Family Discipleship Plan 5 Principles for a Victorious Eternity
So, you want to lead your family members to be fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. What s your plan? Here are some principles to consider: 1. Disciple-making families place a top priority on disciple-making. Following Christ does not happen by accident. 2. Disciple-making parents invite a family mentor to encourage, guide, and pray for them. 3. Disciple-making families spend time in prayer and study of God s Word on a regular basis. 4. Disciple-making parents teach their children along the way as they model servant leadership. 5. Disciple-making families adopt a missionary mindset.
Intentional Focus- prioritizes discipleship making whatever adjustments are necessary to bring prominence to the teaching and training of each member of the family. Something will emerge in your home as being the most important thing in your family. Every parent must decide: How big of a deal is discipleship? Is this important? What sacrifices will need to be made? ACTION STEPS: Below are a few suggestions that will help your family s Intentional Focus on discipleship. 1. Make following Christ your own priority. Are you spending time personally in prayer and reading God s Word? You cannot take your family any closer to Christ that you are willing to go yourself. 2. Talk with your spouse this week about the Intentional Focus of your home. Your spouse needs to be on board with the spiritual development of your family. Single parent families and those with an unbelieving spouse must also have a family discipleship plan and a focus on discipleship. 3. Prayer- What you prioritize in life shows up in your prayers.
BIBLICAL FOUNDATION: Most parents embrace the responsibility of raising their kids. Whether they acknowledge it or not, parents have goals for their children. I remember my parents saying, We want you to have things better than we did. In other words, we want to provide some opportunities for you that we never had. What parent would not want that? What are some goals of parents? Some want to see their kids become a CEO and make big money. Others imagine their child becoming the next American Idol or an M.D. Children who excel in athletics may have parents who envision their career in the NFL, MLB, or as an Olympic star. Most parents would be happy with a good college scholarship. Parents want to raise their kids to be happy and successful. But there is a difference in raising a child that who succeeds or even excels in life and making disciples. If you want your children to follow Christ as adults, you must have a plan. How do I know this? We have an example in the Old Testament of a failure to plan. Take a moment and read Judges 2:6-15. What is presented is a Recipe for Spiritual Disaster in verse 10. The next generation after Joshua did not know the Lord and did not remember the work He had done. The previous generation had failed to transfer their faith to the next. As a result of this lack of discipleship, the second generation experienced a calamity. They turned to false gods and worshiped idols. Due to their disobedience, the Lord turned away from them and His hand was against them. Before this point, they had experienced prosperity and security in their newly-settled land. They were enjoying their freedom. True Freedom is not the right to do as we please but the power to do as we should. (preceptaustin.org) They lived for themselves and turned away from the Lord who had provided for them. Therefore, the Lord allowed their enemies to plunder and enslave them. So we must ask, What went wrong? What truths the parents had about God and what He had done, they chose not to transfer them. [Rephrase: The parents chose not to transfer the truths they had about God and what He had done.] They became comfortable with the status quo (live life was good). They took God s blessings for granted. Also, they neglected God s Word. There is a lesson here for every parent. Making disciples of our children takes an Intentional Focus and must be the top priority in the family.
Mentor Someone who invests in the life of another, offering wisdom, prayer, encouragement, and friendship. Having a family mentor is like having another influential grandparent to love and guide your family. BIBLICAL FOUNDATION: The Apostle Paul was concerned about the young church and their pastor on the island of Crete. So, he wrote them a letter, addressed to their pastor, Titus. In Titus 2:1-8, the Apostle gives instructions for family mentoring. He made this simple: older men are to instruct younger men and older women are to invest in the lives of the younger women. The older are to teach the younger in the areas of glorifying God and developing Christ-honoring character. Paul is particularly concerned about the home. He sees the value in consistent and intentional discipleship training. This is for the parents and the children. Mentoring was a key to the success of the church on the island of Crete then and is for the Body of Christ today. ACTION STEPS: 1. Pray for a mentor who will help you follow Christ in your home, work, and everywhere else you go. 2. Set aside time to meet with your mentor. Put it on the calendar and cancel only in the event of a true emergency.
Devoted Time A daily investment that shapes the family s worldview, ethics, morality, and faith in Christ. Time is our most precious treasure. Disciple-making takes time and intentionality. Of the 1440 minutes of the day, how many should be devoted to making disciples of our children? The home is the God-ordained place for Christian instruction. The Church should compliment the training at home. Throughout church history, families have found the indoctrination of their children in the matters of faith and life as a Christian to be an essential part of raising their children. Only in the last few decades has the word indoctrination been given a negative connotation. Children will learn their worldview, ethics, morality, and faith from somewhere. If not at home, this will come from peers, the classroom, the media, or a variety of other sources. This was not the intent of God. The Devoted Time does not need to be an intense Bible Study or four-hour reading of Scripture and prayer. This time should be appropriate to the ages of the children with their ability to focus and engage in mind. BIBLICAL FOUNDATION: King David had plenty of people giving him advice. Some of these were trusted friends and advisors and others were not. The weight of the world was on his shoulders. David, however, decided to make his decisions based on one resource God s Word. In Psalm 1, David proclaims that his delight is in the Lord s instructions. He meditates on it day and night. Then he gives an analogy. He states that the one who looks to the Lord for direction will grow, just as a tree in the desert will flourish if it is planted beside a stream of water. The roots will go to the source of life and live. Therefore, the person who relies on God s Word will prosper and the Lord will watch over him. We need the constant and on-going instruction of the Lord. We do not have to wait on God to show up. We already have the plan and the details. God s Word is the light unto our feet that guides us, even in the darkest times (Psalm 119:105). In order to grow as a follower of Christ, we must spend time with Him daily, allowing Him to teach us through His word and guide us through prayer.
