The latest research reveals that 75% of the children raised in evangelical churches are leaving the faith. It appears that the church is hemorrhaging its children out into the culture. Did Peter know something that we don’t when he preached, “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off…”(Acts 2:39)?

Having been a children’s ministry leader, and having met many children’s and youth ministry leaders over my 21 years of ministry, I can say that the efforts of the men and women who faithfully and lovingly serve on staff are not in question. In fact, the problems we see cannot be laid at the feet of these programs.

I submit that perhaps there are biblical principles that we’ve lost sight of. A renewed focus on these principles could make the difference in seeing Peter’s promise move from elusive dream to reality.

On one hand, Children’s and Youth ministry leaders increasingly are saying, “We’re doing all we can, but we can’t disciple children in one hour per week. We need parents to step up to the plate.” On the other hand, parents are maxed out, stressed out, and sometimes checked out of the daily process of making kingdom disciples of their covenant children.

The Word of God Provides The Solution In a Simple Pattern

What does God’s word tell us about how He expects us, through the power of His Holy Spirit, to establish covenant faithfulness in the home? I begin with a short story.

I remember one Christmas Eve getting quite frustrated with putting together a toy for my son. I finally, humiliatingly, after two hours of exasperation, found the directions and actually read them to learn that I had missed an important step. I imagine anyone reading this has had the same experience at some time or another. In some cases, the pieces are all there, but they aren’t put together in proper order. Either way, successful completion of the project remains elusive, until we read (or re-read) the directions.

What we need to do is “re-read” the directions for making disciples.
Very simply, it looks like this:

The Simple Pattern for Covenant Faithfulness in the Church and in the Home

1. There is a presupposed pattern in scripture, submitted to, pursued, and applied for God’s glory and our good, which rightly applied is not two but one central motive.

2. The aim of this pattern is heart-level obedience. (True godly desires verses bare-legalistic duty-oriented behavior).

3. Heart-level obedience is lived out through heart-level relationships with God and one another (“You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbor”) which are the ultimate end to which we are all accountable.

4. This heart-level obedience and these relationships are not indiscriminate but maintained along covenantal lines (e.g. marriage and family).

5. The primary methodology of growth in regards to heart-level obedience and heart-level relationships is speaking the truth (the gospel) in love within these relationships, for which we are all accountable to know others and to be known by them.

6. This growth, otherwise referred to as sanctification or renewal in the likeness of Christ, involves putting off the old man with its lusts and putting on the new man (Christ in you). The love that comes from Christ to God and others, being rooted in the accomplishment of Christ and applied by faith, makes covenant faithfulness not only possible but expected, and not a burden but a joy.

7. God’s design is for each household to have a spiritual leader or ‘head of household’ (husband, father, single mother, or woman unequally yoked to a non-believer) who is tasked with the responsibility of overseeing this heart-level transformation for their households.

8. Overseers (elders) are men assigned to see to it that this transformation is being faithfully maintained in the broader Household of God (the Church). Practically speaking, overseers accomplish their jobs primarily by equipping and graciously holding responsible those (heads of households) whom God holds accountable.

How to Re-emphasize This Pattern

I will begin by stating what this pattern does not require. It does not require a jihad against church programs. Truth is, these programs can actually help facilitate the re-establishment of this pattern. But let’s be clear, absent this simple pattern being vigorously, intentionally, and faithfully maintained, these programs carry a load they were never intended to carry and as we have seen cannot fabricate covenant faithfulness.

What this pattern does require. Required is the vigorous, intentional, and faithful maintenance of this pattern because it represents what God has already clearly revealed in His word to guide us.

The place to start is with the establishment of this basic pattern of covenant faithfulness in the entire body of Christ. The big picture is beautifying the Church: the Bride of Christ. Do we really believe Ephesians 4:15-16? Are we building each other up by speaking the truth to one another in love? Faithful shepherding—and accountability—by the elders of the heads of households to fulfill their role is a clear biblical element that must be re-established if we are to accomplish covenant faithfulness and produce kingdom disciples.

Equipping spiritual heads of households to pursue covenant faithfulness in the home is not a ‘nice-to-have’, but a primary, foundational and absolutely mission- critical element in the church’s ministry.

This represents an exciting opportunity for elders, ministry leaders, head of households.
Scripture has given us a simple pattern that we must live in order to see Peter’s promise realized in our time…and beyond.

In tears, the mother said to me, “I’ve been praying for my daughter for a long time, asking God to change her heart. Why hasn’t God done something?” Immediately, I started thinking about several other families who were asking the same question.

Haven’t we all asked this question? There are more than likely several distinct answers. We know that God is sovereign. His ways are higher than our ways (Isa. 55:8-9). “Shall the thing created ask, ‘why have you made me thus?’ (Rom. 9:20)” Our job as created, dependent beings is to rest in God and to wait expectantly for Him to work. This we know although we don’t like it very much.

There is, however, another answer that struck me with new profundity and provided a sense of comfort. It is simply this: God often uses our own individual sufferings to also work in the lives of others.We tend to forget this.

Redemption is on one hand a very individual experience. We are justified as individuals and brought into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But we are saved into a spiritual family where our relationships are vital to our growth in that relationship.

The good and bad of our lives form threads that God weaves in and around others. Indeed, it is the interwoven nature of our experiences that creates the strength to endure on the one hand, but also the beauty of victory on the other. What seems like only one person’s struggle, is actually a struggle that God is using in the lives of others either to help them deal with sin, mature, or prepare for greater service.

