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margo-xmas

Parents often forget that their most important mission field is the home. Living missionally as parents means that God’s goodness should infect our homes as we humbly live out the power of the Gospel in our own lives. And as this happens, we pray God will woo our children to his saving grace.

I am so excited to share that last night, I had the privilege to lead my daughter Margo in a prayer of faith and trust in God’s grace for her salvation. What an unbelievable opportunity! Since Cooper trusted in Christ back in January 2008, Margo has been asking a lot of questions. There have been many moments over the last year of her life where I thought I saw the “lightbulb” come on for her, only to be convinced that she needed some more time.

Last night, we were reading the story of Jesus and the children from Matthew 19 from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones (an amazing Gospel-centered children’s Bible) and I could tell that something clicked in Margo’s spirit. She got it. The part of the story that she resonated with said this:

…no matter how clever you are, or how good you are, or how rich you are, or how nice you are, or how important you are – none of it makes any difference. Because God’s love is a gift and, as anyone will tell you, the whole thing about a gift is, it’s free. All you have to do is reach out your hand and take it.

…You see, children loved Jesus, and they knew they didn’t need to do anything special for Jesus to love them. All they needed to do was to run into his arms…

After I read this, Cooper said, “That’s what I did, Dad,” and Margo said, “That’s all I have to do, Dad?” I told her yes. It knew it was time. It had all been leading to this moment. We went upstairs and we talked for a bit and prayed together. Wow…

What is beautiful about this is that Cooper was drawn to the saving knowledge of Christ through the Word by the same Bible almost a year and a half ago. God’s word is alive!

She is so excited to get baptized, especially to show her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins about her decision, but she is almost more excited to take communion as a family. At The Journey, we come forward to take communion and Holly, Cooper, and I have been doing this together for the past year and a half. Margo has been joining us as we go forward but not partaking. She has been asking more questions lately about what the elements represent.

I think this has been another big part of her journey to Christ. It reflects what can happen when, as an ordinary family, as Tim Chester and Steve Timmis say, you do ordinary things with Gospel intentionality. Just having Margo around the sacraments made an impact on her. It drew her into wanting to be a part of God’s family.

I thank the Lord for the professions of faith of Cooper and Margo and continue to pray for my two youngest, Sloan and Everett. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord…

For further reading, the following post was written in January 2008 and captures my heart on bringing the Gospel to your children, highlighting what is most important and exposing some misconceptions. I would encourage you to read: Bringing the Gospel to your Children: What I’ve Learned So Far



Photo by hickory hardscrabble

I thought I’d wait until we had a little space from Christmas to re-post something here on the blog so your visceral reaction would not so closely connected to the present tense.

Just before Christmas, my friend Shaun Groves wrote a four-part series on the idea of “going giftless.” (And yes, I’m using the word “guiltless” in my blog title on purpose; a little turn of the phrase)

It’s challenging. You may not agree with everything in the series but I think it will be good for your soul to wrestle with this. Holly and I took a big step in this direction with our family this Christmas. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow…

Here is the series:

Going Giftless Part 1
Going Giftless Part 2
Going Giftless Part 3
Going Giftless Part 4


extract’d


Photo by Wrote

When you have small children, you can simply never realize what it is going to be like to one day face them, as adults, with the realization that YOU have shaped them into the persons they will be for all of their lives. If we realized what it really means to create, nurture and shape another person in the deepest of human ways, we’d be frozen with fear. So much of what they are comes from us in ways that were unintended, or unknown or unplanned. Your children are truly a legacy of the kind of person you really are, and of how you’ve lived, how you’ve loved and what you’ve considered most important.

-from “Reflections on Being a Parent of Adult Children” by Michael Spencer on his blog, internetmonk.com


dusting off: fireworks in a ghost town

One of my favorite pieces to appear on relevintage. From last year’s Fourth of July:

Tonight, my family and I – my wife and our 3 children who are all under 5 – went down the road to an interesting spot to view some 4th of July fireworks. A spot that has an intriguing history.

Back in the late 90’s, St. Louis’ Lambert Airport was promised a lucrative contract with a major airline. And with this deal, Lambert would need to expand – extra runways and concourses, etc. So they bought out some land southwest of their facility which in turn meant that neighborhoods, churches, businesses, etc. in that area would need to be demolished and folks would have to relocate.

Well, the contract didn’t meet it desired expectations. Lambert did a partial expansion [although in February of this year, the city announced plans to continue the expansion]. And acres and acres of land now sit empty as thousands of people had to leave.

The Riverfront Times stated in 2002 that over 1925 homes were demolished and in January of this year, the USA Today reported that ,” … the runway displaced 6,000 residents of suburban Bridgeton from their homes. And John Krekeler, one of 16 Lambert airport commissioners, estimates that only 5% of flights at Lambert use the new runway.”

So today, only a few empty houses and a church remain. A veritable ‘ghost town’ in the middle of a major metropolitan city. But in the very back of this ‘ghost town’ sits a park that is a part of the Bridgeton park system. The park still has a certain level of maintenance. And even though there is virtually nothing around it, I think it was made for a night like tonight.

