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The clearest exposition on disciple making is the one given by Moses to parents when the nation of
Israel was established in the Sinai dessert, as the people came out of Egypt. God’s plan was that
parents would obsessively (yes, more on this word below) disciple their children and it would be the
primary means by which the faith of Israel would be passed on from generation to generation.

The primary text is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It is called the Shema and it had three key parts.

1. Parents Acknowledge God’s Kingship/Sovereignty

Deuteronomy 6:4 - Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

2. Parents Personally Devote Themselves to God Daily with their Entire Beings

Deuteronomy 6:5-6 - Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts

3. Parents Intentionally/Obsessively Teach God’s Commands to their Children.

Deuteronomy 6:7-9 - Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and
when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on
your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on
your gates.

I call Deuteronomy 6:4-9 the great commission before the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20.
Truth be told, in history most conversions happened in the home. For example, most estimates are
that in the last one hundred years about 80% of all people who came to Christ in North America did
so before they were fourteen years of age.

There is no area of disciple making that is more important than family discipleship.

But there is a crisis in family discipleship today.

In my role as the point leader of Discipleship.org I convened a meeting of National leaders in the
area of family discipleship on Monday, August 15, 2022. The focus of the meeting was on the
present and future state of family discipleship. The meeting was explicitly under the umbrella of
Discipleship.org, whose mission is to champion Jesus-style disciple making. Tim Hawks (Sr. Pastor
of Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, Texas), and Kurt Bruner (from DriveFaithHome.com, Open
Door, and Hill Country Bible Church) joined with me in organizing and leading the meeting.

The first part of our meeting focused upon introducing the participants, prioritizing God’s plan for
family discipleship (based upon Deuteronomy 6:6-9), and describing the challenges we are all seeing
in the contemporary culture. The following leaders participated in the meeting:

• Tim and Cindy Hawks, Hill Country Bible Church, Austin, TX

• Kurt and Olivia Bruner, DriveFaithHome.com, Open Door, Austin, TX
• Dan Burrell, Life Fellowship Church and Assoc. Professor at Liberty University, Huntersville,
NC
• Larry Coulter, Lead Pastor of The Lakeway Church, Austin, TX
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 • Brett Andrews and Pat Ferguson, New Life Christian Church, Washington DC
• Ryan Rush, Senior Pastor, Kingsland Baptist Church, Katy, TX
• Chris Sherrod, Family Pastor of Watermark Church, Dallas, TX
• Tim Goodyear, COO of DriveFaithHome.com and Executive Pastor in Phoenix, AZ area
• Amy Sain, Children’s Minister, North Boulevard Church, Murfreesboro, TN
• Matt Markins, CEO of Awana (sick at the last minute—could not be present)
• Ron Hunter, CEO of D6 (Randal Books)
• Jay Austin, Family Discipleship Minister, Harpeth Christian Church, Franklin, TN
• Shannon Carpino, Director, Renew Christian Academy, Franklin, TN
• Kris Dolberry, Discipleship.org and The Bridge Church, Spring Hill, TN
• Jason Smith, Next Gen. Pastor, Eastview Christian Church, Normal, IL

For the last 20 years, Christian Smith (Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame) has
been collecting huge amounts of statistics about Christian children. Those statistics indicate we are
losing about 70% of our children from the faith once they leave high school. Even with strategic
church-planting efforts, we are still losing ground nationally in significant ways.

But losing our own children may be the most significant loss of all.

If we do the math, losing our kids in such high numbers means that planting churches and creating
city-wide church planting efforts are not going to keep up.

We must double down on family discipleship.

Family Discipleship Model 1.0 (Tools for Family Discipleship)

Kurt Bruner and Steve Stroop (and others mentioned below) have spent significant time developing
tools for family discipleship in the last fifteen years. These tools are particularly helpful for churches
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and families who are seeking to address the two biggest problems in North American family
discipleship.

The first problem is that parents are looking to the church to disciple their children—and they are not
focused on doing it themselves as Deuteronomy 6:6-9 teaches. They have bought into the consumer
church mindset, and the consumer church is not working. For too many years, families were sold a
bill of goods, even if it was unconsciously done, that if you bring your kids to church and the
church’s children’s ministry and youth programs, the church will disciple your kids for you, taking the
responsibility off parents to disciple and teach their children at home.

