MY THEOLOGY OF FAMILY LIFE EDUCATION

Introduction
Family life education is vital to transforming the lives of people in any congregation. God
created the family in the very beginning for his glory and our benefit, and He has shown through
the ages that He cares deeply for the welfare of the family. The family is made up of individual
parts, a marriage, children, and relatives, which promote a greater identity as a whole. Sadly, it is
undeniable that marriages around the country are crumbling, children are growing up without
any sense of who they are and who God is, and that the increasing individualism and sensualism
of our culture is destroying the minds and hearts of both men and women in every living
generation. While there are countless challenges in ministering to the modern family, there is one
great opportunity: to reach into a lost world by providing hope for believers through caring,
teaching, equipping, and empowering ministries which help them to live out Gods vision for
their families and in turn spread that same hope to a lost and dying world.
The Theology of Family Life Education
The Institution of Marriage in the Traditional Family Model
Throughout Scripture God places high importance on marriage, which is the first part of
the traditional family. The celebration of marriage appears in many of the crucial passages of
scripture, but several passages were written specifically to provide a better insight into what God
desires for marriage as well as its benefits to individuals and society today. These passages, as
they stand along with the rest of scripture, make it abundantly clear that marriage should be
considered important in any church ministry. In Genesis 2, God first demonstrates to Adam his
need for a suitable helper, his wife and mate, who Adam would later name Eve. This first
relationship established the institution of marriage as husband and wife working side by side to
do the work of God: to be fruitful and multiply and to rule over (care for) His creation (Gen. 1).

Genesis 3 brings about a change in these relationships due to the introduction of sin through the
fall of mankind. Gods desire for marriage remains the example He modeled in Adam and Eve,
but now husband and wife must fight against the sin nature to share such a relationship.
God gives many pictures of marriage throughout the Old Testament; from the
relationships of the patriarchs and their wives, to relationship of David and his, and even to the
beauty and pain of the marriage between Hosea and Gomar which serves as a picture of Gods
love for the people of Israel, it is clearly evident that marriage plays a central role in the story
God is creating in the lives of people. His goal remains one of shared relationship that
exemplifies who He is through the lives lived by each spouse. Malachi 2:15-16 emphasizes this
key aspect of marriage in the eyes of God:
(15) ...No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this.What did our
ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for
one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. 16 I hate divorce, says the
LORD God of Israel, and the one who is guilty of violence, says the LORD who rules
over all. Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.
This passage exemplifies a number of characteristics of Gods view of marriage. Most
importantly for todays culture is that of commitment and faithfulness. Marriage is designed by
God to be shared exclusively between two people, husband and wife. The current trend of
rampant divorce challenges this principle; if husband and wife are warring against each other in
their sinful nature, abandoning one another for the easier road, then the will of God, that they
be united as one flesh, is being trampled under the feet of selfish motives. It is therefore a
responsibility of the church to help couples live in unity and love through the ministries they
provide, providing help in times of trouble.

The specific roles and purposes of marriage are further explained in the New Testament.
The salvific work of Christ on earth changed the way believers understand God. Many of the
mysteries of Gods plan were further revealed through His life and through the writing of the
Apostles. These mysteries include a more clear revelation of the Trinity; the Trinity, or the
Godhead made up of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, exists in perfect unity in love. The three-inone nature of the Trinity is far beyond the comprehension of mankind in this state; however, the
institution of marriage serves to model this unity here on earth. When husband and wife are
united in love they show a picture of who God is. Even their unity in their sexual relationship is a
beautiful model of the perfect oneness which exists in the Trinity. Furthermore when husband
and wife are united in love they display a picture of the love between Christ and his church as
explained in Ephesians 5:24-27. This very chapter of Ephesians gives very clear descriptions of
the relationship a husband and wife should exemplify as they seek to honor God in their
marriage. The outworking of the relationship between husband and wife is a perfect vehicle to
display many of the truths about God and in and of itself creates an environment for the blessing
of God to be experienced. Because marriage is instituted by God, honoring to God, and
encouraged by God the church should do everything it can to nurture the marriage relationships
in its body.
Children in the Traditional Family Model
Children make up the second part of the traditional family. According to Gods plan, they
are born into their family to be raised so that they too may grow up to honor God with families of
their own. Each child represents a person, unique before God, who has the opportunity to trust
Christ as savior and to walk with Him in this life and the next. It is therefore the role of parents
to raise their children to know and love God. In the culture of the Old and New Testaments,

Jewish children were brought up in an atmosphere of learning simply by living in their

community. Specific holidays had been set up by God as remembrances and teaching times, and
parents were instructed to teach their children the ways of God at all times. Such a view has been
lost in our society today. Most parents today do not feel Biblically prepared to answer their
childrens questions of faith and therefore outsource this responsibility to the appropriate
childrens leader or youth director. While the teaching and influence of such leaders should not
be under-appreciated, the role of the family in training and nurturing the child is certainly
undervalued in our culture today. Gods desire for child rearing is found throughout scripture in
both mandates and examples.
As described above, the role of parents within the biblical examples and models is one of
raising and nurturing through consistent involvement in the childs life. This comes from an
outpouring of their own life and one of the greatest biblical commands explaining this is found in
Deuteronomy 6:
(5) You must love the LORD your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all
your strength. (6) These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind,(7) and
you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you
walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up. (8) You should tie them as a
reminder on your forearm and fasten them as symbols on your forehead. (9) Inscribe
them on the doorframes of your houses and gates.
In this passage God is commanding both the parents and the community to raise up the children
with God as the one who is to be loved. By passing this on to their children they were to create a
cycle of generations in which each grew up in the love of God and passed that love on to the
next.
Our culture today is missing the purposeful application of these principles. Children will
always absorb the things in their environment; however, most of the home environments they

