Uniting Church and Home

I just finished a book John bought called Uniting Church and Home by Eric Wallace. It corresponds with an issue that has concerned us for the past few years: Are we ministering in a way that is biblical, and, therefore, most effective, rather than just doing what most churches do nowadays?

This book advocates making disciples by nurturing households and organic relationships rather than the typical church "programs". The author does a good job of laying out the problems created by fragmenting families into different age groups for church activities and keeping families so busy with church they have extremely limited time for one-on-one intimacy with believers or unbelievers. He also lays out the benefits of ministering to households rather than individuals, training fathers to lead and having older, mature households "adopt" singles or single-parent households.

When it came to the how-to's of actually doing this in our culture, he was again very good at laying out a plan -- the problem was I wasn't totally convinced of his plan. He suggests starting with one Sunday School class that is age-integrated and focuses its lessons on how to apply doctrine as a family, with families taking turns teaching. My hesitation with what he was proposing was that the class as he described it sounded rather lame. I found myself wondering how this would really work. We have men that God has greatly gifted to teach His Word. They are a gift to the body of Christ and I want to -- need to -- hear from them. The age-integrated classes, as he described them, featured a rotation of families as teachers (he encouraged even letting the children teach). I can't imagine this class would not be of the dumbed-down, "pool your ignorance" style, with the practical side way out of balance.

This book raised my hopes for a better way to disciple and evangelize and extend God's Kingdom here, but its solutions did not end up totally satisfying. But, to its credit, the book has my mind churning with ideas.