Where in Scripture Does It Talk About Saving Souls, Making Disciples, and Building Families
The Essential Role of the Family unit in Earth Evangelization
These are exciting times for followers of Jesus Christ! The Holy Spirit is moving all over the world bringing people to repentance and faith in our risen and reigning Savior. The Spirit is working in places of abundance and in places of persecution. We rejoice when we hear the news of revivals around the earth, and we pray for them to spread. But large numbers of conversions and church plants are only the outset of the spread of the gospel in a nation. For religion to remain in a land it must be driven non merely by Bible-driven churches but also through the multi-generational ministry of the Christian family.
Europe has Fallen
Five hundred years ago, transformational revivals spread beyond Europe. Entire nations were reshaped by passionate believers who had returned to the truths of only Scripture, only grace, only faith, only Christ, and all for the glory of God. Churches were planted. Missionaries were sent out. The world has never been the same.
But consider the spiritual state of Europe today. It is estimated that simply 1-2% of the population are built-in again.1 During my family's mission trip to France in 2008 we talked with missionaries about the spiritual condition at that place. They expressed cracking concern well-nigh the rise of Islam in the land and how radical Islamists were filling France simply by having many children and raising them to follow Allah. I asked, "Are the Christian pastors encouraging immature believers to pursue godly marriage and raise their children to impact the nation for Christ?" I'll never forget what they said. "In that location are very few young believers here to encourage."
How could this have happened? How can an unabridged continent get from spiritual vitality to spiritual desolation? While many factors were involved, the concluding reply is simple. The believers in Europe lost the souls of their children, generation after generation. If we do not "make disciples" of our own children and grandchildren spiritual decline is inevitable.
Northward America is Falling
The church in North America is following the same tragic path. Since 1900, the percentage of Bible believing Christians has been in decline.
Researcher Thom Rainer affirms this heartbreaking reality. He led a written report to determine what percentage of Americans claimed to exist Christians based upon having put their faith in Christ. In other words, what percentage of Americans identify themselves every bit Christians and understand that beingness a Christian means putting ane'due south religion in Christ alone for conservancy? Here'due south what he found. Among Americans born earlier 1946, 65 percent identified themselves as Christians and were able to articulate the basics of the gospel. For those born between 1946 and 1964, the number dropped to 35 percentage. For those born between 1965 and 1976, it vicious to a scant 15 percent. Finally, among Americans born betwixt 1974 and 1994, but 4 percent of the population identified themselves as Christians and had trusted Christ alone for conservancy.2
Evangelism and discipleship are in dire crisis, and information technology is a generational crisis. We're losing more of our own children to the earth than we are winning adult converts to faith in Christ. As a consequence, the per centum of Bible-believing Christians in the United States is in steady decline.
How could this be happening? This is the age of mega-churches, mega-programming, mega-budgets, mega-conferences, and mega-leadership training. We have Christian books, DVDs, and curriculum for every age group on every bailiwick. Our outreach events, service days, retreats, and short-term mission trips are never ending. We are doing more than than ever before, but are we making disciples more than than always before? I am convinced the answer is no.
When it comes to youth and children'southward ministry, we must admit that the "new experiment" has failed. The new experiment is age-segregated, church building-building based, evangelism and discipleship of children. Parents drop them off. We split them upward past age in unlike rooms in the edifice and "disciple" them. In terms of Christian history, this is a brand-new idea.
Slowly but surely, nosotros abased the biblical model of family discipleship and delegated the spiritual training of our children to "professionals" at church. I led this model at a big church for over a decade. One of the unintended consequences of my ministry building arroyo which systematically separated children from their parents was that parents were free to remain spiritually passive at habitation. After all, they were making sure that their son or daughter was involved in a "great youth grouping."