I saw – no joke – probably 20-25 major fireworks displays west down the I-40 corridor – St. Charles, St. Peters, O’Fallon, Lake St. Louis, Wentzville, etc. – north up the I-270 corridor – Bridgeton, Florrisant, Ferguson, etc. – and northwest into Elsberry, Louisiana, etc. Our kids were mesmerized. And so were their parents.

And there were other families there. Ones that I’m sure remember when this community was a fledgling neighborhood. Now all that’s left are empty lots and the occasional home whose windows are broken and shrubs are overgrown.

As we drove out of the ‘ghost town,’ I couldn’t help but think of all the people who were uprooted from these neighborhoods for nothing. They are now scattered all over St. Louis and St. Charles counties. The band director at my church and his family used to live in one of the neighborhoods. They now live in St. Charles.

But I was also reminded as my family and I left the park that home isn’t a structure. Home truly is where the heart resides. And as I looked at my exhausted kids in the rear view mirror and my pregnant wife to the right of me, I realized no one can take your home from you.

Even if they take your house from you.


take me out to the ballgame

These last few months have been filled with ‘firsts’ for Cooper: losing his first tooth, getting baptized, going to a Cards game, and last Wednesday, playing in his first baseball game [it's called Pal Ball and they use a pitching machine]. Here are some snapshots from the friendly confines of Bridgeton Municipal Athletic Complex:






coop’s first cardinals game

As I mentioned last week, three generations of Andrews’ – myself, my six-year old son, and my dad – went to see the Cards play the Nats. Well, we had a great time. Frankly, at times, it was a bit emotional. Here are some shots from Cooper’s first Cardinals game…




In all, the Cards beat the Nats. Rick Ankiel hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first – his story still blows me away, btw. It was a cold night – a far cry from the sweltering games in mid-July. They still were serving frozen lemonade and Ben and Jerry’s. Go figure. Look at it this way. Your soda stayed cold the entire game. But so did your face.

Here was my favorite quote from Cooper:

“I want some cotton candy. It is my job to eat it. But it melts so fast I can’t enjoy it.”

Classic.


cooper’s baptism in pictures

My son Cooper, following in obedience to His Lord’s command to be baptized this past Sunday night at The Journey – Hanley Rd….

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We are so proud of you Coop!


volcanoes, check

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My daughter informed my wife of something during their study of rocks during homeschooling today:

“I know everything about volcano’s because when I was a baby God told me in my heart.”

Volcanoes, check.


it’s a small world after all

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This is pretty cool…

Sally Lloyd-Jones, author of The Jesus Storybook Bible, stopped by relevintage recently and said this:

Brad, I wanted to stop by and say Hi. I am the author of THE JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE and came across your great blog and was so blown away to hear about the special time with Cooper. I am so honored that you could use The Jesus Storybook Bible to maybe help open up the conversation. And so blessed to hear of the way in which the Lord is using the book in your family.

Thank you for sharing such an amazing story. His ways are so Amazing and Awesome. And hearing this story helps me to keep on keeping on. Thank you.

What she says is true. I truly believe that God ordained the use of this children’s Bible to lead my son into the arms of Christ. No, thank you Sally! How amazing to connect with the author of the book that was so influential in my son’s salvation…

And just to answer the question we all have with someone name “Lloyd-Jones,” Sally is not related to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of the most respected preachers and authors of the 20th century. She writes a great response to this eternal question on her blog here: Are You THE Lloyd-Jones?

I would encourage you to check out her personal website and blog, not to mention the other books she has written.

We can’t wait to start “Old McNoah Had a Ark.”


My wife and I have spent the entire month of January doing some soul searching.

The onslaught of the last six months – starting a new job, going to seminary, and having our fourth child – and the prospect of church planting in the near future has really forced us to take a hard look at what we want our and our children’s lives to look like. What is the legacy of the Andrews’ family going to be? Nine years in, we want to make sure the next, hopefully, 70 years will truly honor God and one another. It has been a time-consuming, daunting, and freeing experience all wrapped up into one…

The catalyst for this was a talk we heard a few years back by Mark Driscoll in which he described the process of what he called ‘reverse-engineering’ your life. ‘Reverse-engineering’ is a term Driscoll borrowed from a business friend to describe a process in which you choose a day as far in the future that you can reasonable plan toward—1 year, 2 years, 5 years. You ask questions to yourself, then define what/who you want to be on that day…then ‘reverse-engineer.’

We pored over Driscoll’s most most recent version of his talk at a 2007 Acts 29 boot camp. The notes from a previous talk on the same subject can be found here.

As we walked through the process, we found that the micro required most of our attention, but the macro was overarching impetus. Over the next week, I’m going to try to unpack and let you in ‘behind the curtain’ on more of the ‘micro’ of to encourage and maybe challenge you to think about what you can do right now to begin to reverse-engineer your life. In many ways, this will serve as an type of accountability for us…

Here are the areas we’ll look at:

1) Walk with God
2) Husband/Father
3) Schedule
4) Health
5) Finances
6) Work
7) Learning


about me


Husband and father of four, university instructor, seminarian, worship consultant, and church planting intern.

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