Q: What role do parents play in raising young people who fully live out their faith and how much responsibility should fall with the church?
Anthony: Parents play a huge role. Long after young people leave our children’s and youth programs, they will be in relationship with their parents … to some degree, for better or for worse. To invest in parents is to invest in the lives of young people far beyond the access we will have to influence them. Parents feel ill-equipped to disciple their children and teens in our world. Ministry leaders are wise to steward the years in which they have a voice in the life of a young person, but they should also go to great pains to ensure the parents are a vital part of knowing and modeling faith at home.
Q: Can you explain what you mean by writing that family ministry is the means to the gospel, not the end?
Marshman: The goal of every church program/ministry is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and inspire, equip and support the church to share the gospel with others. Family ministry can be the conduit to share the gospel with the world.
Q: What vision do you have for how this book will impact families and the church?
Marshman: Simply, our aim is to articulate God’s vision for family ministry—a vision that empowers families to take spiritual leadership in their homes, form lifetime faith in their children, teach Scripture as authoritative, understand the role of the Holy Spirit, engage in God’s redemptive story, make God central in daily living and work within a community to further God’s will. I envision leaders, students and families who can discern God’s voice and are responding to Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Anthony: I believe this book will also help release us from the burden of feeling the entire weight of a generation either accepting or rejecting Jesus. It’s not our job to manage this. It will also give leaders a strategy and common language to change a culture that is satisfied with spiritual mediocrity and apathy. Our ministries can be so much more than programs … they can be change agents for transformation.
Learn more about Dr. Michelle Anthony at michelleanthony.org, on Facebook or by following her on Twitter. Learn more about Megan Fate Marshman at meganfate.com, on Facebook or by following her on Twitter.
