The writers of the New Testament also metaphorically present the Church like a building with Christ as its foundation. If a building’s foundation is substandard, any type of construction put on it will be doomed. For instance, a wall might look good for a while, but eventually cracks start appearing, and patching those cracks is only a temporary fix. Other fissures open up, and the structure keeps settling out, becoming unsound and eventually falling in.

The first requirement of a genuinely Christian church is that it is established on Christ Himself; the second is that we build properly on that foundation.

Churches are made of people, which I Peter refers to as “living stones” (2:4). Because my father was a contractor, I know a little about construction, but where we worked, stone houses were rare. We did, however, use a lot of brick. One of my jobs when I was a kid was sorting used bricks that we used for additions that he built on people’s homes. Using new bricks looks peculiar when they butt up to an existing wall that’s been around a while, so the used bricks were ideal for this application.

My main tasks when sorting these bricks was stacking the good ones on wheelbarrows to supply the bricklayers and tossing unsuitable bricks on a truck, so they could be taken to the dump. The bricks that went in the wheelbarrow were not all identical; some were light and some were dark, some were rough and some were smooth, and some were even a bit irregular in shape. These variations didn’t matter, and the walls these bricks became part of were always beautiful.

The bricks that didn’t make it to tradesmen on the scaffolds were what my father referred to as “salmon brick.” Flaky and brittle, they looked much like the others, but they would fall apart, eventually leaving unsightly holes in the wall and threatening the structural integrity of whatever was built.

In much the same way, the church can also use all kinds of very used people, but what it doesn’t need are people who lack an essential spiritual soundness that allows them to be an integral part of His living temple. Of course, we must be patient with new believers and others who are immature, but the ones who detract from the beauty of His temple must be discipled so they may become contributors to His purposes. In all, an atmosphere of grace, but never permissiveness, must be cultivated.

During my senior year at the University of Maryland, I was paid a modest stipend as president of our church’s campus ministry. Assuming I was on track to eventual full-time vocational ministry, I poured myself into staging coffeehouses and concerts, leading Bible studies, passing out tracts, and being a leader to the students who were part of our cause.

One of our activities, however, made me extremely uncomfortable, and that was street preaching. The man who had launched the ministry several years earlier was indeed an evangelist, and the leaders after him felt some compulsion to keep proclaiming the Gospel in the open air, so I did the same.

With great trepidation, I would walk out on the mall and start yelling about Jesus and the sin and degradation all around me. The worst part of it all was that people seemed to ignore me. They’d eat sandwiches, toss Frisbees, and act like I wasn’t there. Sometimes it was like being Bruce Willis in that movie The Sixth Sense where he’s dead and only one little kid can even see him. He just moved through this world, dead and ignored, and that’s the way I felt.

I was actually glad on the few occasions when atheists, militant feminists, and other antagonists would get mad and start arguing with me. At least someone was paying attention. The whole business made me so uneasy that I stopped doing open-air preaching, kept a low profile about it, and no one seemed to fault me for quitting.

One fine spring day, I was in front of the Student Union Building, far from my usual street preaching location. I sat on a bench beside another student to eat my lunch, and we starting talking. Just eating and taking interest like a normal person, I steered the conversation toward spiritual matters simply because that’s just the way I am. The guy looked at me sort of funny, and then—it seemed like he was testing me to see how I would react–he said, “I’m gay.”

I told him that the Bible didn’t condone that particular lifestyle choice, and I wasn’t tempted that way myself, but I had problems of my own because I was heterosexual and called to be celibate unless or until I was married. We kept talking, and I was very honest about how tough it was to not have sex, but how Jesus was strengthening me day by day.

He said that at least God might eventually let me have sex when I got married, whereas that wasn’t an option for him. I told him “someday” isn’t worth much today, and I suggested that we need to live life one day at a time, and “God’s mercies are new every morning.” Then I explained how sometimes God takes away not only our sins but even our temptations, but He usually doesn’t, so we become more like Christ by fighting through all those hardships. I also reminded him that Jesus didn’t have sex with men or women either.

