Father’s Day Sermon Ideas

It’s almost mother’s day in the United States, which means Father’s Day is right around the corner, and social media is about to be inundated with pictures and posts saying, “Happy Father’s Day!”

I thought it would be a great idea to find out what the Word of God says about the kind of father we should be. The best way to learn about fatherhood is to look to the perfect father we have in heaven.
As pastors begin to prepare their fathers day sermon, they will no doubt speak of our heavenly father as an example to be a good father and a godly father here on earth.

When I was a little boy, I looked to my earthly father as an example of who I should strive to become. He definitely taught me a lot about how to tell dad jokes and was a great spiritual example. I love him and hope he has a happy fathers day.

As I have grown in my Christian life and into a greater understanding of the love of God, I know that no human father can be the best father they can be without the help of the Holy Spirit. When I had my own children, I gained a different perspective of what the Bible means when it teaches us about the kingdom of God and the idea of God being a loving father.

What I want to do with this article is give some father’s day sermon outline ideas as well as a look into what it takes to be a christian father. I hope they will help us learn more about the father’s plan and help men grow into great spiritual fathers and the godly man that God wants them to be.

Here are some sermon ideas (or lessons for a Sunday School class) that can be used for Father’s Day. I have also included some Bible verses to get you started as you prepare for your church service.

Father’s Day Sermons

The apostle Paul and his relationship with Timothy: This is a great way to show the importance of godly role models for young men. You can find most of the relationship between Paul and Timothy in 1 and 2 Timothy, especially the parts where he calls Timothy his son and speaks to him directly, giving him instructions and speaking to him as if he were his own father.
God as the ultimate father of every Christian: When Jesus teaches his apostles to pray (in Matthew 9:6-13 and Luke 11:2-4) he shows them a lot about the family of God. His prayer beginning with “Our Father” gives us a lot of insight into how God is our Father. You could potentially use this as a springboard to showing God’s fatherly love for His followers.
The heart of God for the entire world: In John 3:16, the Bible expresses the father’s plan to send our Lord Jesus Christ to the whole world. This shows God’s heart for the world as that of a father who wants to save His people from their sins.
The story of the prodigal son and the father’s response (Luke 15:11-32): Even though we (and our kids) make a huge mistake, the love of God never fails. We always have an opportunity for a second chance.
The relationship between the Father and His Son Christ Jesus is evident throughout the gospels. There are many passages that speak to the love and communion between the Father and the Son, which makes their relationship a great example with practical ideas for us in our earthly relationships.
What does the Old Testament teach us about Father’s Day? There are examples of Fatherhood (Abraham and Isaac), instructions for fathers (Deuteronomy 6), and many other ideas that you could use from the Old Testament for a father’s day sermon.
Father’s giving good gifts out of their great love for their children (Matthew 7:11): The New Testament passages talk about how the Father gives good gifts. The goodness of God and His grace and mercy towards His children are evident throughout the Bible, and these could be used to preach a Father’s Day sermon or teach a Sunday School lesson about the goodness of God and how we can seek to imitate Him in our relationships with our sons and daughters.
God the Father as the perfect example for how to treat our own children: This one goes with the above, but even deeper, you could go through many qualities of God as the perfect example of fatherhood.
The importance of teaching the way of the Lord to our children (Ephesians 6:4): Father’s day would be a great time to remind parents of their responsibility to disciple their children. Even the man who is a young father should understand that he needs to teach god’s word to his children. Single parents can also do the little things to bring up their children the right way according to what God teaches in the Scripture.

I hope these sermon ideas will help you as you celebrate Father’s Day this year.

A few other things to remember are that not all families are the same. A quick search on the internet will show you that fatherlessness statistics that say that 25% of all children live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. This leads to many consequences. There is much stress on this special day, and many children suffer from abuse or lack of parents in their lives. Many people have a distorted view of what fatherhood is because of the lack of examples in their lives. The church can help with this by doing the small things and helping both young people and adults understand what God intends for the family.

I hope you have a happy father’s day and that these ideas help you with your preparation for such a special day.

Leadership Lessons Learned from Game 6 of the World Series

If you know me, you know I’m a huge Tampa Bay Rays fan. We have been watching Rays baseball every night for a long time (even when we were living in Mexico City), and this year’s playoff run has been a highlight of a crazy 2020.

In case you don’t know, the Rays played the Dodgers in the World Series. After an emotional back and forth series, the Rays had their backs against the wall in Game 6.

They put Blake Snell on the mound, who had an incredible Game 2 performance, and he was on fire in Game 6. He had 9 strikeouts in 5 innings and had only given up one hit.

Then the second Dodgers’ hit in the 6th inning caused Kevin Cash to come out and take out the 2018 AL Cy Young Award Winner. The Dodgers went on to score 2 runs that inning off of the Rays bullpen and ultimately won the game and the championship.

Kevin Cash’s decision was not very welcomed by Snell, the fans, or much of social media. As I ponder the entire situation, I think there are at least three leadership lessons to be learned from this series of events:

3 Leadership Lessons Learned in Game 6 of the World Series:

LESSON 1: Everyone wants to give their opinion on your performance.

We live in a society where every single person is happy to share their opinion. We are encouraged to talk about it all over social media. Twitter lights up with commentary on all sorts of things, from what people wear to what they say. Leaders understand that everyone will have an opinion on their performance, yet they don’t let that dissuade them from taking action. I’m convinced that Kevin Cash knew that taking out your ace in the 6th inning would be critiqued for ages by baseball commentators and fans alike. Criticism is part of leadership. Get ready.

