I believe the central unit for the spiritual development of people should be the family. The family consists of two groups: the nuclear family, consisting of one or both parents and the children of the parent/s, and the extended family, including grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and possibly other relatives. In contemporary Western society the latter group often is missing due to physical distance and—for many—lack of involvement when the extended family is readily available. Thus for the purposes of the nurture of faith in adults and children, the extended family functionally can be the relatively small group of people that constitute a support group, prayer group, Bible study group, or other group where people know one another intimately and share deeply with one another and care for one another. This special kind of extended family is like any family in many respects, such as being committed to one another, and the Bible refers to it using family terms such as “family of God” “fellowship of believers” and the like. In the New Testament such groups usually met in homes and included family members, friends, and other from the community that shared faith in Christ.

The Nuclear Family

Traditionally, the nuclear family has been equated with the term “family.” Within an Evangelical Christian context, the nuclear family ideally is marked by mutual discipleship and fellowship in a biblical manner. This includes equality before God, vulnerability with one another, and an attitude of openness and desiring to hear from God. Communication between spouses may be a way of hearing from God, if both spouses are open before the Lord and seek him with little or no thought of personal benefit and power. The oneness that comes with marriage, and grows subsequent to marriage in a healthy relationship, means that there is mutual submission before God (“be subject to one another”), leadership according to giftedness (the husband being more gifted in some areas than others, and the same for the wife, and these areas of giftedness are not always predictable).

Scripture is also central to parent-child relationships, with the parent not only guiding the children and teaching them about God, the Bible, prayer, and so on—this is a primary focus for the family in scripture—but also parents learn from their children, as Jesus emphasized, as kids are open to the Lord and take on the role of a fellow believer. Parents are guides and teachers that have the humility to be taught by their children, at least occasionally.

As children mature in the Lord, they should become more able to teach one another as well, in keeping with the instruction they have received from parents, older siblings, and God in their personal study. For sibling teaching to work, there must be humility not only about the limits of one’s own understanding by the older sibling, but also the humility to learn from and value what can be learned from younger siblings as brothers and sisters in the Lord as well as literal brothers and sisters.

The family (one or both parents and their children) is the focus of faith because the Bible gives primary emphasis to parents teaching their children; this should be the primary place where children receive their faith learning and where they see actual faith in action day by day. Parents should not depend upon the church or even the Christian school to do the job God has designed for them to do.

The Church as Extended Family

As noted previously, grandparents and other extended family members can be important influences upon children, assuming they have an active and positive faith. Yet, as noted earlier, the nuclear family has increasingly become isolated from the literal extended family. Thus there is an even stronger need for a supplemental support group from outside, and the church in the biblical sense—a group small enough to meet in a home and close enough to be very involved in one another’s lives—often replaces or at least supplements the involvement of other extended family members. In other words, the church in the biblical sense of close companionship, support, mutual prayer and sharing, is needed more today than ever before.

Scripture is also very clear about the important role of the church being like a family. Indeed the church may be the main family for a single adult, as well as for the elderly and others who lack literal families who are faith-centered. The church is made up of God the father, and collectively committed believers in the local church can be considered a mother of sorts. But at the same time there are elders who function as older siblings that nurture younger believers. This arrangement ideally enhances the potential for close relationships with all members of the family of God through Bible studies, discipleship, fellowship, teaching, worship, singing, and the like, in the "extended" family context.

Is the institutional church part of this picture? In general, yes, as there are many things that an institutional church--defined here as any church that is more than 30 to 50 people--can do to help the "extended family" groups as well as nuclear families. The institutional church can provide training for families and groups, as well as financial and emotional support for both. The institutional church can enhance family life in both the personal and extended family settings. The New Testament did not have anything like the modern institutional church (it is difficult to imagine hundreds of people crammed into a single family dwelling!), other than the local Jewish synagogue. Yet the institutional church can have a very important role to play: serving families rather than replacing them.

In addition to helping families be more effective in their efforts, the standard church can also offer a context for large group worship and teaching/preaching, as long as the supportive role for families is central to their efforts. Of course, being realistic about modern society, there are likely to be people who will insist that the organized church be their primary faith channel; some people will not attend small, "extended family" groups, and thus the institutional church can provide many kinds of services to meet these people’s needs. But the limited ability of churches in influencing faith and behavior should be noted—even when people attend church two times a week or more, that often translates to only one to three hours in a context marked by one-way communication most of the time. Larger churches need smaller group settings so the important things being taught can be discussed and internalized.

For the standard church to realize its proper role requires an institutional humility that favors service to others, rather than enlargement and glorification of buildings or leaders. The typical church cannot replace the personal and "extended family" church group as the center of spiritual formation and discipleship, with the possible exception of ministering in this way to those who will not or cannot be part of a small group fellowship. A healthy church may have less emphasis upon its own services than upon the home-based fellowships. But important institutional functions such as counseling, social activities, social services for the needy and helpless, and congregational worship are all valuable contributions the larger church body can offer.

Mother and Father in the Church Family

As noted earlier, the church—in the form of the nuclear and extended family—takes the role of mother. But what of the role of the father (God)? God provided the New Testament scriptures as letters to the first century equivalent of today's extended families and small groups. The church resembled some home Bible studies today. The scripture was originally intended to be discussed in family-like settings. While much can be gained by listening to a skilled expositor, the informality of a small group setting makes personal connections with others more likely, assuming that the leader is open and sensitive to the direction and redirection by the Holy Spirit. The father role in such settings may possibly be mediated through those attending, including godly leaders, but also can be immediate when the God's presence is welcomed.

Taking the father role in local and extended families, God provides personal insight and application because of the free work of the Holy Spirit. God may also bring personal salvation in a relatively non-threatening environment of a home, where doubts and questions can be freely explored, and others nearby can pray. An experiential component of spiritual life can be present in the immediate family and extended church family contexts, although of course God can also move in a larger organizational context as well.

While God is father and the extended church family and immediate family serve as the mother, it must be recognized that faith involves a personal walk, a relationship with God. But it is also clear that such a journey is significantly shaped by both family and extended church family life. The faith formation of children is overwhelmingly attributed to parents in Deuteronomy 6, a pattern probably continued in the New Testament with the likely supplement of the extended family church and occasional special services with visiting apostles (represented by the sleepy boy who fell out the window while Paul preached apparently to a large group of believers). Authentic faith is partly the result of collective influence of the groups of which we are part, but also shaped by significant others, especially if those significant others regularly and positively speak about their faith. This is the reason we are told, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Heb. 10:25).

Outline of the book ChildFaith:
Experiencing God and
Spiritual Growth with Your Children