In a recent article in Christianity Today magazine entitled “Want Your Kids to Stay Christian? Double Down On Home Discipleship,” Lyman Stone from the American Enterprise Institute reported on research into how family religious practices in the home influence the faith formation of children in positive ways into adulthood.
Of course, this should not come as a surprise. Throughout the Scriptures, Christians parents are instructed to pass on the faith from generation to generation. If this is God’s design, then we should expect it to work. After looking at the research, Stone writes these words: “Families who pray and worship together tend to continue praying and worshiping together. They key to the successful transmission of the Christian faith across generations is not more youth groups or hipper pastors but the Holy Spirit working through the vocation of parenthood as parents take the time to share their faith with their own children.”
Parents, remember that God has called you to be the primary nurturing influence your child’s life. The current stay-at-home orders have given you an amazing opportunity to embrace and live out that high calling!
To that end, we’ve worked hard here at CPYU over the last few days to create a series of daily Family TableTalk devotional guides. A team of 28 different writers have each written one entry in what at this point is a four-week series of daily devotional guides that you can use at the family dinner table. You can download the each day’s devotion here.
And youth workers. . . you can be gate-keepers who facilitate at-home-discipleship. Perhaps we should be working to this end in order to work ourselves out of a job!
