.

And He has given us some precious promises, and I want to read those because I love them.

Jeremiah 31, 16 and 17, thus says the Lord, "'Refrain your voice from weeping "'and your eyes from tears, "'for your work shall be rewarded, ' says the Lord, "'and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

"'There is hope in your future, ' says the Lord, "'that your children shall come back to their own border.

And then Isaiah 49, 25 says, But thus says the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prayer of the terrible be delivered.

For I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children." So we are to trust the Lord and continue being the parents God wants us to be, no matter where our children are or how we feel about it.

So having said that, let me tell you part of my story.

I was raised by my mother and we were not Adventists till I was 18.

My mother was a very dedicated mother and a physician who worked really hard.

When I was 7 years old and I was about to start first grade, my mom made it very clear that education was something very important.

She told me that education was the most important thing in life, and so my goal as a child was to study hard, be the best student in my class, get top grades, and 1 day become a physician like her.

So from day 1 of my school, my mom put me on a schedule.

And she even picked out a motto for my life, which I had to memorize and meditate on it.

And it said, in the school of life, there are no holidays.

Honestly, at 7, I did not understand the fullness of that motto.

But my mom explained to me that all I needed to know at that age was that there were no rest days when you are literally in school.

And that meant that I had to study during the weekdays and during the weekends to get top grades.

So from the beginning of my education, my mother had clear goals for me.

She was a secular mother who was parenting with a purpose.

And that is very important, as we said in the beginning.

My mom had a fellow parent to whom she looked up as a role model.

And she was a colleague of hers, and we'll call her for simplicity Mrs.

K's parenting strategy seemed to be working very well.

So basically, she was raising her daughter with very high expectations, and she was conditioning her to believe that she could meet those expectations no matter what.

K had started the process by telling her daughter when she was very young that she would be a top student at school, she would go to medical school, become a physician, would marry a physician, and would eventually become a professor and teach in medical school.

So that had been several years before, and up to that point, the daughter had been following the program to the letter.

So when I was growing up, she already was a physician, married to a physician, and she was on her way to becoming a professor at the medical school.

And it was interesting that although initially the mother had set the goals for the daughter, eventually over time those goals became the daughter's own goals.

So my dear mother decided that she would follow this example and program me as well.

So at the age of 7, she told me I was going to be a top student all the way through high school.

Then I was going to go to medical school.

I would be a top student there and finally become a very good physician.

My mother would remind me often of those goals, and of course she was doing everything possible to ensure my success.

She put me on a schedule, and every minute of my life from then on was busy.

I didn't have time to waste or feel sorry for myself.

My mom supplied me with books and all the resources I needed, and even though she was a single mom and was working full-time, somehow she managed to be involved in everything I did and was following my progress closely and coaching me along the way.

And because of my mother's expectation, I did learn to study hard and get top grades.

And it didn't take long until getting top grades and being a top student became my self-expectation and my goal for myself.

So after middle school, my mother's dream for me was to go to a very competitive English language high school.

I was accepted there and continued studying hard and while I was in that high school, my mom and I became Adventists.

And a lot of things changed for the better.

But of course, I did not lose my zeal for studying and being a top student.

After I graduated the high school with flying colors, because I knew that I was going to be a physician.

I didn't consider any other career but immediately signed up for medical school entrance exams and with God's help was accepted there.

And I have to be honest, I totally loved it.

So now allow me to interrupt my story here and try to make my first point.

If secular mothers can be so determined and so focused on parenting with a purpose and be successful in helping their children to reach the goals that are set before them.

Can we as Christians parent our children God's way with heaven and eternity in mind and be successful?

Parenting with an Eternal Purpose

Let's start with Ephesians 5 21 to 25 Submitting to 1 another in the fear of God wives submit to your own husband ask the Lord for the husband is head of the wife as Also Christ is head of the church and he is the Savior of the body Therefore just as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives as just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for her.

So ought men to love their wives as their own boys He that loveth his wife loveth himself and 33 Never the less let every 1 of you in particular So love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she loves her husband.

Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.

Slaves, obey your earth and master with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, do in the will of God from your heart.

Serve God personally, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.

It's somewhat uncomfortable words for a modern day popular quote.

