The American Church spent the better part of the twentieth century living with the implications of the isms of the nineteenth. The "revivalism" of Finney and others became the intellectual predecessor to the technique-driven, program-based church. The evolutionism of the nineteenth century gave us a sociological approach to worship which demanded age segregation. The egalitarianism of the post-Civil War era taught us to view the local church as a connection of completely independent individuals, instead of as members of families, of covenanting communities, and as heirs to a patriarchal legacy. Likewise, the feminism of the post-industrial revolution, driven in part by the rise in absentee fathers, turned the church into a matriarchal society with women as the primary communicators of spiritual truths to the next generation.

By the twentieth century, the combined effect of these noxious, anti-familistic isms, had finally taken its toll on the local church, transforming many into baby sitting operations, psychological rehab centers, and size-driven experiments in mass marketing—anything but the family-affirming community of saints required by Scripture.

But perhaps someday we will look back upon the early years of the twenty-first century as the turning point.

What happened?

After years of broken marriages, rebellious children, and misplaced priorities within the Church, some parents have begun to cry out to God. The cry has been answered by a Holy Spirit-driven desire on the part of fathers to turn their hearts to their children, by the rise of the home education movement with its emphasis on parent-directed Hebrew education, and with the wonderful rediscovery of historical and biblical roles for men and for women.

Even more importantly, many of these parents recognize that apart from their ability to intimately know Jesus Christ and to communicate the kind of obedience that He showed to the Father, that their best laid plans for family revival will fail.

Remarkably, many church shepherds are catching on to the fact that, despite a smorgasbord of programs, the majority of the children born to believing parents will reject the faith of their fathers and blend into an increasingly pagan society. They, too, grieve at the destruction of the family within their flocks, but they are at a loss for what to do.

The significance of the book in your hands is that it offers concrete, biblical solutions to the crisis of priorities between the church, the family, and the culture of our day. In this sense, the book is not only timely, it is historic, because it marks one of the first of what we hope will be many books which directly address the all-important need for revival and reformation between the family and the church—a revival which can occur when men reject "Greek" lifestyles, education programs, and business philosophies, in exchange for a distinctively "Hebrew" approach to family life and culture.

Here is great hope for fathers and mothers. Men need not fear. They need not live under the bondage of misplaced priorities, of wrong lifestyle choices, of family-segregating educational philosophies, or local churches driven by youth culture. Men (and women, too) can go safely home.

Thank you, Tom, for the courage to communicate what we so desperately needed to hear, but few were willing to say. May God give a mighty vision to many, and may family reformation spread throughout the Church.

Doug Phillips The Vision Forum, Inc. San Antonio, Texas March 2002

From the foreword to the book “Safely Home” available at Vision Forum