Working Description: Family Ministry (FM) intentionally acknowledges that parents are primarily responsible for their children’s spiritual formation and discipleship (Deut 6:4–9). FM recognizes that parents and significant church family members have a significantly greater influence on their children’s spiritual development than church programs or specific ministries for youth. Any potential FM pastor or staff must align the development of FM with a local church’s doctrinal and theological position and the core values of mission and discipleship.
Ultimately, FM develops processes and practices so that parents are acknowledged, trained, and held accountable as the persons primarily responsible for the discipleship of their children, with church family being secondarily responsible. These processes and practices must have a missional and discipleship focus which comports with missional group life. The two core values, disciple-making and missional living, must drive events and other youth activities.
A Family Ministry (FM) should include three specific, but interrelated components based on the above working description. It is important to flesh out these components in order to develop any staffing position(s) related to Family Ministry.
1. Marriage: This is the first institution God created. The fundamental safety and healthy development of children is heavily dependent on marriage. God gives specific dynamics that should exist between a husband and a wife (Eph 5:22–33; 1 Pet 3:1–7). With God’s Spirit and local church assistance, a married couple harmoniously relate to one another as God instructs. A proactive focus on personal responsibility instead of reactivity to one another’s flesh is essential for married couples to live out God’s marital intent. Marriage is the visible, relational testimony of the gospel and the foundation for the nuclear family.
Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelion is the first announcement of the Good News of the gospel. FM understands that following the Fall, Jesus is God’s only solution to resolve enmity and “overcome” the Fall within the covenant of marriage. As such, marriage represents Christ and His relationship with the church.
2. Nuclear Family: While the term “nuclear family” is not in Scripture, it represents parents and children in a household and may include extended family for the purpose of this document. Family dysfunction exists because of sin and the Fall of humanity but, because of the gospel, may function redemptively as living microcosms of the larger community of faith. The nuclear family is the incubator for the healthy/unhealthy spiritual life and development—where healthy/unhealthy conflict is modeled—where children observe parents’ consistency/inconsistency in addressing life’s challenges—where children should observe parents living out gospel truth with an outward, missional focus.
At times, nuclear families are broken by divorce, addiction, and other effects of the Fall. This provides the church family an opportunity to provide needed foundational support.
3. Church Family: A primary emphasis of FM is a focus on enabling God’s people to relate to one another as the family of God, which is a new humanity created in Christ (John 1:12). We are called to nurture one another within a rich matrix of diverse, intergenerational relationships. The church family can provide spiritual parents, siblings, and grandparents (Mark 10:29–31). We are drawn together each week in worship by a type of family reunion.
It is statistically verifiable that attempts at discipleship are least effective when located primarily in gatherings that draw youth together according to their age or interests. It is also counterproductive when a church’s primary ministry structures are segmented into specialized components that isolate youth and children from corporate, intergenerational worship. Programs and over-energized activities must not supplant God’s design for Great Commission completion, no matter the ages and stages within the church.
History in Summary
Parachurch Ministries – In the 1940s and 1950s, parachurch ministries like Young Life and Youth for Christ were established. These ministries were led by people who had studied in evangelical seminaries and Bible colleges.
Youth Pastors – In the 1970s, churches began hiring youth pastors to reach and teach teenagers. Some of these pastors were former staff members from parachurch ministries.
Entertainment-Driven Youth Ministry – In the 1980s, youth ministry became more entertainment-driven, alongside the rise of MTV & Nickelodeon. Youth pastors used live music, video production, and elaborate sound and lighting, among many other things, to attract large crowds of young people.
Segmented Programmatic Approach – In the late 1900s, youth ministry programs became more segmented, with youth groups operating in isolation from the rest of the congregation.
From “A Brief History of Youth Ministry” by Dave Wright
“To read books on youth ministry these days, it is hard not to get the sense that this experiment we call youth ministry in the local church has failed . . . .
Back in the 1940s, Jim Rayburn began a ministry to reach teens at the local high school, which became Young Life (YL). Their mission—to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and to help them grow in their faith—remains to this day. The strategy was and is for caring adults to build genuine friendships with teens and earn the right to be heard with their young friends. At the same time, Youth for Christ (YFC), was holding large rallies in Canada, England, and the United States. YFC also quickly organized a national movement that turned to Bible clubs in the late 50s and 60s, shifting the focus from rallies that emphasized proclamation evangelism to relevant, relational evangelism to unchurched youth.
