"According to a survey conducted by Robert Half International, Inc., working parents are willing to cut their pay and hours by as much as 21 percent to spend more time with their families; 76 percent would also forfeit career advancement for more family or personal time. The simplicity trend has almost become its own religion." - Leadership Winter 1997

"With the appearance of the two-bathroom home, Americans forgot how to cooperate. With the appearance of the two-car family, we forgot how to associate, and with the coming of the two-television home, we forgot how to communicate." - Dr. John Baucom, quoted in New Man, Jul/Aug 1997, page 15

"Despite the pessimistic headlines announcing that the strong family in America is an endangered species, I refuse to give up hope. Who says 'endangered' means 'doomed'? If we're ingenious enough to preserve the bison, whooping crane, and humpbacked whale, I'm convinced we can preserve the family." - Charles Swindoll in The Strong Family, Zondervan, 1994

"The family is not one of several alternative lifestyles; it is not an arena in which rights are negotiated; it is not an old-fashioned barrier to a promiscuous sex life; it is not a set of cost-benefit calculations. It is a commitment for which there is no feasible substitute. No child ought to be brought into the world where that commitment from both parents is lacking." - James Q. Wilson, quoted in Readers Digest, March 1996, pg. 32

"When we envision the church as an idealized family, we are not capable of welcoming the stranger. When family is the only metaphor we use, people with whom we cannot achieve intimacy, or with whom we do not want to be intimate, are squeezed out. Since intimacy often depends on social and economic similarities, church then becomes a place of retreat rather than true hospitality. Such a church does everything in its power to eliminate the strange and cultivate the familiar. Such a church can neither welcome the stranger nor allow the stranger in each of us to emerge." - Molly Marshall, quoted in The Other Side, Nov/Dec 1996, page 57

"A survey reported in the Wall Street Journal found that out of 100 CEOs 85 say they would like more family time, but only seven said they actually expect to make it happen. - Vital Ministry, Sep/Oct 1997, page 49

"Fathering is not a pure science. All fathers fail, but the mark of a true father is what he does after he fails. - Ken Canfield, quoted in Ministries Today, May/Jun 1996, page 106

"Kevin's father used to say, 'If the son's not a better man than his father, they're both failures.' - Kevin A. Miller, editor of Leadership

Family