And I just want to say that if it is to work under God, the husbands have to be willing to love their wives even as Christ also loved the church.

That's the condition upon which they can claim the headship in the family.

The husband is to represent Jesus and be like him to his wife and his children.

So he's not to be an overlord or a dictator.

And when that is taking place, wives genuinely, I believe, like that.

And if it's not the case, then they genuinely think that they have to step it up.

And then you have a lot of wives who provide this spiritual leadership for their family.

My mother provided the spiritual leadership for my family.

I didn't live up with, live, grow up with a father that, who mentored me in the Lord.

It was my mother who did it, I'm glad she did, but we are called as men to be that kind of person.

When I was young in ministry, maybe I'll tell them to stop because the next picture is easier to see.

But when I was young in ministry, I would work late just out of necessity to have Bible studies, to be at present board meetings.

And Patsy, early on, she tried to stay up for me, but she was still getting up very early and she had to make a choice.

So she decided to go to bed early, which was really the spiritual choice for her to make so she could get up early enough to have devotions and she would be ready for the children.

I didn't keep early hours, but I'd get home after a while and she would already be in bed.

I understood why and no problem with that because I knew she'd get up early and have devotions and I knew the children were getting up very early.

And I'd get up early but not quite as early as that.

So our goal in our home was to love Jesus first, the 2 of us, that was our priority.

And then our other thing was to raise our children to love the Lord and to love the Adventist lifestyle, to love the standards that our church sets up, and to love God's Word.

And so I'm just going to share with you just a foundation that we had in our home, standards.

We did in the beginning because someone gave it to us, but we found it controlled our lives, so we got rid of it.

Dan was making his ministry kind of around it so he could see the news at 6.30.

And we had a piano so we played a lot of hymns in our home.

If toys come into our home, and I'm just sharing with some of the standards.

The toys did not have jewelry on them, you know, they were Barbie dolls.

And so we made sure that the Barbie dolls, we didn't want anything influencing them in a negative way and take them down the wrong path.

We also did not have a deck of cards in our home.

We did have things like Uno or cards like that, but we really try to make everything as spiritually a go to keep them on track.

We loved, every time there was a church function, it's not because we were a pastor's family, We would have done this with or without that.

We took them to every evangelistic meeting.

And where there was places where they themselves could be involved actually doing something, we volunteered them to do special music, read scripture, whatever it took.

They were very much involved up front and then, you know, so they got comfortable with that.

And by the way, we had lots of hugs and kisses and were very close to 1 another.

It wasn't just what I call, you know, floating around.

But as they got older, we took them on mission trips.

Every time the church had 1, we would do our best to ministry with family.

We homeschooled them until the age of 10.

We read that in Ellen White's writing, said it's best to keep them in the home until the age of 10.

I know some, our grandkids have went longer.

But we truly got called into the conference office because we were homeschooling our kids.

So we, you know what I mean, we blazed a trail at that point, it was kind of a new thing.

But we, you know, it's just the way it was.

We just did all kind of things that brought them closer to Jesus Christ.

We listened, we listened, and we listened, and we kept the communication lines open.

You pray for each other and you listen a lot.

We wanted to, we didn't want rock music to come into our home, So we took an aggressive form of action.

They both play the piano, 1 plays violin, 1 plays flute, they both play the guitar, and it's being carried on into the next generation of grandchildren.

We did not want our home to be divided, so we had to work extra hard, but just the 2 of us.

When you come from a broken home and then to present to break that generational curse, is that what it's called?

So they can go forward and be a witness to the Lord and our kids today reflect by God's grace that kind of lifestyle.

We have 3 secrets about this 1 big secret that really changed our children from early on so we wouldn't have to fight so hard, so to speak.

1 is that we need to personalize our own and prioritize our own devotional life every day.

I guess it was the last class you mentioned about Sabbath school.

Maybe you've mentioned it already, but this keeps you on a daily basis, if you follow that Sabbath school lesson, it keeps you regular in your own study.

Whatever it takes, just be consistent in your own study.

And you'll not only be blessed Sabbath morning, like you were today, but you need it day by day and We all need it and the pastor needs it to not just prepare for sermons, which I do a lot of a lot of But I need something other than that just to keep me going to So the second step is having morning and evening worship.

Keith Detwieler