Our new model is a dramatic difference from the approach of the early church and the reformation. It was common exercise for church leaders in the 1600s to regularly visit the home of each family in the church building to assess whether or not the parents were discipling their children through the regular practice of family worship. In 1647, believers in Scotland published the Directory for Family Worship in which they wrote:
The assembly requires and appoints ministers to make diligent search and inquiry, whether there exist among them a family or families which neglect the duty of family worship. If such a family is found, the head of the family unit is to be admonished privately to amend his fault; and in instance of his continuing therein, he is to be gravely and sadly reproved past the session; after which reproof, if he is constitute nonetheless to fail family unit worship, let him be, for his obstinacy in such an offense, suspended and debarred from the Lord'southward supper, until he improve.3
Family worship was a major issue of church building subject area. Why did these churches take it so seriously? Why did they invest so much time going from home to abode to encourage and ensure that family unit worship was taking place? Family worship was a pinnacle priority because they were passionate nearly the Great Commission. They knew God had spoken clearly in the Bible that parents and grandparents were to accept the pb in the spiritual training of their children and grandchildren. For them, a church building could not be serious nearly the Bully Commission if it was non serious about family worship.
Charles Spurgeon was deeply concerned about the changes which were occurring in Christian civilization during the late 19th Century. In his commodity, "The Kind of Revival We Demand," he wrote:
We deeply want a revival of family religion. The Christian family was the bulwark of godliness in the days of the puritans, but in these evil times hundreds of families of so-chosen Christians accept no family worship, no restraint upon growing sons, and no wholesome educational activity or bailiwick. How can we promise to see the kingdom of our Lord accelerate when His own disciples do not teach His gospel to their ain children? Oh, Christian men and women, be thorough in what you do and know and teach! Allow your families exist trained in the fear of God and exist yourselves 'holiness unto the Lord,' and so shall yous stand like a stone amongst the surging waves of mistake and ungodliness which rage around the states.four
Spurgeon's message is desperately needed today! Godly men and women in growing churches receive the abiding call to become involved in "ministry." Often "ministry building" is synonymous with "volunteering at a church building plan." Spurgeon understood that "to encounter the kingdom of our Lord advance" ministry needed to begin at home.
The Global Challenge
Many countries today are seeing an explosion of new converts and church plants. China is a great example of this. Praise God! But Satan isn't giving up. When he loses one generation to Jesus, he makes information technology his top priority to keep the next for himself.
The first job of discipleship with a new believer is not to encourage them to share Christ with a friend. Their beginning "Great Commission" is to share Christ with their spouse, parents, siblings, children, and grandchildren. For those who are parents, the souls of their children are to be their top spiritual priority. Imagine if nosotros win all of our friends to Christ, but lose our children to the earth. What happens to the church building? When we die, it dies.
One of my great concerns is that in our zeal to train pastors in these new church plants we will give them the cleaved, age-segregated, church-building-based model of the W. The mission of making disciples has not been given to professional person church leaders, merely to every believer.
Satan would love to see nations similar Communist china follow the spiritual pattern of Europe and North America. If we want to see the gospel thriving in China 100 years from at present, the church must follow the pattern of the early on church which kept families together and equipped parents to disciple their children at home.
Toward a Theology of Family unit
Here is the fundamental question:
What is the biblical relationship between the Bang-up Committee and the institution of the family?
Ten years agone I would have had no idea how to answer this. When information technology came to the Corking Commission, I thought just of the establishment of the local church, and, equally a effect, I had an bloodless view of God'south redemptive strategy. God has created two essential institutions to advance His Kingdom—the local church and the Christian family. In the Bible, God gives each institution unique roles, responsibilities, and jurisdictions.
Throughout the Scriptures God links His plan for the world with His creation of the family. Here are just a few examples.5
The Outset Commandment
God made Adam and Eve and He gave them an education in Genesis ane:28: "Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the Earth and subdue information technology." When was the terminal time you heard a sermon on this text?
Right from the get-go God tells united states of america what He wants. He desires to fill up the Globe, and ultimately the New Earth, with people who will beloved Him, worship Him, and bring Him celebrity. His plan volition have thousands of years to reach. It volition be a multi-generational mission and will exist powered by the approving of wedlock, having children, and generational family unit discipleship.