LESSON 2: Sometimes what gets you where you are doesn’t take you where you want to go.

The Rays have depended on their bullpen this season. They have been stellar, with so many guys who can step up and shut down a team. It is no wonder Cash thought that the bullpen would carry them through in this game as well. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, as a leader, you have to evaluate the current situation and make adjustments to your typical strategy. What you’ve done in the past doesn’t always work out in your favor again. It’s a fine line between second guessing, going with your gut, and sticking to the plan. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Good leadership understands that and is willing to take the risks associated with each one of those decisions.

LESSON 3: Tomorrow is another day.

Sure, the agony of defeat stings for a few days. We were so close. It was such a fun season. The regular season, big playoff series victories against the Yankees and Astros just to make it to an incredibly entertaining World Series—all of those things will remain in our minds for a while. The bad taste in our mouth from this World Series loss will hopefully just make the Rays more hungry to win next year. In leadership, you cannot dwell on your past losses or even successes. You have to realize that it’s a new day with new opportunities and possibilities.

While I’m sad my team lost last night, I know they will take the lessons they learned and put them towards winning tomorrow. After all, there are only 114 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

An Easy Method to Get to Know People

Sometimes it’s difficult to start conversations with students. Sometimes, you spend what feels like hours with someone without ever actually having a real conversation or learning anything about them.

One of our main goals on Sunday nights is to “connect students to caring adults who will share and show them Jesus,” Well…the good news is that we have students. We have caring adults.

Now we need to do the “connecting” part.

One of the best ways to connect is to talk (duh). But sometimes that’s difficult. I want to give you a guide to begin a conversation with a student. You may have heard this before. It’s the FROG method.

Each letter stands for something—Family, Recreation, Occupation, and Goals. These categories will help as you try to connect with students.

FAMILY: Ask about parents, siblings, family traditions (how’s your family celebrating whatever holiday is coming up), etc. If you know something about the parents, ask how they’re doing. Remember to avoid yes or no questions and don’t worry about going too deep here. We’re just trying to connect a little here.

RECREATION: What do they do in their spare time? What did they do this weekend? If you know they play a sport, ask how that’s going or when the next game is (bonus points for going to watch them play). This should be an easy category with students. If you don’t know what they’re into, ask. They’ll tell you.

OCCUPATION: I realize most of our students aren’t working, but they do go to school. It’s kind of their occupation right now. Ask how that’s going. Ask about their favorite subject. What they’ve done lately. If they’re in any clubs (that might fall under recreation). How their teachers are this year. What they’re learning. Etc.

GOALS: You can ask students about future plans. What they (might) want to study. What they’re doing next break. What their hopes and dreams are. You get the idea.

The point it that these categories should help you when you’re sitting there waiting with students for an event to start or just see them sitting around the lobby at church. Take advantage of the time to have a conversation and connect with them.

The New Ministry Leaders

This past Monday was our first leadership team meeting of the summer. We have a lot of great plans for the summer, but this week we just sat together at a Starbucks and talked about the many things that are going on in our lives as well as some of what we’ll be doing at camp next week as well as during our leadership meetings later this summer.

One of the topics we talked about was what spiritual leadership is going to look like in the future. When I was a kid, if you wanted to make an impact for the Kingdom of God, it was expected that you would be a missionary or a pastor. You would go to Seminary and study, look for a “full time ministry position,” and boom, you’d be a spiritual leader.

While those are still viable options, it’s pretty obvious that not all people who feel God calling them to impact the world can or should follow that path. In fact, some schools like Liberty University are cutting divinity school faculty due to lack of enrollment. I think every student ought to consider and be open to “full time Christian ministry,” but the Church should face the reality that not every committed student is going to be a pastor or missionary.

That’s where the new ministry leaders come in. I often dream about this.

What if Ninja used his influence for the Kingdom of God? He’s a streamer on Twitch who, as of May 2019, averaged 40,000 viewers per week.

What if Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) openly talked about Jesus? (To be clear, I’m not saying he is not a Christian. I do not know him or his religious beliefs).

What I’m saying is that the next generation of ministry leaders just might be the kind of people who live out their faith and use their cultural influence to share the gospel in ways that are not what we have traditionally thought of as “ministry.”

There are many examples of people who are doing that, both on a large and small scale.

If we look to sports, we find people like Tim Tebow, Tony Dungy, Dikembe Mutombo, and Steph Curry.

The Dude Perfect guys who have over 42 million subscribers on YouTube, state that they do what they do to “glorify Jesus Christ in all that we do.”

I also personally know lawyers, doctors, school teachers, coffee shop owners, and others who are using their gifts and talents for the Kingdom of God. They are the new ministry leaders.

I don’t know what the future holds for the student leaders in our ministry, but my prayer is that, no matter what career path they choose, they will use it to influence the culture and those around them with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Five Things I Learned from Coaching Soccer

This weekend we wrapped up our soccer season at the Y. We had a fun time. It was my first time coaching my daughter, and it was also her first time playing. She is so fast and had a great season. I could see her playing more soccer in the future. I also had the best assistant coach in the history of soccer (Janell).

I’ve had some time to reflect about the season and what I learned, and I thought I’d share it here. There are some life lessons in here that I hope to remember from our first soccer season together.