From the Pastor’s Pen – May 2007

June 17th is Father’s Day, the idea for an official Father’s Day celebration came to a married daughter, in Spokane, Washington, while listening to a sermon on Mother’s Day in 1910 (two years after the first Mother’s Day observance in West Virginia). The daughter, Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd, during the sermon realized that in her family it had been her father, William J. Smart, a Civil War veteran, who had sacrificed-raising herself & 5 sons alone, following the early death of his wife in childbirth. The hardships her father had endured on their Washington farm called to mind the unsung feats of fathers everywhere. Her proposed local Father’s Day celebration received support from the town’s ministers & members of the Spokane YMCA. The date suggested for the festivities, June 5, her father’s birthday, 3 weeks away. It was moved back to the 19th when ministers claimed they needed extra time to prepare sermons on such a new subject as Father. Newspapers across the country carried stories about the unique Spokane observance. Interest in Father’s Day increased. Among the 1st notable supporters nationally was the orator & political leader William Jennings Bryan, who also backed Mother’s Day. Believing that fathers must not be slighted, he wrote to Mrs. Dodd, ‘too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the relation between parent & child’ Father’s Day, however, was not so quickly accepted as Mother’s Day. Members of the all-male Congress felt that a move to proclaim the day official might be interpreted as a self-congratulatory pat on the back. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson & his family personally observed the day, & in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended that states, if they wished, should hold their own Father’s Day observances. He wrote to all governors ‘the widespread observance of this occasion is calculated to establish more intimate relations between fathers & their children & also to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.’ Eventually, in 1972-(62 years after it was proposed) it was permanently established by President Richard Nixon. Our greatest responsibility as Fathers is to be the Head of our household, this is no small task. Each one of us will stand before God & give an account on what we did or didn’t do. We are responsible for doing everything humanly possible to see that our children come to Christ. Another great task is making sure they find a godly spouse. We must begin very early teaching them about marriage & how to find a spouse. This is not easy; it takes much time & effort. We need to read good material & seek godly advice. Free Grace Broad-caster summer publication deals with this subject & I have ordered copies, and each father needs to read it. Believe me! they will be walking down the aisle before you know it. Let each of us be faithful to our duty & pray that God would be pleased to give each of our children a godly spouse. And through these families that God might bring an awakening & return this nation to the God of our Fathers.

Praying for you, Pastor Thomas Winn