God'south Mission for Abraham
In Genesis eighteen, we detect a clear articulation of God'due south purposes for Abraham. Genesis eighteen:xviii, "Abraham volition surely get a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on earth will exist blessed through him." This echoes God's desire in Genesis 12 and xv where nosotros discover God's plan to anoint Abraham so that he would exist a approving to the nations. Merely what did God want Abraham to do in response to this global vision? What was Abraham'south specific calling? Genesis 18 continues with verse 19, "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household later him to keep the way of the LORD past doing what is correct and just, then that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."
God comes to Abraham with the message (I paraphrase), "I am going to fill the earth with worship, and your job is to make your family unit a discipleship center. Your job is to impress the hearts of your children and your household with a dear for me. Approval the earth begins with leading your family."
The Great Commandment
In Matthew 22:35-36 Jesus is confronted with a powerful question. A religious leader asks him, "What is the most important commandment in the law?" He answered past quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5; "Love the Lord your God with all your center and with all your soul and with all your force." According to Jesus, zilch is more important than knowing God and loving Him. But what we are supposed to exercise with this command? Where do we beginning? How will you obey the Great Commandment today? In the next few verses God gives a specific mission for all those who would seek to love Him.
"These commands that I give to y'all today are to exist upon your hearts. Impress them on your children." – Deuteronomy 6:6-7a
Here nosotros find the first task for the organized religion community in response to the Great Commandment. Those who love God are called kickoff and foremost to do all in their power to atomic number 82 their children to dearest Him even more. At the heart of the Great Commandment is family discipleship and parents beingness the main spiritual trainers of their children.
But how does this happen? How tin can I, as a sinful homo, pass faith and a love for God to my children? There are no magic formulas, but God gives united states of america a elementary starting betoken in the next poetry.
"Talk about these things when you sit at abode" (Deuteronomy 6:7b).
Where can parents start? By talking! Specifically, God calls parents to bring the family unit together in the home for what Christians downwards through history have called "family worship." Family unit worship is time where the family unit gathers for prayer, Scripture reading, and spiritual encouragement.
There is a lot of talk in the Western church today about the importance of discipleship small groups. You lot take heard the buzz lines.
"We need to practice life together."
"Discipleship happens in the context of relationships."
"We need to return to authentic community."
God loves discipleship small groups too. He just has some other name for them. He calls them families. He wants every person to be born into the ultimate discipleship small group – a Christian family. God created the family to shape our hearts and the hearts of our children with a deep and abiding love for Christ and for His word.
A Vision for Generational Ministry building
In Psalm 78:1-7 nosotros are given a picture of the powerful touch families have in the advance of the Kingdom of God.
"O my people, hear my teaching; heed to the words of my oral cavity. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter subconscious things, things from former; what nosotros have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. Nosotros will non hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders He has washed. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in State of israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so that the side by side generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds only would keep his commands."
What a marvelous vision! I want to be a father like this. I desire to tell my children all about praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, so that they would tell their children who are not even born yet. At the heart of the advance of the gospel is the call to parents to impress the hearts of their children with a love for God and for His Give-and-take.
The Church Launched with a Multi-Generational Vision
The disciples understood that the first activity step of the gospel was to print the hearts of children with a love for God. In Acts 2, God launches His church, and Peter preaches a magnificent evangelistic sermon. He ends it this way in Acts two:38-39, "Repent and exist baptized, every one of y'all, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you lot will receive the souvenir of the Holy Spirit. The hope is for y'all and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."
You, your kids, and the world! This is the three-fold move of the gospel which we observe cover-to-cover in the Scriptures. We take functionally cut out the elevation priority of the Christian life, which is to serve, minister to, and brand disciples of our own children and family members. As a result, we take many well-intentioned Christian men and women who give their heart and soul to helping lead the programs at church building and in the customs, and never sit downward to read the Scriptures at dwelling with their own children.