Parents fall into this consumer church mindset easily. They feel like if they pay their tithes, the
church should be spiritually training their kids (i.e., like paying taxes for education, etc.). Although
they never explicitly stated or taught this, churches have unwittingly helped and facilitated this
model. And it is a mindset that causes us to lose our kids.

The second problem is the unconscious goals of parents. If you ask the average family what they
really want for their children, and they are being transparent, what do they really want? At the heart
of it, parents want their children to 1) be happy, and 2) to fit in. But if those goals frame what counts
as good parenting, the Christian life won’t fit.

The desire to always be happy [https://renew.org/good-parenting-goes-beyond-keeping-kids-

happy/] and to “fit in” are actually antithetical to the call of discipleship (Mark 8:34-36).

The question to ask is, “What is the definition of being happy and fitting in when you are a freshman
in college?” If a child has been trained that the two most important things in life are to be happy and
to fit in, then, when kids go to college, what will stop them from rejecting their parents’ way of life,
their theology, etc.? Being happy and fitting into a college environment means you will have to reject
a lot of what the Bible teaches.

In light of these problems, family discipleship experts have been pointing us to the importance of
parents taking the initiative to disciple their kids and have provided helpful tools for parents who
want to take this on. With added cultural shifts, however, comes a need for further focus on what
family discipleship looks like in the coming years.

A third problem is the new antagonistic, hostile environment in our culture for committed disciples of
Jesus. For example, traditional biblical teachings on sexuality and gender are now being directly
attacked in the earliest school experiences.

How do we raise children to be faithful to Jesus amid cultural hostility?

Responding to the third problem requires a more focused family discipleship model—which we will
call “family discipleship model 2.0.” I will come back to a discussion of this new model after
reviewing the significant family discipleship tools that have been developed in the last fifteen years.
These tools help parents to take back their own responsibility to disciple their children and they
show families how to make Jesus Lord and King, instead of making the pursuit of happiness and
fitting in with the culture their main goals.

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Although these are not the only resources out there, here are five key resources for family
discipleship. I will only take time to point to these websites and encourage those who are interested
to explore at a deeper level what they offer. These organizations were either present at the meeting
or could not attend but plan to participate with us in the future:

Drive Faith Home - [https://www.drivefaithhome.com/]

This site and the tools they provide are designed for the busy family. They provide a proven model,
customizable templates for family discipleship, and they will coach church leaders on how to use
their resources.

D6 Family – [https://d6family.com/]
D6 is based on Deuteronomy 6 and its teaching for parents on how to disciple their children. To that
end, they provide weekly emails for parents, books, magazines, blogs, conferences, and marriage
mentoring for families.

Empowered Homes – [https://empoweredhomes.org/]

Empowered Homes exists to provide practical resources and strategies to help empower your home
to be all that it was designed to be.

Seeds Family Worship - [https://www.seedsfamilyworship.com/]

Seeds Family Worship provides word-for-word Scripture set to fun, energetic music for family
devotions, trips in cars, etc. as well as for children’s ministries.

Awana – [https://www.awana.org/]
Awana is focused on providing Bible-based evangelism and discipleship solutions for ages 2-18, for
families, ministries, and churches. They provide families with doable discipleship, digitally delivered,
through conversation guides and weekly activities.

Again, there are other ministries that are focused on family discipleship, but these are the five
ministries that were represented at the family discipleship meeting.

Discipleship in an Age of Antagonism

It’s important to see the unique challenges in this cultural moment that our children are facing from
an early age. The onslaught against the teachings of Jesus has now shifted to where their beliefs are
being attacked from ages 8 to 12, the most crucial period of their moral development.

We can picture four phases of a child’s moral development and discipleship.

Ages 0–7: Children take in everything from Mom and Dad, assimilating massive amounts of
information. They learn so much during this phase.

