Without question, almost every successful environment will have a participating male in the mayhem.  This does not preclude the importance of women by any means, it just reminds us that the absence of men will produce negative outcomes and negate the advancement of positive goals.  Whenever there is strong common sense, intellectual and giving men in schools, families, churches and communities those places will thrive.  

 
One of the greatest gifts God ever gave man is the ability to be a father.  My personal opinion is your children are a little piece of immortality.  No matter what happens to you, there will always be a little part of you left here. 

If God has blessed you with a daughter, it is your interaction with your child's mother that teaches your daughter how a man is suppose to treat a woman.  When my daughter is older I plan to take her on a date to demonstrate to her how she is suppose to be treated by a young man. 

 
If God has blessed you with a son, it is your responsibility to teach him how to be a man.  It is the father who is the backbone of the family. I believe part of the problem of the black community is there are not enough men stepping up to the plate to teach their sons.  God has ordained the man to be the head of the family.

As a father it is important you are involved in every aspect of your children's life from the clothes they wear, food they eat and most important their education because stupid kids become stupid adults. You are raising the next generation of God's soldiers.  

Fatherhood is the hardest job you will ever love. There's nothing more rewarding than to see your child succeed in their goals and knowing you had a part in that success. One of the most special and rewarding THINGS is to hear my children laugh. It's worth more than gold.
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6)

Worshiping together as a family counters the contemporary fragmentation of families. Unfortunately, our hectic lifestyle sometimes leaves little time for significant togetherness, but we are blessed that we share the experience of a family meeting together at least once a week. The cumulative effect of weekly bible study and worship services spent with Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Cousin and neighbors goes beyond an incalculable measure.

We are blessed as a family to witness the experience of seeing grandparents, grandchildren, married and unmarried, sons and daughters, young and old worshipping together & honoring God.   As we, solicit God in the house of worship not only with our blood family but with our brothers and sisters in Christ we are striving to adhere to a multi-generational vision.

We want to see fathers pass on their faith to their children and for children to learn from their grandfathers.  We want to see the old teaching the young and for the next generation to not miss a beat in their spiritual walk.  We want young husbands and fathers, wives and mothers to know how to pass on their faith, before they ever become husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. 

We want to help facilitate this, not by young people being with young people, but by the older generation teaching and passing on the baton of faith to the next generation.    We are striving for all generations to experience a sense of solemnity and awe in the presence of God.

As a family, we realize we do fall short in various areas at various times, but we are all striving to stay on the path of spiritual maturity.  We are collectively working to pass the torch to each and every household represented in our family and to be able to boldly and confidentially say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." -( JOSHUA, 24, 15)

Through a series of events, circumstances and personal relationships, the Lord graciously led us to become an even larger family by merging us with the best church family a person could ask for, The Prince of Peace Church Family, our anointed leader & Pastor Willie E. Kilpatrick and First Lady Trina Kilpatrick.

We are collectively spreading the good news about our Great God, our great church and our great Pastor and to God be the glory.  He is just not saving more of our family members but he is leaking out to our neighborhoods, friends, co-workers on our jobs and strangers we run across.  Although we may sometimes fuss and fight, day and night we are a testimony that "A Family that Prays together stays together."

Our family prayer is that we continue to worship together, old and young. We believe it is the most scripturally normative model of worship. Prayer reinforces the doctrine of family, and it bears great fruit.  

 

Pastor-The bible says in Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."  You will never get your house right unless your house is right with God's house first.  It is your relationship and development in God's house that will change your house.  Satan desires to trick us to think that we can get our houses right without God and serving God.  The only way to get closer to God and to live in His will is to serve Him in every way possible.

 

  
Member-I was listening to a repeat of a Bernie Hayes show on my car radio a few days ago. He was discussing with Rev. B.T. Rice the crisis we are facing today with our young Black youth.  Mr. Hayes queried Rev. Rice about the lack of the coming together of our Black church leaders (Ministers) to make a joint effort to save our young people. Rev. Rice responded by saying that our churches are "too busy" trying to have the best choirs, usher boards, sanctuaries, etc. I have to admit that does not sound like a far stretch from the truth.  Are we "too busy" to save our children and our neighborhoods?  How do we get them to see how precious life is?  How do we get them to understand that Black people don't make guns?  Why are there so many guns in the hands of our young Black boys?  I believe that every time a young black boy/man loses his life to gun and drug violence or gets locked up there is a White man somewhere clapping his hands. I have White people in my family but every house has a closet (smile).

 
Pastor-I will not respond to the words of another pastor and the ministries that he is referring to on a radio show.  I will caution you to be careful with finger pointing without specifics.  Every church should be busy taking care of the sheep that God has blessed their ministry to oversee.  It is impossible for anyone school, community or church to tackle all the ills of our society.  I hope you notice that every school district, community and home will work in some independent fashion.  Everyone is responsible for their corner of life.  A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none.  Working together could mean taking care of your corner and sharing information with the other corner how we succeeded.  That's how school districts operate and achieve excellence for all children in a community.  

 
I never waste my time wondering what others are doing or not doing.   I am always willing to share anything that I have learned in ministry, I always seek positive partnerships and I always strive to hear the good advice of others who are doing effective ministry for the youth.  

I assume that many churches are busy building the kingdom of God and I have no problem with great choirs, wonderful usher's ministries and anything else that serves God with excellence.  These ministries provide a wonderful place of service for gifted people and there is nothing wrong with striving for the "best".  Attacking these churches and the people who have high standards for ministry undermines Jesus' purpose for the church.  As a matter of fact, they are great witnessing tools for our youth and an incredible example of how to please God.  Giving God our best is the message that must be instilled in our youth and wonderful ministries should be displaying that effort.

We have a Youth Ministry that serves children every week with bible study, recreational sports, ministry opportunities, mentoring, vacation bible school, youth church, youth choir and youth activities.  We ask all year long for men mentors; however, only a few men ever sign up for this program.  Our church started our own non-for-profit CDC (community development corporation) called Peaceful Place in order to help the issues facing the Jeff-Vander-Lou community.  We have special Sunday services that emphasize our youth and I personally promote the accomplishments at every opportunity. 

Could we do more?  Absolutely, there is always room for improvement; however, beating up churches and/or ministry might not be the best way to do it.  The Word of God explained on their level, service in an excellent ministry, learning to worship God in their own way, fellowshipping with other believers and being trained to bring other youth to Christ is the best plan for helping our young people.  That's the plan that we have at Prince of Peace Missionary Baptist Church.  We are always looking for volunteers to help in our church.  What we need is more action and less talk.  We have many wonderful individuals who work with our children every week on a voluntary basis.  They work extremely hard to help share the love of Jesus with our youth and children  

My advice to all who are concerned about our children's welfare would be, to start working in their church first and build within the context of the vision of their pastor.  When people Godly commit themselves, share their ideas creativity and successfully join with others to reach maximum effectiveness.