I know this sort of Christian very well. It used to be me. I gave my middle and soul to my pastoral ministry at church, and my wife and children got the scraps. I was living an unbiblical, hollow Christian life, while at the same time receiving accolades for my public ministry. I have spoken with many pastors and missionaries over the years who had "discipled" hundreds of people, just they lost the souls of their own children. Some were fifty-fifty told, "Trust your children to the Lord! Y'all need to focus on your ministry." Nowhere in Scripture does God command parents to abdicate the spiritual training to others so that they tin "focus on ministry building." Instead, God calls His people to brainstorm their Kingdom ministry building at home.
The Call to Fathers
God gives His call to fathers in Ephesians six:4, "Fathers do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up in the grooming and instruction of the Lord." God says that fathers are not to arouse deep anger in their hearts of their children, and He gives them a remedy so that it will not happen. Bring your children upwardly in the grooming and education of the Lord. Training refers to spiritual exercise—the spiritual practices of the Christian faith. Fathers are to pray with, serve with, and worship with their kids. Education refers to the words that dads speak to their children. The words that fathers and husbands speak in the domicile most spiritual things have tremendous power!
Are you eager to run into men rise upward to pb your church building with humility, godliness, and sound doctrine? Are yous eager to see men rise up to touch on their community and world for Christ? Then phone call them, train them, equip them, and hold them answerable to private prayer and Scripture study and to the leadership of family worship in their homes. If we want to maximize a man's impact on the globe, nosotros must offset maximize his bear on at home.
Family Discipleship, Pastors, and Elders
A prerequisite for spiritual leadership within the local church building is effective spiritual leadership in the abode. In the early church, if a human being was a father and desired to be a pastor/elder, he needed to demonstrate that he was shepherding his children, before he was allowed to shepherd the greater body.
"He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to pb his own family unit, how can he have intendance of God'southward church?)"
– Timothy iii:4-v
When this text refers to "lead[ing] his own family unit," it is non referring to paying the bills and mowing the lawn. The context hither is one of spiritual leadership. In other words, if a man has not already taken the lead to encourage faith in the hearts of his married woman and children, he is non qualified for the part of pastor/elder in the church.
God reiterates this principle fifty-fifty more strongly in Titus 1:half-dozen where we find additional qualifications for men who would seek the office of pastor/elder.
"An elderberry must be blameless, the husband of but ane wife, a man whose children believe, and are not open to the accuse of being wild and ill-behaved."
In my feel I have heard petty teaching on this phrase, "a human whose children believe." Some translate this to refer simply to children at habitation, so that if a man has adult children who are not following the Lord that would non disqualify him. Regardless of ane's interpretation, this is powerful text that nosotros must take seriously. Why would God say that a homo can't serve as pastor/elder if his children are not believers? I believe information technology is because if a homo has a son or daughter who is not converted, he has all he tin do to dedicate himself to prayer and ministry to that son or daughter! His Great Commission calling every bit a human begins with the souls of the children entrusted to his care.
Conclusion
Is information technology any wonder that the enemy targets the relationships within the family with such ferocity? It should come as no surprise, since the Scriptures teach that the spiritual life of the family is direct tied to the Great Committee and filling the earth with worshippers of Christ.
If we are passionate nearly seeing the advance of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ, allow us begin by turning our hearts toward home. Let the states inquire God to assistance us begin our ministry in this world past "making disciples" of our family members. Permit us passionately and biblically defend God's plan, structure, and purposes for the institution of the family, as well as the institution of the local church. For those of us in church building leadership, let us follow the case of the early church building which kept families together for worship and accelerated evangelism and discipleship in and through families. May God be glorified in our churches and in our homes, so that He might be worshipped effectually the globe in every tribe and tongue for generations to come up!
Source: https://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/the-essential-role-of-the-family-in-world-evangelization
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