Family Equipping Model...

[Steve Wright]

Dr. Randy Stinson has pointed to the following as clear markers for the Family Equipping Model. Churches have for many years claimed to focus on families and equip families but today a greater emphasis is being placed on intentional training of parents for their role in their children’s discipleship. Randy explains, “If we believe the church should be understood as a family of believers, then we should structure the ministries in our church to cultivate this, to encourage this, to promote this: A family focused, intergenerational approach to ministry that treats all believers as part of the family.

At Southern Seminary, Timothy Jones has helped us with a clear definition by saying this: 'The process of intentionally and persistently realigning a congregation’s proclamation and practices so that parents-and especially fathers-are acknowledged, trained, and held accountable as the persons primarily responsible for the discipleship of their children.'

In my opinion, the problem that we are facing is not the result of having multiple ministry areas in our churches. The culprit in this is not the one hour on Sunday and the one hour on Wednesday where we have a youth Sunday School or Bible Study. The problem is the way these various ministries are fragmented silos. You have Youth Ministry, College Ministry, Children’s Ministry, Men’s Ministry, and Women’s Ministry all doing some good things. But they are not inter-related with one another; so you inadvertently separate husbands and wives, parents and children.

Some key markers of a family-equipping church are

1. Parents need to resume their primary role as disciple-makers of their children.
2. Dads in particular need to resume the role as spiritual leader of the home.
3. The church’s ministries should be so integrated with one another so that:

When there is a service project, dads and sons are doing it together, or mothers and daughters, or entire families. Young men in the Youth Ministry that have no dads in the church will be mentored by a man in the church, and the same would be true for young women and mothers in the church. Families will take mission trips together.
Women’s ministry will be integrated with the men’s ministry in such a way that single moms can receive help
from the men. Those coming in from broken situations can expect to be around and embraced by families in the church
who are more mature and growing in godliness.

4. The church trains and equips families to carry out the key role of discipleship.

This may be referred to as a family equipping model. This model is reinforced by cultivating more family-friendly activities by asking the question: How can families be involved with this? Insisting that there should be ways to have families involved. It means Youth Ministry is largely a parent ministry. It means that Children’s Ministry is largely a parent ministry.

If churches will embrace the definition and principles above, it will look different in each church, but will build in an intergenerational discipleship program that will build a legacy from generation to generation. This is not about a program that can be recorded and boxed up. It is about creating an ethos in your church that relates to one another as a family.”