find themselves in do not have a purposeful relationship with God in the context of family life.
Because of this, the children fail to know that which is made accessible to them in Christ. When
the grace of God is shown to children through their parents and community they will have a
better chance of positive integration into the family. As they grow older and their relationship to
their parents and community transforms they too will take part in sharing Gods word with other
generations. It is when the family unit operates with a positive view of children that this happens
and marriages and children can be seen as important in the eyes of the church. Therefore when
the church seeks to minister to children they must not necessarily abandon their age based
ministry, such as sunday schools or youth group, but they should include concentrated efforts to
equip both the parents and the community to raise children in nurturing environments which
promote the teaching of Gods word through life experience.
The Traditional vs. Realistic Family Model
The relationships between husband, wife, and children create what is known as the
traditional family. These immediate family connections extend to relatives and community, and
this is the model given to us by God in a sinless world. His design is still good in our fallen state,
but the reality is that we now live in a broken world which does not naturally reflect the structure
God intended in His design for humanity. The divorce rate is climbing higher, the marriage rate
is dropping, more children are growing up in single parent homes, and more people do not have
any family to call their own. There is an increasing number of singles in the church today, both
with kids and without, yet they desire to belong to family, to experience connection with the
church body. Many of these people who are experiencing these very issues are faithfully
attending our church services and are looking for help. The church cannot afford to ignore these
people even though they do not fit the traditional model found in Gods Word. Therefore we

must ask how can we provide resources for care and training while equipping and empowering
them to be the best parents and/or church members that God intended them to be?
The Family Life Education Process
Families today are in desperate need of help. They lack community, they struggle with
their identity in culture, many of them have one or more family members trapped by addiction.
These problems are prevalent even among church families. Additionally, every family, whether
they fit the traditional model or not, has the opportunity to grow in the Lord and experience His
blessing, but many just dont know how to do this. Our goal will be to equip and empower
families in such a way so that they can raise their children by using the principles of Gods Word
while learning to love each other both sacrificially and wholeheartedly. This can be
accomplished through caring, teaching, equipping, and empowering ministries to all members of
the church body. These can be understood in the following contexts:
Caring Ministry: The caring ministry seeks to meet the felt needs of the family. Whether they
are in crisis, need connection to the church body, or need an opportunity to serve, the caring
ministry of the church will seek to provide and avenue of connection and care.
Teaching Ministry: The teaching ministry seeks to educate all members of the church on the
teaching about family as described above. This can be accomplished in multiple venues such as
the Sunday morning sermons, sunday school classes, small group curricula, and church wide
thematic study.
Equipping Ministry: Along with the teaching ministry comes the equipping ministry. The goal
of this ministry is to provide training and practice for the people who desire to practice what
they are learning. This can be expressed through appropriate church programs that challenge
the congregation to make their faith their own, such as a weekly family devotional challenge, a
challenge to pray as a family, or a challenge to serve as a family.
Empowering Ministry: The empowering ministry of the church seeks to provide opportunities
in the form of events or multigenerational gathers that promote the nurturing potential of
community. Here families can interact with each other across generations and family lines to
encourage each other and create memories that will be foundational in the development of
children and the transformation of adults.

When these ministries are effectively executed and these new relational standards are
experienced by families in the congregation their outpouring ministries, such as evangelism and
service, will flourish as a result. Furthermore, caring, teaching, equipping, and empowering
ministries will aid to end the cycles of dysfunction and promote a healthy and vibrant church
culture that will draw unchurched families into this inviting family friendly environment.
Conclusion
The family was created by God from the very beginning as the way to exemplify His
glory in the lives of his creation. Through marriage and child raising families have the
opportunity to glorify God through their relationships with each other; because we live in a sinful
world these families will not always fit the traditional model, but every believer can glorify God
in their family situation as they follow Him. Along with the family of flesh and blood we are
given the example of adoption in scripture, which through the graciousness of God, allows us to
call ourselves sons of God. Likewise those who have no family to claim can certainly be adopted
into the social family which is made up of the body of Christ. Therefore the goal of family life
education is to help people, both adults and children, to live and walk in right relationship with
God and others through the purposeful teaching and application of Scripture. This goal is
accomplished through the well organized and loving ministry of the local church to its people in
the areas of caring, teaching, equipping, and empowering.

Summary
There is a desperate need in the church for focused family life education. Families today
are struggling, both those outside the church and those within. Some families are just subsisting
in a fashion that gets them from day to day, others are truly in crisis. Whatever the case many are
living without clear direction or understanding of what God desires and has designed for their
family life together. If the church will reach out to families, care for them, teach them, equip
them, and empower them, then the culture of the church and the DNA of the families effected
will change to reflect the image of God. This change should be sparked by the motivational
change to live in community according to Gods design.
God commanded from the very beginning that men and women were to live in family
units, as husband and wife, in order to bear children and raise them in the fear of the Lord. They
were commanded to pass on the truth about God to the next generation. This remains true for
families today. By creating a nurturing environment where parents and children experience the
truth of Gods word in their own lives, as opposed to simply hearing it from an expert, these
families can begin to turn the tide against the prevailing winds of culture. Marriages will be
stronger as husbands and wives learn to love each as Christ loved the church. They will then be
able to display to their children much of the character of God through their marriage. For those
families without a two parent home or even a blended family, they will have the opportunity to
seek God for their family, to find support in the church community so that roles can be filled, and
in turn bless their children by showing them who God is and what His desire is for them.
As the community of the church takes part in family life education and the Spirit works in
the lives and hearts of the people, life change will occur. Families will be restored. Families will
be rejuvenated. Families will be reinvigorated with the love of God.