Ages 8–11: Children begin to develop their own moral values and key belief systems. It is a peak
period for a parent’s moral and spiritual influence. But three new cultural challenges have arisen that
challenge the parent’s role.

1. Many parents and families are so busy that parents have little time to disciple their children’s
minds.
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 2. Many children are immersed in technologies like smartphones at this age that have more
influence on their beliefs than parental influence.
3. Many elementary schools have adopted philosophies and practices, such as embracing
transgenderism, that provide influence contrary to Scripture.

The result is that during this phase of childhood development, the world is now out-discipling
Christian parents. Yet this should be the time when parents have the most influence to help their
children develop their faith and morals and put things together that make sense.

What happens when you unleash unfiltered smartphone technology at age 11? At what should be
the height of parental influence and moral and spiritual development, you have just opened the door
to some of the most dangerous people on the planet to have direct access to your children (i.e.,
people pushing anti-Christian ideologies, pornographers, etc.). Furthermore, the technology
developers’ goal is to sell advertising and encourage people to be connected (and addicted) to
technology for hours on end.

Christian families with children in this age range are typically not prepared for these new challenges.

Ages 12–15: Children start to make choices to be in step with their peer group and many start to be
influenced more by the lifestyle choices of their friends over the choices of their families.

Ages 15–25: Parents still have influence on the choices that their children make, but more and more
their children are being influenced by others and they will be making independent choices. How do
we help families to disciple their children through these phases in the new cultural realities we face?

How Affected Are They by These Shifts?

Children are given a smart phone at the age of a parent’s greatest influence. We have effectively
given someone else access to influence their hearts, minds, and values at a crucial moment, and it
will continue for the rest of their time in the home. Who are these people to whom we outsource our
influence? Some of the vilest people on the planet, not just in their content but in their business
model—to keep our children engaged with their technology, for as long as possible, in order to
capture our child’s desires and shape them for their commercial ends.

Maybe like me, you question how different the new realities really are for children. I shared my
questions with a church-leader friend who lives in North Carolina. We both acknowledge the
changes when it comes to sexual identity issues, as reflected in a recent Gallup poll of Americans.

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Almost 21% of those in their early twenties now identify as LGBT as compared to 2.6% of the baby
boomer generation. But how much do these statistical shifts reflect everyday challenges this
generation uniquely faces?

My friend then sent me the following email.

I was told something interesting recently. My wife informed me that my 15-year-old daughter and her
male cousin of the same age were quizzing their 14 and 13-year-old younger brothers about what
girls they were interested in at school. The two older kids were teasing the two younger ones
because they said there really weren’t any girls in the 7th and 8th grades that they were interested in.
Upon further teasing, my son (the 14-year-old in 8th grade) said, “You don’t understand, all but two of
the girls in my homeroom class either call themselves gay, bisexual, or pansexual.” His 13-year-old
cousin agreed that there was a similar problem in the 7th grade.

The middle school itself has approximately 700+ students (210+ per grade). The principal is a good,
conservative, Christian man. Most of the teachers there are conservative Christians. I have close
family members and friends who teach at the school. My wife is a substitute teacher both there and
at the high school which is just down the road from it. My wife stated that she would estimate that
probably more than half of all the girls in the middle school (in all grades) identify as gay, bisexual, or
pansexual.

My point is that these girls were not indoctrinated by the middle school into these sexual identities.
Neither were they indoctrinated in the elementary schools; I know the teachers and principals at
those schools as well. But neither am I denying that indoctrination happens in schools. I have read
enough accounts of what is going on in urban progressive areas to know that there has to be at least
some truth to the stories. But what I am saying is that those progressive school systems do not have
to work all that hard in order to indoctrinate these kids; the internet is doing most of the heavy lifting.

When I say the internet, I mean more than just websites. I mean the whole bundle of websites, social
media apps, and streaming services. Kids are bombarded with the message of divergent sexual
identities from every direction. And if they never hear anything else, why wouldn’t they accept it as
true? My question then is how were these girls, who are surrounded by conservative evangelical
churches and conservative evangelical teachers, so easily swayed and misled by the internet?

