Family Ministry

If we want our family ministries to be effective, we need to involve parents.

The idea of fathers as the pastors of their homes is not one constructed artificially; it arises from the testimony of Scripture. The word “pastor” comes from the Latin word for “shepherd”—and every father is called to serve as a shepherd in his home (5).

In a recent “Ask Pastor John” podcast, Tony Reinke asked John Piper, “What steals your joy?”

At best, television dads are nominal or figurehead leaders of the home, but at worst, they are relegated to the intellectual level of the family pet.

We tend to hold very strong views about parental discipline, and those views are often rooted in our experience.

Though some maintained the importance of marriage, others taught the need to abstain from sex in order to pursue more spiritual or philosophical endeavors.

Three texts in the Christian Scriptures are particularly significant for the topic of raising and rearing children: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Proverbs, and Ephesians 6:1-4.

Sue pleaded with great emotion in her voice, “Mary, I don’t know what to do! Yesterday I ran into Christine, a friend of mine from high school. She led me to the Lord when we were working together at that time. Since then she’s stopped walking with the Lord, had a baby out of wedlock, and the father has custody.

Heath Lambert provides a thorough review of Mark Driscoll’s recent book, Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship, and Life Together.

We in the family-equipping movement are specifically seeking practices of family ministry that are driven and defined by a Scripture-saturated plan for equipping parents to embrace primary responsibility for their children’s discipleship.

We have a great deal of instruction from the Lord concerning fatherhood, but, frankly, we need more than instruction.