REAL-LIFE FAMILY MINISTRY

The sweetest times are when my wife, son, and I gather on the couch for family worship. We keep it simple, but simplicity can be rich. Last night we enjoyed such a time. Just before we gathered, I heard my son asking Mama for some water. He had been playing hard, and he was thirsty. So I thought, gotcha! I poured a glass of water and brought it to the couch. Then I opened my Bible to John 4:13-14 and read the text: "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" I explained to my son that Jesus is like water for us when we are thirsty. But the water he gives quenches our thirst forever. The water he gives us is eternal life. My son responded, "I want some of that water." From that point we had a good few minutes (which is an eternity for a three year-old) of discussion about the gospel. Then we closed in prayer and sang "Jesus Loves Me This I Know." It was a sweet time.

Family worship is something I cherish. Neither my wife nor I grew up in families where there was regular worship time, so it has been somewhat difficult for us to get in the habit of it. Now we are beginning to form the habit.

I fundamentally believe the family unit is the central front in Christian education and development. Remember the shema. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise" (Deut. 6:4-7). God relates to his covenant people in family units, each of which gathers with others in particular geographical locations to constitute an expression of the visible church on earth.

Today I was encouraged to read a summary of Tim Jones' seminar at the Children Desiring God conference. Here's an excerpt:

Doing Family Ministry: Real-Life Ministry Models for Real-Life Churches

God commands us in the Scriptures to make the family the fundamental context of discipleship (Deuteronomy 6:4-8; Malachi 4:6; Ephesians 6:4).

Problems in the Church with Family Ministry

1) Parents, especially fathers, have become disengaged from the task of discipling children.

2) Most churches have not consistently expected or prepared parents to disciple their own children.

3) Adolescence is perceived as a developmental ideal instead of as a period of preparation for mature adulthood. It's a recent social construction in which responsibility is minimized and indulgence is maximized, and a lot of our church models have been built around it.

What Do These Problems Look Like?

• The youth group is barely connected to the congregation.
  
  
• The separate aspects of the church's family ministries operate in relative isolation from one another.

What Needs to Change?

Every church is called to some form of family ministry. This doesn't mean just adding one more program.

Rather, family ministry is the process of intentionally and persistently realigning a congregation's proclamation and practices so that parents—and especially fathers—are acknowledged, trained, and held accountable as the persons primarily responsible for the discipling of their children.