Perspectives on Family Ministry: 3 Views

By BH Publishing Group

Every church is called to some form of family ministry, but this calling requires far more than adding another program to an already-packed schedule. The most effective family ministries refocus every church process to engage parents in discipling their children and to draw family members together instead of pulling them apart. In this second edition, Jones expands the definition of family ministry, and broadens the book's focus to address urban perspectives and family ministry in diverse settings. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781535932806

Book preview

Timothy Paul Jones, one of the nation’s leading family ministry experts, combines his insights with a cadre of capable authors in this refreshingly honest counter-point book delineating and debating three common approaches to family ministry within the local church.

—Ron Hunter Jr., executive director and CEO, Randall House

"Jones hits at the core of what is necessary for us, in the technologically-rich and relationally-challenging world we live in, to reach the next generation with the gospel. It requires that both the church and the home preach the gospel with clarity and conviction. His underlying biblical conviction of family ministry being church-as-family and family-as-church is what our kids need to see, hear, and love. Jones’ practical advice and spiritual insight into this process is profoundly helpful for the church and family. The gospel is always one generation away from extinction. If heeded, Jones’ call to family and church will ensure this does not happen. I pray we listen.

—Sam Luce, global family pastor, Redeemer Church, Utica, NY

"Perspectives on Family Ministry has been immensely helpful to me as a pastor, it is required reading for my students, and is the first book on family ministry that I recommend as a church consultant. Timothy Paul Jones delivers a theologically robust, paradigm-shifting resource that will help you understand why family ministry matters, what it is, and encourage you to think deeply about how to effectively partner with parents in your church. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy today!"

—Josh Mulvihill, executive director of church and family ministry, Renewanation

Does your church have a vision and plan to advance the Gospel through future generations? Would you like to see your ministry accelerate not only in your church building, but in the homes of your congregation? This is what family ministry is all about. The authors of this book will challenge, encourage, and equip you with theological foundations and practical steps for strengthening families and inviting them into the mission of the Gospel.

—Dr. Rob Rienow, co-founder, Visionary Family Ministries

"Sometimes an auto mechanic will have a sign in his service bay: ‘I make my living with my tools. Please don’t ask to borrow them.’ I also make a living with my tools—books. And one of my most valued and most used tools is the book Perspectives on Family Ministry. And now, with a second edition, Timothy Paul Jones has made the book even more valuable. His expanded definition of family ministry likely will become the new standard in the field. His new focus on urban perspectives and on family ministry in diverse settings makes the book even more relevant to the contemporary church. I fully expect the second edition to become as well-worn at the first."

—Richard Ross, Ph.D., professor of student ministry, J. M. Price Chair of Religious Education, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

"Perspectives on Family Ministry calls the church to break its addiction to entertainment—which seems so relevant, so essential for reaching the next generation—and to breathe the fresh, clear air of a biblically prioritized ministry. Whether someone quits cold-turkey or in gradual steps, they’ll find that the three featured ministry pathways—each perspective with its own strengths and trade-offs—are worth prayerful consideration. This book, now in its second edition, helpfully widens its scope to include urban ministry and the racial diversity found in the gospel of Christ. As you read, you may not agree with every sentence, but in every chapter you’ll encounter a compelling vision for ministry growth and health. Highly recommended for every church leader!"

—Champ Thornton, associate pastor, Ogletown Baptist Church, Newark, DE, and associational church catalyst, Delaware Baptist Association

"This book is a must read for every church and every family, both collectively and individually. Every church and family should have this blueprint to effectively navigate a family integrated ministry model. I love the expanded definition of family ministry in this 2nd edition. Jones delves right to the heart of a crucial area concerning parental accountability. If you want to see Gospel centered change in your church and the families in your church, this book is an excellent resource.

—Michele White, Ph.D., author and speaker, A5 Family Connections

This book has significantly contributed to the reconnection of the home and church in the effective discipleship of young people. It has led to thousands of conversations in ministry teams, church members and family units about the biblical role of the church and home with the next generation. As a result, many churches have stopped ignoring parents in the discipleship of their children. Every pastor, leader, or parent who reads this book will be challenged to look beyond themselves to the gift the whole church presents for the discipleship of God’s children.

