Discipleship is a team sport – it’s always been a partnership between the church and the home. There are stacks of resources out there for how churches can disciple members better – and we’re so thankful for them! But it can be difficult to find helpful input for families in our role of discipling our kids, can’t it?
That’s where the Family Perspectives podcast comes in. Since 2022, Stephen Urmston and Tim Blagg have been getting together to talk all things family discipleship. What we’d love to see is families in our churches having more, and better, conversations about discipling our kids.
It was the theologian, Jonathan Edwards, who said,
“Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules.”
Jonathan Edwards, Farewell Sermon, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. I, p 206.
So what does this look like for our families today? Some things aren’t any different in our day than they were in Jonathan Edwards time – discipleship begins at home. Conversations about baptism and communion, reading the Bible in an age-appropriate way, memorising scripture, singing songs of worship, and trying to do good to the world around us. We have conversations all about these thoughts, and more!
But since Jonathan Edwards’ time, life in our world has become more complicated, and especially so for the emerging generations. Kids and youth face all kinds of challenges that have come with the technological revolution. (Self-promotion: we recently dedicated a couple of episodes to thinking through raising kids in a tech-saturated world!)
Some highlights from our recent catalogue:
- Caught Vs Taught – a conversation with Kym Abbot (Children’s and Families Pastor in Sydney) about discipleship being more about what is modelled and caught than what is taught.
- Baptism – Stephen and Tim have a conversation about baptism, especially considering inviting our kids and youth to publicly declare faith in Christ (spoilers: we have different opinions about some things!)
- How to make the most of the Youth Pastor – a conversation with Tom French (Author and Youth Pastor in Melbourne) about how families can make the most of having a Youth Pastor/Coordinator in their church.
- Scripture Memorisation – Stephen and Tim talk through some ideas for memorising scripture at home as families.
Thanks for listening in, and thanks for helping disciple our kids and youth!
