Family and Christianity

Children are excellent candidates for disciple-making. They come into the world with no presuppositions and no cultural baggage, just them and their sinful tendencies to fight against. They quickly learn to trust their parents for knowledge about the world. When dad gives explanations for how things work, they’re true...because he said so. Because children have the tendency to believe and learn, the faith of a Christian is often compared to that of a child. In choosing disciples to invest in, why would it be foolish to chose the most teachable individuals who just so happen to spend all their time with you. 

Think about this: when a kid grows up in a home where the parents are bilingual, the kids will grow up knowing two languages like the back of their hand. In a similar way, when kids grow up in a Christian home, they grow up knowing and understanding the biblical faith, especially difficult aspects like God’s sovereignty and predestination. That doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of kids who take up contention with Christianity, but I think we underestimate the testimonies that begin, ‘I grew up in a Christian home.’ Seeing things this way makes having a large family a much more reasonable and strategic decision, despite American arguments to the contrary.

Not only is the family one of the strongest areas of disciple-making, but it provides a strong core for robust Christianity. Strong families ground individual believers, while doing much to integrate and support new converts into the Christian community. Also, by adding into the mix grandparents, newborns, young adults, men, women, etc., the family unit keeps the Christian community from being a group of people just like you. 

Since not everyone in your family is believers, it’s always a center for evangelism. Whether it’s cousin Bob who ran away from the faith but still comes to the family gatherings at Christmas, or your brother Joe who doesn’t love Jesus but still loves and listens to you. It also allows you to invite unbelievers to your home where they can tangibly watch godly fellowship. This is often a more comfortable context for unbelievers than local Church gatherings. In talking about discipleship and evangelism, I don’t think the role of the family can be overstated. I certainly don’t think it should be overlooked.