The guy finished his lunch and had to leave, so I extended my hand and shook his. “I’m Ray Sikes,” I told him.

“I know,” he said. “I’ve seen you preaching out on the mall. Frankly, I thought you were a real asshole, but now I see you’re a pretty good guy. In fact, I think you are a real Christian, not one of those fakes.”

I thought about those times when I was preaching, when I told myself that all those silent people were actually listening as I ranted about Jesus and sin, and that God was pricking their hearts, even if they showed no response. I was at least sharing the Scriptures, which do have power, so perhaps there was some eternal value to what I was attempting.

On the other hand, sharing my life quietly with honesty and without pretense seemed to have had a more positive effect, at least with that one gay man. And I would have done that without being paid.

One of the verses my kids heard me quote a lot was “rebellion is like the sin of [witchcraft]” (I Samuel 15:25). Old Testament law condemned people found to be witches, and while we are under a new covenant, God is still not pleased with witches because whether they claim to be good or bad witches, they center their lives on having power and not serving God, and/or they commune with weird spirits or the dead instead of the Holy Spirit, or in the case of some of the more “New Age” varieties, they worship nature instead of the God who created all that great stuff in the first place. All of this is idolatry in the first degree, a violation of the first commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

The reason I so often quoted that verse about rebellion and witchcraft is that in our society, rebellion is usually taken lightly, sometimes celebrated, and very often excused, especially when referring to children and adolescents. I’ve even heard pastors pretty much say that kids will rebel, as if we are to excuse their behavior. Indeed, ever since World War II, many popular depictions of youth in the media have portrayed them as wild and unrestrained, so I am going against the tide of popular opinion when I say that children should not be allowed to defy authority.

I do believe that young people have a lot of energy, that they are perhaps testing limits at one level or another, and that while they are desperately trying to find their places in the world they will screw-up, but during the whole process they had better recognize that God has the ultimate say in their lives, that parents are there for wisdom and protection, and authority figures like teachers, principals, and police officers are ordained by God.

It’s good for kids to know that there are rules that should not be broken. My children learned the Ten Commandments, and within our household we had rules about when we ate and went to bed and where certain activities could and could not be performed. If children don’t learn that they shouldn’t throw sand in the face of others when they play in a sandbox, they will have problems at school and work and in the families they later create. If a little girl is allowed to wear her dress shoes out in that same sandbox, she will be more likely to resist when a parent suggests that what she is wearing later as a teen is too tight, too revealing, or otherwise inappropriate. Kids need rules to learn how to live correctly, and more importantly, they need to learn that there are consequences when these rules are violated.

“God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he shall also reap” (Galatians 6:7), which means that if we go against God’s ways, there are negative results. In real life, these consequences are often distant from the violations people commit. Wicked people often spend their lives doing what they want, they appear happy and prosperous, and too often we never see them suffer. Dictators die in opulence at old age, drug addict rock stars survive their straight peers, and good people are ignored, impoverished, ridiculed, and killed.

The psalmist lamented this reality when he wrote, “I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no pains in their death” (Psalm 73:3-4). He was discouraged, until he saw their end in judgment (73:17-20).

Kids are too short-term in their thinking and need some help understanding the ideas of reaping, sowing, and judgment. That is why it is good to discipline kids when they disobey. They need to understand that actions result in judgment.

Of course, there are two sides to our roles as judges when we parent, and my kids suffered no dearth of praise and positive reinforcement. When they did well, I let them know. Sometimes, I would hold them and look in their eyes and say, “Listen to me. Some people wait all their lives and never hear this from their fathers: I am very pleased with you.”

I have hugged my children, kissed them, lavished affection upon them, esteemed their uniqueness, and loved them as well as I could, which also meant disciplining them when they needed it.