People need to belong. This desire in man to belong comes from the nature of God. For all eternity the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have had each other and belonged to one another. Since man is created in the image of God, we too were made to belong to others.

The church (ekklesia) is made up of the children of God, and so it only seems consistent that we would function as a family on earth. Families cannot be run as an organization, and yet Christianity approaches the church as an organization as seen in the way it recruits and trains its leaders.

The marked difference between how parents approach their children and an organization their members is sacrificial love. Just as a child learns love through the daily sacrifices his parents make for him, so the love of God is taught by the believers laying down their lives for other believers. We demonstrate to the world the love of God when we, as the family of God, lay down our lives for one another.

Making followers of Jesus cannot be separated from the family nature of God. As God the Father loved Jesus, and Jesus loved us, so in the same familiar manner we are to love one another. A parental sacrificial love for others is the catalytic force that will produce disciples of Jesus and advance the kingdom of God.

One reason why Christianity has struggled to make disciples is because we have approached disciple making with programs rather than as a family. Can an organization empower and develop its people? Certainly. But, there is a marked difference between how an organization develops its people and how a parent loves his child.

Many mornings, I have great intentions of starting our day well and then transition to watching it slowly spin out of control.

Making disciples in your home doesn’t have to be big, dramatic moments.  It doesn’t have to be perfect. But if you will commit to learning these practices in your family, God will work and you will all grow. 

Our homes become places of discipleship when we lead them to be places where grace is experienced on a regular basis. So how can we mirror the grace that has been given to us by Jesus in our families?

As we reflect back on our parenting years, one of the things I’ve been most thankful for are the traditions or “rhythms” we’ve been able to establish with our children on a regular basis that have provided a cadence of intentionality to the busyness of our lives.

We set the stage for discipleship at home by pursuing a life that we want our children to imitate.

With 22 years of marriage and 3 kids, I can never lose sight that fulfilling the commission in Matthew 28:19-20 to “go and make disciples” starts in my home. It not only starts in my home but is the most important aspect of making disciples in my life.