If I come home from work in a bad mood, it usually ends up eventually affecting everyone in my house. Dealing with my bad mood is a covenantal experience. My bad mood is sin and I must confess that to God and others who I sin against because of it. But it is the role of others, my wife and my children to speak the truth in love to me (Eph. 4:16) to help correct it so that I am restored to God and my family. But in that process, they may need to deal with their own hearts so they can help me deal with my own.

My daughters’ struggle with seizures is a physical as well as spiritual struggle for her. But it is just as much of a struggle for my wife and our 17 year old daughter who both battle anxiety about when and where she has seizures. It affects me because I need to provide support to my wife and my two daughters. It affects our church body because there are many who pray regularly for her medications to work and for her ultimate healing. But none of these individual’s involvement is isolated from their own hearts. We all have to wrestle with our own hearts as we help each other through suffering which places my daughter’s personal struggle right in the crosshairs of each our own sanctification. God wastes nothing.

So, when it comes to answering “Why God?” it may very well be that God is also using that person’s struggle to work in at least one other person’s life.

Ok. So God probably has this bigger purpose in view. So what? First, it gives purpose. “Why?” is a question of purpose. When suffering lingers, wanting to know why naturally takes on greater importance. God is sovereign. Every situation is prescribed by Him for his redemptive purposes not just in our own lives but in the lives of others. This sense of purpose although perhaps not fully understood, enables us to persevere and to keep seeking God through it.

Second, it gives us hope. Because God has a purpose: our conformity to the image of his Son, we also have hope that God will bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6).

Third, it should motivate us to ask God to show us how he might want to use another person’s suffering…to work in us!

Forth, if we find that God is working in us through those sufferings, it is a great blessing to tell the person who is suffering how their trial is helping you. It bolsters their sense of purpose, their faith and thus their endurance.

One day my daughter told me that she would rather have seizures and the close relationship she has with the Lord than to not have the seizures but not walk as closely to Christ. This testimony has strengthened my own faith in my own trials. But I’ve also shared this testimony with others who I’ve come across. I usually tell her when I have these conversations. And when I have told her, her face lights up like a Christmas tree and I see a clear sense of relief and encouragement in her that is deeply heartening.

This doesn’t provide a perfect answer as to why God is allowing suffering to continue in a particular situation. But Lord willing, it does provide a broader picture of what He might be up to that gives us hope.

One day we will all know why we’ve gone through seasons of suffering. I believe we will all be amazed at how extensively God has orchestrated suffering to accomplish his redeeming work in us and to the lives of others.

What do we pray about that really helps those we are praying for? Certainly, we pray that God will bring restoration to a hurting relationship, physical healing, or provide the much-needed job. If you are not already, consider adding to the list praying for them to “remember” what they already know.

The Apostles Reminded People of What They Already Knew

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved…” – 1 Cor. 15:1

“Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.” -2 Pet. 1:12

Apostles Paul and Peter were concerned that the people they were writing to would forget the riches they already had in Christ Jesus. These riches include the simple gospel truths that describe our new identity in Christ. Does it seem odd that the apostles were so concerned about people forgetting what they already knew?

We are Sojourners, Not Squatters

Hebrews 11:13 reminds us that just like our spiritual ancestors we are sojourners; strangers; aliens who are passing through this world. The implications of this truth are astonishing and pervasive when you  stop and think about it. It affects our values. Our purpose. Even our outlook on life itself. The life of a sojourner is not by nature, “easy”.

For several decades, life in America has for the most part been prosperous, free, and comfortable. I am grateful for these blessings from God. However, in the midst of all this prosperity and peace, have we forgotten that America is not our home? When God brings hardships into our lives our response can be much more “squatter-like” (one who feels entitled) than “sojourner-like” (one who accepts and endures).

We Need Hope More Than we Need Ease

The work that God is doing in our lives is one of conforming us to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ—a process to be completed when we have finally reached Heaven. In the meantime, I personally don’t like to admit that this process occurs best when I am struggling than when things are going swimmingly. Struggle forces me to actively seek and depend on God.

Difficulty and suffering are often the lot of sojourners who are by nature just passing through. Therefore, sojourners need hope more than anything. Enduring hope that pulls us through trials comes from only one place: the gospel. Though we are suffering physically or emotionally through personal conflict, sickness, deprivation, or persecution, we endure because we realize that what we ultimately need is what we already have in Christ and that one day, the suffering will end forever.

But the message of the gospel is easily forgotten because we are quick to seek what we want and need outside of Christ in the comforts we have come to expect. Again, seeking these comforts is not wrong, but when we forget that we must first find our satisfaction in Christ, it is easy to make everything else that we desire, idols. It is the nature of the flesh; indwelling sin with which we battle each day to look everywhere but Christ for supply.

Isn’t it striking that the writer of Hebrews—in writing to people who were suffering persecution: having their property confiscated, and being thrown in prison—chooses to write about… Jesus exalted, and all that he did for them as their once for all sacrifice and perfect high priest? Apparently, the writer knew that reminding them of THIS would make the critical difference in their remaining faithful to Jesus.

Trials will either drive us to Christ or away from Christ. The reminder of these truths was what the writer of Hebrews implored the Christians to do with one another so that they would not be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (3:13).

C.S. Lewis reminds us: “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.”

As elders, we would do well to include in our prayers for our sojourning sheep that they remember Christ and how what he has done for them gives them hope so that they can navigate the trials in a way that draws them closer to the Lord.