—Ed Springer, head of ministry support, Youthworks, Sydney, Australia

Perspectives on Family Ministry, 2nd Edition

Copyright © 2019 by Timothy Paul Jones

Published by B&H Academic

Nashville, Tennessee

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5359-3280-6

Dewey Decimal Classification: 259.1

Subject Heading: MINISTRY / CHURCH WORK WITH FAMILIES

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the book’s publication but may be subject to change.

Printed in the United States of America

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BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

Perspectives on Children’s Spiritual Formation: Four Views, ed. Michael Anthony; contributors: Greg Carlson, Tim Ellis, Trisha Graves, Scottie May

Perspectives on Christian Worship: Five Views, ed. J. Matthew Pinson; contributors: Ligon Duncan, Dan Kimball, Michael Lawrence, Mark Dever, Timothy Quill, Dan Wilt

Perspectives on Church Government: Five Views, ed. R. Stanton Norman and Chad Brand; contributors: Daniel Akin, James Garrett, Robert Reymond, James White, Paul Zahl

Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views, ed. Bruce A. Ware; contributors: Paul Helm, Robert E. Olson, John Sanders, Bruce A. Ware

Perspectives on Election: Five Views, ed. Chad Brand; contributors: Jack W. Cottrell, Clark Pinnock, Robert L. Reymond, Thomas B. Talbott, Bruce A. Ware

Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views, ed. David Alan Black; contributors: Darrell Bock, Keith Elliott, Maurice Robinson, Daniel Wallace

Perspectives on Family Ministry: Three Views, ed. Timothy Paul Jones; contributors: Timothy Paul Jones, Paul Renfro, Brandon Shields, Kevin Jones, Jay Strother

Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: Five Views, ed. Chad Brand; contributors: Ralph Del Colle, H. Ray Dunning, Larry Hart, Stanley Horton, Walter Kaiser Jr.

Perspectives on Your Child’s Education: Four Views, ed. Timothy Paul Jones; contributors: Mark Eckel, G. Tyler Fischer, Timothy Paul Jones, Troy Temple, Michael S. Wilder

Leonard G. Goss, Series Editor

Dedicated to our parents

J. Darrell and Patricia Jones

LeCreath and Burta Renfro

Jim and Lisa Shields

Ralph and Barbara Stinson

Greg and Paula Strother

Reba and Don Stratton

Paul Jones and Edna Jackson

CONTRIBUTORS

Timothy Paul Jones serves as the C. Edwin Gheens professor of Christian Family Ministry and associate vice president at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Jones is also a teaching pastor at the Midtown congregation of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville. Dr. Jones has authored or edited more than a dozen books in the fields of apologetics and family ministry, including Misquoting Truth, Trained in the Fear of God, and the CBA best seller The Da Vinci Codebreaker. His popular apologetics book How We Got the Bible won the 2016 Christian Book Award in the Bible Reference category. Christian Retailing magazine awarded Jones a book of the year award in 2010 in the Christian Education category for Christian History Made Easy. Timothy Paul Jones is married to Rayann, and they have four daughters. Their family enjoys beaches, amusement parks, local restaurants, and Kansas City Royals baseball.

Kevin Jones is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and serves as dean of education at Kentucky State University. He is coeditor of Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention. Jones is a graduate of Kentucky State University, University of Kentucky, and Spalding University, where he earned his doctorate in education. Dr. Jones writes curriculum for Menaissance, an innovative program that connects literacy and music. In addition, he serves as pastor of Christian education at Forest Baptist Church. He is a research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He and his high school sweetheart, Demica, have three children: Kennedi, Kevin Jr., and Karsynn.

Paul Renfro served with Voddie Baucham as pastor of discipleship at Grace Family Baptist Church, a family-integrated congregation in Spring, Texas. There, he gave leadership to the church’s discipling ministry, with a special emphasis on equipping men to shepherd their families. He also served as director of the Alliance for Church and Family Reformation, an organization committed to promoting family discipleship, family integration within traditional structures, and family-integrated churches. Paul has served as a pastor, a singles minister, a teacher in both public and private schools, headmaster of a classical Christian school, and a church planter. He received his master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Together, Paul and his wife, Laurie, homeschool their four children: Josh, Brianne, Jenna, and Daniel.

Brandon Shields is the founder and lead pastor of Soma Church in Indianapolis. Brandon has served in youth ministry and pastoral ministry for nearly two decades. He earned the doctor of philosophy degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he conducted research on youth ministry retention and dropout rates. Dr. Shields is married to Emily, and they have four children: James, Cooper, Lilly Claire, and Hadley. In December 2011, the Shields family moved from south Florida to Indianapolis to plant Soma Church. Three months later, a small group of families, college students, and young adults began meeting in a living room on the north side of Indianapolis; that small group has now grown into a thriving church that recently planted a second congregation in downtown Indianapolis.