ACTION STEPS: Devoted Time is a daily activity. The point here is to spend, at the very least, a moment of time investing spiritually in our children. This is more than just a bedtime or mealtime prayer to thank God for food or the day. This is intentionally setting aside some time for a teachable moment. Some days it may be possible to invest deeply (which may take more time). For example, on the Thursday before Easter, you may want to reenact the Passover meal in your home (you can find this online) and read the biblical account of the escape from Egypt in Exodus 11-14. Or, you may want to read the Luke 2 account on Christmas morning before the wrapping paper goes flying around the room. For days when spending 30 minutes or more is just not possible, then consider providing a spiritual nugget. You may want to consider adopting seven core values in your home that are based on God s Word. At the start of the day, you can remind your children about this core value and offer a verse or a passage of Scripture that teaches on this value. For example, one of your core values may be honesty and Monday may be the day you emphasize this virtue. You may read the commandment You must not lie from Exodus 20:16 and ask several age-appropriate questions related to the consequences of telling lies and why the truth is important to God and to your family.
Servant Leader One following Christ by demonstrating sacrificial service in the home, using their gifts and talents to serve in the Church, and serving in the community. Someone is going to lead the home. God designed this task to be the role of the parent. The all-powerful and perfect Lord and Savior, Jesus, chose to lead His disciples by serving them. He is our example. Disciple-making must be more than formal instruction. Jesus sat His disciples down and gave them classroom teaching. However, most of what the disciples learned from Christ was in the day-to-day modeling of a consistent walk of faith. As a servant leader, a parent must serve. Parents serve Christ by demonstrating sacrificial service in the home, using their gifts and talents to serve in the Church body, and serving those in need in the community. A parent s self-centered attitude undermines every moment of Biblical teaching and instruction for the family. BIBLICAL FOUNDATION: Jesus explained the Gospel to the disciples by two means. He instructed them formally (see the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7). Yet, He also taught them through the actions and attitudes He displayed. This is discipleship along the way. Your children will spend many hours a week with you. They are taking notes on how you act and react with other people. Jesus gave us a perfect model by leading the disciples in service. One day when Jesus was walking with His disciples, He was asked by James and John for a special position in the Kingdom of God. He stated, You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their men of high positions exercise power over them. But it must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42-45, HCSB) The mission of Jesus shows us not only what we should do, but also how we should regard others.
ACTION STEPS: Children need to see their parents serving. This is not a superficial act of kindness that occurs every once and a while. Children need to see a consistent attitude of helpfulness and compassion toward other people. Parents with an entitlement attitude (that the world owes them something) will teach this destructive pattern to their children. Parents who live in a state of gratefulness and devote themselves to a lifestyle of giving and respect for others will replicate that attitude in their children. One suggestion to consider as an action step is to find some activity that your family can commit to each week that teaches servant hood. Maybe once a week (at the same time of the week) your family could stop by a local nursing home and spend a few minutes visiting with a few of the residents. Or, if your children accompany you grocery shopping, ask them to bring a few dollars that they have earned/saved and purchase an item(s) to be donated to A Storehouse for Jesus. The bottom line is to look for creative ways to instill an attitude of serving others and encourage a heart of gratitude.
Missionary Someone who invests time and effort into personally sharing the Gospel with others. All Christians are missionaries wherever they are (work, school, town, etc.). Parents must embrace a missionary mindset themselves and train their children to adopt this lifestyle. Life is a mission trip is a phrase that accurately captures the Missionary Lifestyle principle. Mission trips are life changing. These excursions get us away from the routines of daily life and focus our attention on sharing the Gospel with others through word and deed. So what if we woke up everyday and envisioned that we were on a mission trip? Missionaries are not a small group of people telling people about Jesus in a remote part of the world. Every believer is called to be a missionary. Parents can foster this mentality by modeling this and creating opportunities to embrace a missionary mindset. BIBLICAL FOUNDATION: In Acts 18, we are introduced to a family with a Missionary Mindset. The husband is named Aquilla and his wife is Priscilla. They were common folk, living as tentmakers in Corinth. They were likely introduced to Jesus by the Apostle Paul, as Paul spent significant time there on his third missionary journey. Paul s love for missions and teaching others the love of Christ was transferred to this couple. They obviously adopted the attitude that they would go wherever the Lord led them in order to share the Gospel. They traveled with Paul to Ephesus and remained there after his leaving to disciple many, including the future evangelist by the name of Apollos. Then, at the Lord s leading, they returned to the city of Rome, forging the way for Paul s later ministry. Several things are impressive about the Missionary Mindset of Priscilla and Aquilla. They did life together, inseparable in their goals and activities. They grew in the Lord together. They were willing to go anywhere the Spirit of God led them. They mentored other believers and edified the church together. They understood the call of God for ordinary people and embraced a life of missionary service. Their devotion is a great example to families today.
ACTION STEPS: Establishing a Missionary Mindset in your home will take some time and commitment to missionary training. Missions involvement may include volunteering in a service organization that reaches people with the Gospel. Other ideas include a short-term mission trip or creating witnessing opportunities. At least once a week, family members can share during the devotion time about how they have been a missionary this week. Where are you? 1. Does your family place disciple-making as the top priority and the measure of success in the home? Is this an Intentional Focus? 2. Do you have a Family Mentor? 3. Does your family have a Devoted Time for prayer and the study of God s Word? 4. Are you Leading by Serving? 5. Are you training Missionaries for the next generation?