Brady Allen Speaks about Fathers

Pictured is Brady Allen (right), a guest speaker on Fathers Day 2017 at Sandhills Assembly Church in Southern Pines, N.C. (photo, courtesy of Steve Coleman). 

“The best gift a father can give to his children is his time,” said Pastor Brady Allen.

Allen, state director of the Royal Rangers program for the N.C. Assemblies of God, spoke at Sandhills Assembly Church in Southern Pines, N.C., on Sunday, June 18, 2017.

The Royal Rangers program is an activity-based, small group church ministry for boys and young men in grades K-12. Its stated mission “is to evangelize, equip and empower the next generation of Christ-like men and lifelong servant leaders.”

Allen read “the Lord’s Prayer” (Matthew 6).

“Children compare their earthly fathers to the Heavenly Father,” said, Allen, who is retired from military service.

You have to earn respect,” he noted. 

“In service, I respected them [those under his authority] first," he said. 

Fathers are increasingly absent, he noted, adding that kids need a father as well as a mother. 

He read the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). 

“The son blew what his father gave him,” Allen said. “Why didn’t the father slam-dunk the boy [when the boy returned home]? The father welcomed him. A faithful father gives love, peace, and forgiveness.”

Fathers shouldn’t “provoke children to wrath,” he said.

“I’ve gone into prisons – met so many who hated their fathers,” he said. “A faithful father makes all the difference in a child’s life.”

Parents shouldn’t reward children for duties expected of those children, he advised.

“And you cannot live your life through your son,” Allen said. “You may have been an athlete, but your son may be a scientist.”

A faithful father realizes his children are human.

“Unreasonable expectations on kids will destroy them,” Allen noted. “Respect and love their mother. You set the pace in the life of your children. They’re still your babies, no matter how old they get. Love your children, but don’t shortchange them. Push them to Jesus!”

Allen said he needed his father’s time, but his father didn’t know how to give it to him. 

He quoted Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

“Kids are going to test the waters,” Allen said. “Leaving a child to his own willfulness is a path to destruction. Is it always going to be about you? Tell them what God has done for you. You cannot be replaced.”