The Call To Family Discipleship
All believers are called to, “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19-20). As parents, we have the ability to fulfill the great commission right in our homes! The problem is this task can be daunting. How exactly are we supposed to make disciples in our homes? What we need is a family discipleship plan.
Hold up!
Too often we think that raising Christian kids means they will be nearly perfect. If we’re going to make disciples in our homes, we must first get rid of the image of perfect children. Perfect children don’t exist because perfect people don’t exist.
The goal of family discipleship isn’t having perfect children. The goal is teaching our children how to handle disagreements in a godly way. It’s teaching our children what to do with their struggles, doubts, and bad days. It’s teaching them not just to eat our veggies but instead, how to treat our bodies as God’s temple.
We can learn directly from Jesus how to disciple our children. There are 4 things that Jesus did with his disciples that we should implement in our own family discipleship:
1. Jesus Modeled It
“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:15, NIV)
If we want our children to have a strong prayer life, we need to practice our own prayer life. Do we want our children to read the Bible? We need to read the Bible. If we want our children to grow in faith, we need to take every opportunity to grow in faith ourselves. You can’t pass along a prayer life, or any other spiritual discipline to your children that you don’t already have.
I often felt like I was doing something wrong by not getting up before my kids. I could never make it work to get up before them. They had a habit of waking up before my alarm – no matter when it was set. If you can wake up before your kids – good for you (and I really mean that).
My morning routine looks more like this:
I get up when the kids get up and make everyone breakfast. I drink some coffee while they are eating. Then when everyone is full, dressed, and playing, I do my bible reading. And you know what? It actually worked to my benefit. My kids got to see me reading my bible. They started asking questions about what I was doing and what I was reading. This allowed me to talk to them about whatever passage I was reading that day which in turn helped me to process it and apply it to my life.
Some days I only got through a handful of verses, other days I got through a couple of chapters. But every day I got something out of my bible reading. This naturally became a discipleship moment for us.
Whether you get up before your kids, or after you are still setting an example for them through your own daily rhythms and schedules.
Family discipleship happens even through our mistakes
What about the times when we make mistakes? What happens when we don’t live by faith, when our frustration or anger gets the best of us, or when our patience is wearing thin? Does that mean we’ve blown this family discipleship thing? Absolutely not!
There is abundant grace for those moments. These imperfections and sins in our own life can be beautiful opportunities for our children to see the gospel living and working in our own lives. While we are imperfect, God is perfect. Though we sin, God gives us forgiveness of our sins. While we make mistakes, God doesn’t. He is right there ready for us to repent and turn to him for help in whatever need we face. When we make a mistake we can set an example of what it looks like to turn to God and accept his grace. We then turn to others for forgiveness next (yes, we even need to apologize to our children from time to time).
2. Jesus Taught His Disciples
Throughout Jesus’ Ministry, he said down and taught or instructed his disciples. Sometimes there were crowds gathered for His teaching, other times, it was just Jesus and the twelve disciples. (Matthew 5:1-2, Matthew 13:2-3, Mark 9:35, and John 13-16 just to name a few).
While setting an example is an important first step, actually teaching our children is the natural progression. We don’t have to have a degree to teach our children. Most of the time, I offer a simple one sentence teaching to my kids. For example: “we serve others first because Jesus taught us to and showed us how. He served us by giving his life for us” or “When we lie, it not only hurts others, it hurts God who told us to tell the truth because He is the truth.” Teaching can also happen through a variety of other means like family Bible studies, Bible reading, conversations, the music we choose to listen to, etc.
What if my kids ask hard questions?
What about when our kids ask the hard questions – ones we don’t have answers to? God can very easily use our children’s curiosity as an avenue for our personal and spiritual growth. One of the best asnwers you can give your child is, “I don’t know, let’s find out.” This answer shows my kids that it’s ok not to have all the answers. not having the answer allows me to teach my kids how to find the answers for themselves. Someday I won’t be around to teach my children, or answer their questions so I take every opportunity to teach them how to learn and how to find answers for themselves while I can (yes, even at age 3).
