A review of Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin’s book Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home Through Time, Moments, and Milestones” shouldn’t need a lot of detailed discussion. It’s a short read, with just 147 pages, and fairly simple read at that. The book though, does pack a punch in a very specific way and has a drawback that I wasn’t expecting. So, there will be a little more discussion than the short read made me think I’d be offering.
Chandler and Griffin indicate up front that the goal of the book is to “prepare you to equip your family for the work of ministry and to help them grow up in every way into Christ (Eph 4:15), following a plan that is well thought-out and sustainable,” (Chandler and Griffin, Kindle Location189). The goal is admirable and biblical, but do they achieve their goal? To some degree, yes. They give the framework for a parent or guardian to build a well thought-out and sustainable plan that can be effective in equipping their family for ministry and grow into Christ. But they do not seem to intend to give a comprehensive approach filled with the intricacies a parent will inevitably need to develop for themselves regardless of what a book attempts to lay out for them. Nor do they consider that the words “Family” or “home” as found in the title includes more than just children.
Perhaps being a dad myself, maybe I was reading selectively, but the scope of the book seems much more focused on instilling a living faith into children than it is on approaching others that may be in your family that need to be discipled. It’s approach though hits on a lot of the same marks of other frameworks presented by other books I’ve read in the past and have implemented in my own children’s lives (See the book Raising a Modern Day Knight by Robert Lewis). And the suggestions they gave are immensely practical with extensive ideas for how to implement them.
In addition to the lists of ideas they present, which are a boon to the book if for nothing else than the amount of ideas, Family Discipleship itself creates such a broad framework that it can be applied to just about any parenting scenario. Starting off by laying a foundation for the framework, they launch off into three main areas by discussing “modeling”. Here they are clarifying for parents that living out their own faith is as important to their children’s faith as anything else. This is a call to integrity for parents that sadly is needed. A vibrant relationship with Christ in the parent is a significant factor in helping a child grow into Christ (though not the only factor).
Chandler and Griffin continue on to discuss three main “topics” of discipling your family (children); time, moments and milestones. In time, they address the day to day events and the consistent practices a parent may implement in their family to create an atmosphere of faith. When approaching “moments”, these are the situations when you take unplanned moments and use them to launch into a spiritual conversation, object lesson, or memorable event. And then milestones are planned special events that mark the growth of a family member as they develop into a vibrant walk with Christ.
There are a two things about this book though that I wasn’t thrilled about. First, the individuals quoted in this book are mostly reliable theologians. But a couple of the individuals quoted are individuals that have a questionable if not controversial theological bent that seem to be included to appeal to a broader base of Christianity. Secondly, as you may have already caught on, I do think the book could have helped apply the principles in the book to other family members or added another section describing how to change the approach for that purpose.
Ultimately, when you read Family Discipleship, you get the sense that parenting is a noble, holy, and sacred calling. You leave with enough creative juices and foundational principles to be able to build out an entire strategy for helping your children (and possibly others if thinking creatively) grow into Christ and to be equipped for ministry. Would I commend this book to you? Emphatically, yes! The ideas and the principles are something every parent, hoping to help their families grow into Christ, should be able to apply and the multitude of ideas are great opportunities to implement this book immediately.
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