Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones

Unfortunately, those we love the most and live closest to often get the least charity and grace from us. I have a shorter patience with my kids than just about anyone else I've ever met. As much as I don't want it, I have modeled annoyance for them in ways that I unfortunately can never take back. It's hard not to believe that when I see them agitated by each other and then respond with irritation instead of kindness that it's not a reflection of how they've seen me respond in my own impatience and selfishness. Lord, have mercy! As much as I want to be a dad worth emulating, there are innumerable ways that I hope these apples fall as far as possible from this tree.

Of course, in order to model following Christ you must be following Christ.

While that may be your experience, more likely you will have a partially attentive, often resistant, and distracted audience that can manage a few minutes at a time of structured family devotions. Fight to get whatever you can, but let yourself off the hook for having a perfectly executed long-form exhortation that always leaves your family wanting more. It is important to have realistic expectations, but not to give up altogether just because it may be less than perfect.

We can assure you that family discipleship seesaws between disappointing and delighting. When it comes to discipleship, your kids will not always respond the way you want them to. That is okay; no kids do. You are not doing this solely to illicit a desired response, but out of obedience to the call from God on your life as a parent.

Your faith is your children’s best possible inheritance. Pass it on to them as often and thoroughly as you can.

Family discipleship, in order to be rightly ordered and sustainable, should not only be something to “add” to your family’s routine; it needs to be woven into all of it. It needs to be ordinary.

Family discipleship is the charge to realign your priorities, to acknowledge that the spiritual feeding and the spiritual covering of your children needs to be as vital to you and your family as your children’s physical feeding and physical covering. “While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8).

It is far too easy to raise a Pharisee, a child who knows and follows the rules of God but whose heart is far from him. We want our kids to be obedient to God not because they are intimidated by him (or by us) but because they genuinely love obedience and they trust God’s love and care for them. Family discipleship pursues sincere heart change in kids, true Christian transformation.

Family discipleship assumes two essential truths that undergird this entire resource. First, parents have the potential to be the most influential person in a child’s life. Second, God has clearly commanded that the highest priority of parenting is helping children know, follow, and trust him.

What did I say about ______? How many______ were mentioned? What is ______? or What is the definition of ______? What do you think about ______? Tell me about ______. Share an example of ______ from your own experience. Explain why ______. If your kids are a little older or are ready for some higher-level questions, you can use some of these examples below related to a section of the Bible you read together. How will this change the way you ______? How does ______ apply to you? How can you demonstrate or practice ______ in your life? If someone said to you, ______, how would you respond? What is the difference between ______ and ______? Which of these is true, ______ or ______? Where do ______ and ______ agree, and where do they differ? Which of these is the best course of action and why? Make up a metaphor to explain ______. Share your vision for what ______ would look like in our family. Using your own original words, restate ______. Come up with a plan to address ______. What makes ______ better than ______? What are the advantages and disadvantages of ______? What does it look like for our family or you individually to follow Christ in what we read?

Unless the Lord builds the house, / those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).