3. He Involved His disciples in His Ministry (He worked with them)
Jesus didn’t leave His disciples at home when he did ministry, they were there for everything He did. Though there are instances where ministry will happen away from our children, we shouldn’t look at our children as a stumbling block to living the way God calls us to or doing what he has told us to do. Family discipleship happens in all of life, not just at set times, in set places. Family discipleship goes with you wherever you are.
We see this in the feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9, Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 6). Jesus involved his disciples in a variety of ways. Though He knew what he would do, he pointed out the problem and asked what they thought a solution might be. Peter had made note of a boy who had fives loaves of bread and two fish. But how could that be enough for thousands of people? Jesus then involved his disciples by having them give instructions to the people to all sit down. When everyone was seated Jesus simply blessed the food and involved his disciples again by having them distribute it to everyone. When everyone had eaten their fill, he told involved his disciples yet again by having them collect all that was leftover – 12 baskets of leftovers in all!
The disciples not only witnessed this miracle firsthand they also got to be a part of it!
When we take our kids with us and involve them in what we are doing they have an opportunity to not only experience God’s work but be a part of God’s work in us and through us. We can read the bible together with our children and build our faith together by seeing the faith of others and the move of God in others. When we pray with our children we see God’s answers together. Together we learn what it means to be Jesus’ hands and feet when involving our children in loving others. When we worship God together with our children (at church or at home) they have an opportunity to see what worship looks like and experience the presence of God for themselves.
when we take our kids with us they have an opportunity to experience and be a part of God’s work
Involve your children in what you’re doing. Read the Bible with them and pray with them. Don’t despise having them in worship with you if your church doesn’t have a nursery. Involve your children in taking someone a meal, bring them with you when you pray for others, let them see your spiritual life, and bring them along with you every step of the way.
4. He sent his disciples out to try it on their own.
In Luke 9, Jesus calls his 12 disciples together, gives them some instruction, and sends them out on their own to practice what he taught them to do (this was while Jesus was still with them to help and answer questions and continue to teach them based on what they experienced and did).
As our children grow and learn from us, we need to provide them opportunities to practice what we teach them – we are still there to help and step in if need be, but essentially they are doing it on their own.
My oldest started helping in the kitchen when she was only a couple of years old. We worked with her practicing peeling, cutting, and stirring, in a hand-over-hand method. Eventually she wanted to do it on her own. When I knew for sure she was ready I would let her do it without my hands over hers, but I was always standing right next to her to correct and guide her if need be. Recently she was helping me cut vegetables for a salad and though she was doing it on her own, I was right next to her to remind her of safety and encourage her in what she was doing.
While She isn’t old enough to walk into the kitchen and cook her own food without help, these little moments of allowing her freedom to try while I am there next to her allow her to grow and learn even more so when she is older and alone in the kitchen, she will remember how to do what she needs to do.
This may seem like such a simple example, but it is the same with Spiritual things. Again, my oldest, independent child now loves to pray before meals. She started listening to us pray before meals, now she is practicing on her own. While her prayers are usually the same simple sentence, we will add to her prayer at the end to continue to show her how to pray. this allows her the freedom and the practice of doing it herself.
As parents, we should be looking for opportunities that allow our children to practice what they are seeing us do and learn from us. Asking your children before a meal if anyone would like to pray or allowing your child to help with simple household tasks (like cooking or cleaning) are great places to start.
So the next time you come across Provers 22:6…
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6, ESV
…let go of the picture of perfection you have in your head. Remind yourself that we are all sinful human beings in need of Jesus. And then remember what Jesus did, and it will guide you in family discipleship. Regardless of what you are doing from prayer to bible reading, from washing dishes to yard work; the “formula” so to speak is the same. Model it, talk about it, bring them along with you, then finally let them try it out on their own.
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