By the early 70s, churches began to realize the need for specialized ministries for teenagers and began hiring youth pastors. Some of these were former staff members from YL and YFC. With this the church imported the relational strategy of the parachurch movement. During the 70s, youth pastors seeking to reach large numbers of youth for the gospel began to employ a more attractional model. Gatherings with food and live music could draw enormous crowds. Churches found that large, vibrant youth groups drew more families to the church, and, therefore, encouraged more attraction-oriented programs. Later in the decade, this writer watched leaders swallowing live goldfish in both the church youth group and local Young Life club when we brought enough friends to reach an attendance target.
By the 80s the emergence of MTV and a media-driven generation meant church youth ministry became more entertainment-driven than ever. Youth pastors felt the need to feature live bands, video production, and elaborate sound and lighting in order to reach this audience. No longer could a pile of burgers or pizzas draw a crowd. By the end of the decade the youth group meeting was being creatively inspired by MTV and game shows on Nickelodeon. The message had been simplified and shortened to fit the entertainment-saturated youth culture. By the start of the 21st century, we discovered many youth were no longer interested in the show that we put on or the oversimplified message. Christianity was no different from the world around them. Some youth ministries intensified their effort combining massive hype with strong messages that inspired youth but did not translate to everyday life. We realized we were faced with a generation whose faith was unsustainable.
The Result
What happened in all that? First, we moved from parachurch to church-based ministry (though the parachurch continues). In doing so, we segregated youth from the rest of the congregation. Students in many churches no longer engaged with “adult” church and had no place to go once they graduated from high school. They did not benefit from intergenerational relationships but instead were relegated to the youth room.
Second, we incorporated an attractional model that morphed into an entertainment-driven ministry. In doing that we bought into the fallacy of ‘edu-tainment’ as a legitimate means of communicating the gospel. Obscuring the gospel has communicated that we have to dress up Jesus to make him cool.
Third, we lost sight of the Great Commission, deciding instead to make converts of many and disciples of few. We concluded that strong biblical teaching and helping students embrace a robust theology was boring (or only relevant to the exceptionally keen) and proverbially shot ourselves in the foot.
Fourth, we created a consumer mentality amongst a generation that did not expect to be challenged at church in ways similar to what they face at school or on sports teams. The frightening truth is that youth ministry books and training events were teaching us to do the exact methods that have failed us. The major shapers of youth ministry nationally were teaching us the latest games and selling us big events with the assumption that we would work some content in there somewhere. In the midst of all this, church leaders and parents came to expect that successful youth ministry is primarily about having fun and attracting large crowds. Those youth pastors in recent decades who were determined to put the Bible at the center of their work faced an uphill battle not only against the prevailing youth culture but against the leadership of the church as well.
The task before us is enormous. We need to change the way we pass the faith to the next generation. Believing in the sufficiency of Scripture, we must turn to the Bible to teach us how to do ministry (rather than just what to teach). Students need gospel-centered ministries grounded in the Word of God.”
Additional Thoughts
Although youth ministry is a fixture in the modern church, there is no biblical model for such a ministry.
“Family ministry should not be another program you add to your list of programs. It should be the filter you use to create and evaluate what you do to influence children and teenagers. Family ministry [is] an effort to synchronize church leaders and parents around a master plan to build faith and character in their sons and daughters.” –Reggie Joiner
“Family ministry is an intentional partnership between the church and the home designed to teach kids, develop leaders, and equip parents who all become disciple-making disciples.” –Steven Ackley
“Parents are the number one influence on a teenager’s life. That’s true spiritually, too. Since the Bible teaches that parents are the primary disciple-makers, this perspective emphasizes the church’s role to equip, empower, and call parents for family discipleship.” –Mike McGarry
Too often, student ministries prioritize entertainment over disciple-making. If we want to see students become mature disciples who obey and follow Jesus for a lifetime, we must build our student ministries on gospel-centered discipleship, rather than entertainment. A ministry based on entertainment has a culture of reaching students with games and events, whereas a discipleship culture equips students with the gospel and sends them to reach other students.
Additional Resource
Danny Hinton—Rethinking Next-Generation Ministry by The Bounce with Bob Lepine