Randy Stinson is the provost at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. A recognized authority on the subject of biblical manhood and womanhood, Stinson is a regular conference speaker on the subjects of parenting, marriage, and men’s leadership. He is the coauthor of A Guide to Biblical Manhood and coeditor of Trained in the Fear of God. In his spare time, he enjoys hunting and fishing, and encourages his children in their pursuits of baseball, tennis, and lacrosse. He has earned the master of theology and doctor of philosophy degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Stinson and his wife, Danna, have been married since 1991 and have eight children: Gunnar, Georgia, Fisher, Eden, Payton, Spencer, Willa, and Brewer.

Jay Strother is the campus and teaching pastor of The Church at Station Hill. He previously served the Brentwood campus of Brentwood Baptist Church as the emerging generations minister, overseeing the spiritual formation process for families and all ministries birth through college. He has also served with Crosspoint Sports Camps as a teaching pastor and coach in inner-city Baltimore. Jay is a graduate of Greenville College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He has authored several small-group resources for Serendipity House. Jay’s favorite stories come from the adventures of life with his wife, Tanya, their three lively girls, and their son from Nepal. He enjoys good books, strong coffee, college basketball, and St. Louis Cardinals baseball.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I DIDN’T KNOW it at the time, but this book began several years ago in a doctoral seminar with Dr. Mark Senter III. In that seminar my studies in the history of youth ministry combined with my experiences in student ministry to reveal a missing element in the Christian formation of youth and children: family discipleship. This revelation resulted in a number of revisions in my ministry perspectives and practices. After I became a professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, these revisions grew into a renewed vision for how the church and Christian family ought to relate to each other.

Now, my work as a pastor and a professor has birthed this book, a book that represents not only my efforts and the work of the contributors but also the efforts of many individuals whose names do not appear in the list of contributors. Mike Nappa of Nappaland Literary Agency moved this project from an ephemeral idea to a well-focused proposal. Telephone and email conversations with Michelle Anthony, Voddie Baucham, Jim Burns, Mark DeVries, John Erwin, Brian Richardson, and Steve Wright shaped much of this text. Through extensive research and editing, Chris Cowan of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood strengthened several significant segments of the book. By grading mounds of student worksheets and research papers while this book underwent many drafts and edits, my Garrett Fellow Lilly Park carved out the extra time I needed to complete the first edition of this project.

The process of writing and editing the book began in the summer of 2008 at Java Brewing Company on Frankfort Avenue in Louisville. The text of the first edition reached its completion six months later at the Starbucks on Shelbyville Road in Louisville. This new edition was edited and revised throughout the spring of 2018 at Quills Coffee in St. Matthews and at General Butler State Resort Park near Carrollton, Kentucky. My assistant Jonam Wang developed the indexes for this edition; Kyra Miller completed the final stages of editing through a partnership with Love Thy Neighborhood.

The most meaningful encouragements throughout this process came not from editors or agents or deans but from the jewels that God has lovingly set in the center of my life—my wife, Rayann, and our daughters. When the first edition of this book began, we had only one child; when I began this new edition, we had three; by the time this edition was completed, we had four. I could never deserve such great grace as I have been given through my wife and daughters. And yet I rejoice each moment in their love, constantly reminded of how God has filled my life through them with immeasurable goodness and grace.

Foreword

FAMILY MINISTRY AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

OVER THE PAST decade I have become aware that there is a genuine family ministry movement happening in the evangelical community, a movement involving churches of all sizes and denominations. At nearly every youth or children’s conference, there are seminars dedicated to the subject of family ministry, featuring multiple speakers presenting their perspectives on how it ought to be done. What is causing this groundswell of interest in family ministry? And why is this movement so significant?

First, family ministry is necessary and significant because families are under siege. They have been under siege since the beginning of time. When God declared in the third chapter of Genesis that the serpent would bruise the heel of the woman’s offspring but that her offspring would crush the serpent’s head, God invoked a declaration of war. From that point on it has been the enemy’s hellish strategy to undermine families. There is a bull’s-eye on the back of every home, and the church must reorient itself to protect and to develop families.

