Family Mission
God’s purpose for the family is to provide for physical needs (1 Tim 5:3-8) while teaching children how to have healthy relationships with God and people. A good family is to meet each family member’s needs for love. Families are to help children be ready to leave home to marry and start their own family (Gen 2:24). In healthy families, faith matters enough to be practiced with daily obedience – including attendance at a good, Bible-believing church (Rom 1:5, 17; Heb 10:23-25). The family seeks to help its members grow spiritually but doesn’t require more of each one than God Himself does. In addition, expectations for each person are reasonable and limited to their spiritual development.
The family mission includes doing everything to bring to salvation any children in the family (Mal 2:17). By also having a mission to bring children to spiritual maturity, some will be prepared for leadership in the church (1 Tim 3:1-5). Ultimately, the family’s mission is the same mission that every believer has: glorify God (1 Cor 10:31), advance His kingdom (Lk 10:19, Wuest), and become more intimately acquainted with God (Jn 17:3).
How do we develop basic family heath so God’s mission for the family can be accomplished? We ought to ask the Lord to help us and our family become all that He wants it to be (Mt 7:7; Jas 4:2). This would include help in creating an atmosphere of love, safety, graciousness, and appropriate transparency in self-disclosures. In addition, we could begin doing what healthy families do (1 Cor 11:1). Some of these things would be praying at various times together, talking about God, learning the Bible together, church attendance as a family, and reaching out to the community in some form of service. Naturally, we would need to persevere in doing these healthy things instead of just doing them sporadically (Gal 6:9). Further, it is important to eliminate or limit interaction with those outside the nuclear family who undermine family health (Prov 13:20; Heb 12:1) and to cultivate, by God’s help, a group of people who will support family health (Gal 6:2).
Unending pleasure in the next life; training for godly pleasure in this one.