I believe the answer is the relationship between the parents of these girls and the local churches. I
believe that the parents are to blame for allowing their children to be discipled by the internet and not
protecting them and discipling them in their homes. But I also believe the churches are to blame for
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not being able/willing to teach the parents to be disciples of Jesus and then how to disciple their
children.
Wow, what could I say?

In light of these realities, what will a family discipleship model 2.0 look like?

Family Discipleship Model 2.0

Here are some preliminary thoughts on what this model can be.

We begin with an awareness that the gospel has always been a radical call to a distinct identity. We
have been living in a unique country and in a unique time in history. Those who came before us
provided a Judeo-Christian foundation that provided previous generations of Americans with
blessings and we have not faced the kind of persecution that most Christians around the world and
in history have faced. We now live in a time where we will have to make courageous choices.

And yet…

A new generation of young adults are eager for that call of true discipleship. They are experiencing
some disillusionment with established church norms and they long for more authenticity and
substance.

There are parents who long to disciple their children in step with the teachings of Deuteronomy 6 in
spite of the new realities of antagonism to the teachings of Jesus. They are ready to form counter-
cultural communities around courageous commitments.

So, here is what we are envisioning in this 2.0 model of family discipleship:

Tim Hawks and Curt Bruner are working on a pilot program at Hill Country Bible Church. Their pilot
begins as we envision a group of parents who agree to form a distinct community. Envision a group
of parents of young children—including married parents, single parents, and mixed-family parents—
who come together under wise guidance from the leaders of their church. They are going to be
formed into a new kind of church community.

In that community, everyone freely and voluntarily makes the following four commitments so that
they will disciple their children to reach adulthood as faithful disciples of Jesus – in the age of
antagonism.

Each parent commits to the following…

1. We Will Direct our Child’s Spiritual Formation

It’s our responsibility, as parents, to disciple our children. Counter-culture parents take
ownership of their role and are intentional about establishing faith formation routines at home,
incorporating simple practices and rhythms into the fabric of family life. They don't outsource
the process of shaping a child's faith to the "experts" at church or anywhere else.

2. We Will Steer our Child’s Education

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 Counter-culture parents actively steer rather than outsource their child's academic
development. They understand their role is to be a coach rather than a spectator. They
recognize the value of involving other people (possibly including a good school) in the
formation process, but delegation does not remove the responsibility for oversight.

3. We Will Guide our Child’s Media Habits

Counter-culture parents actively guide the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of a child's media habits rather
than allow the child, influenced by popular culture, to decide. They do this because they know
they are accountable for protecting and preparing their children, they understand the
vulnerable nature of a child's developing brain, and they discern the influence of media on a
child's beliefs and character formation.

4. We Will Nurture our Child’s Sexual Wholeness

Counter-culture parents model and reinforce God's design for human sexuality, starting with
their own relationships. They intentionally invest in creating a God-honoring marriage to
model a vision for their child’s own sexual identity. These parents also proactively counter
the lies of a culture that are aggressively undermining God's design for sexual wholeness.
How? By gently, lovingly telling the truth about what it means to be human, made in the
image of God as male or female.

a. They understand what the image of God means.

b. They know what it means to be a boy or girl.
c. They will desire and seek a strong marriage.

We will disciple them, of course, first and foremost in the gospel and the pursuit of a Jesus-centered
life, but we will also disciple them to combat Satan’s lies. We will disciple them to understand and
embrace identity, gender, and marriage as the Word of God defines them. By God’s grace, we will
disciple them to disciple their own children, passing on the faith to the generation after them.

There’s also a helpful video we want to make you aware of - Kurt Bruner interviewed and discussed
the current challenges for family discipleship with the cultural expert Rod Dreher, and he shared the
video with us. If you care about family discipleship and you can find 55 minutes to listen to the
discussion (click here [https://vimeo.com/686533069]), it will be very helpful to you.

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The meeting ended with a question…

Are there churches and church leaders who are willing to explore these ways and other ways of
formation and discipleship as we face the future?

I can only answer for myself and Cindy (my wife).

Yes.

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We must.

We owe it to our children and grandchildren to face these challenges courageously.

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