Second, family ministry is necessary and significant because husbands and fathers have been marginalized. If Satan’s strategy has been to undermine the home generally, his more specific strategy has been to marginalize husbands and fathers. In the garden of Eden, the serpent came to tempt the woman (Gen 3:1), undermining God’s design for her husband to guide and protect her. Yet, in the aftermath of the fall, God came looking for Adam (3:9). Why? Because Adam was responsible for that family unit. He was responsible to guard his home. The contemporary church has made it too easy for husbands and fathers to follow Adam’s example of neglecting their responsibilities at home. Dad is working too much, pursuing his own personal pleasures instead of sacrificially providing spiritual leadership for his family. Contrast this too-familiar pattern with God’s ideal, expressed through the pen of the prophet Malachi: He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal 4:6). Any church failing to reach men and turn their hearts toward their families will be perpetually weak. A church that wants to pursue God’s best must reorient itself to reach husbands and fathers and to hold them accountable for the most important job they will ever have.

Third, family ministry is necessary and significant because what we have been doing is ineffective. Today’s churches offer more youth camps, conferences, Christian music, sophisticated technology, books, and trained leaders than ever before. Yet, for whatever reason, a significant number of children fail to make the transition from youth ministry to mature, Christian adulthood. The sort of ministry that will address this problem can’t be found by adding one more church program found on the shelf of a Christian bookstore. Seminary classes cannot solve this problem. Not even this book can solve the problem. What is needed is a theological and structural reorientation spawning church cultures that draw families together instead of pulling them apart.

Fourth, family ministry is necessary and significant because the church is a family. I long to see a new climate sweep through our churches—a climate where families are drawn together, where dads are equipped to lead, where parents embrace the primary responsibility of discipling their children, where children’s hearts are turned toward their mothers and fathers, where the hearts of mothers and fathers are turned toward their children, where the people of God make a place for single moms and shattered families and teenagers who come without parents. All of this is significant because, according to Scripture, the church is a family. Every believer in Jesus Christ has received the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8:15). God is the heavenly Father (Matt 6:9), who disciplines us as children (Heb 12:5–11). The church is the family of God, and family relationships represent a divinely ordained paradigm for God’s church, which is why it is so important for our relationships in the family and in the church to reflect God’s ideal. When congregations fail to conform to God’s Word in every area, it becomes easy to let husbands and fathers off the hook, to embrace ministry models that do not hold parents accountable for the discipleship of their children, or to allow the church’s many programs to fragment families instead of unifying them. When this happens, it is usually because the church has leaned too heavily on human pragmatism as opposed to a robust dependence on the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. It may be painful to realign the church’s proclamation and practices. It may be hard work, and it may require repentance. But it is never wrong.

Fifth, family ministry is necessary and significant because families are waiting to be led. Right now, in churches all over the country, families see the problems, and they are waiting for solutions. They are waiting to be led. Are you prepared to guide them? If you’re ready to take the lead in these transitions, this book will serve as an invaluable resource to equip you with the knowledge you will need to guide families in your church toward a better way.

Randy Stinson, PhD

Provost

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

PART 1

Foundations for Family Ministry

by Timothy Paul Jones

Chapter 1

Confessions of a Well-Meaning Youth Minister

"THIS IS WEDNESDAY night youth group. We don’t do Bibles here."

After six years as a pastor, perhaps my life had grown too predictable. For reasons that weren’t readily apparent at the time, God had moved me from the pastorate to youth ministry. It wasn’t quite the move I had anticipated as I completed degrees in pastoral ministry and biblical studies with an abundance of electives in church history. Yet it was, without any doubt, God’s direction. I was confident that I would do well. I had, after all, been trained in the latest and best methods of Christian education during the studies that led to my master of divinity degree. So, I began the process of searching for a student ministry position.

A few months later, a midsize congregation near Tulsa, Oklahoma, called me as their youth minister. I moved from proclaiming the Scriptures from the pulpit each Sunday morning to routing hormonally charged couples out of closets during lock-ins, coming up with mathematical formulas for how many middle schoolers it takes to consume a medium pizza, and explaining to the maintenance committee how the moshing that resulted in a six-foot hole in the drywall really was congruent with the church’s overall ministry strategy.

It was a promising position.

Reviews for Perspectives on Family Ministry

[Traian C · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Best book that describes and debates the 3 most popular family ministry models! I Totally recommend