The New Discipleship in the Home

Description

Price: $29.99 - $14.95
(as of Mar 03, 2025 03:50:04 UTC – Details)

For decades, the Friedemans have taught a “Discipleship in the Home” course at Wesley Biblical Seminary designed to encourage students to “Go and make disciples”—first in their own homes and then among the peoples to whom God has called them. These students have been as excited about this material as I suspect you will be. Among many other things, Matt and Mary admonish students to pray for “four generations” of their family line knowing that people they will never see will be impacted by what they do today in the lives of their sons and daughters. It is never too early to start praying for your great, great grandchildren and the lives they will touch for the Gospel.
Matt’s career as professor, pastor, prison chaplain, pro-life activist and author have been fruitful in the disciple-making realm. But his greatest emphasis and most productive fruitfulness have been with his wife and children. And the values he emphasizes there, he emphasizes in this volume.
The family is, according to biblical wisdom, the center of God’s covenant activity. It could easily be argued that as the family went, so went Old Testament Israel. When the family has remained strong in Christian history, so has the faith of the community. When godly parenting produced faithful disciples in the time of Jesus and the early church, the Great Commission—as evidenced in the obedient lives of believers—advanced.
Though the Great Commission is not considered a distinctive family passage by scholars, our family thinks it is.
“Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
In Matthew’s account, those were Jesus’ final words to His disciples. These disciples would spread out and eventually take the teachings of Christ to the entire known world because of the inspiration and tutelage of their Master.
The premise of this book is that, if Christian families across the world discipled their children after the example of Christ, we could expect our children to have world-changing impact.
There is no need of the hour more critical than this. Families are in crisis. Nearly as many babies are born to single moms as to mothers who are married. Divorce is rampant. There is great dysfunction in families that ARE intact. But, perhaps worst of all, Christian parents—who are kind and caring and have the best of intentions—are exceedingly unintentional in the raising of their children.
Family discipleship has been a passion of our lives for more than thirty years. We’ve had the opportunity to share our experiences and ideas in sermons, seminars, and a seminary course called “Discipleship in the Home.” As we’ve interacted with others on this vital topic, we have taught and been taught. And we’ve been asked by many to put this information in book form for a wider audience. We do so not because we consider ourselves and our family paragons, but with the hope that some of the things we have learned might be helpful to others. Catherine Booth, who with her husband William founded the Salvation Army, used to whisper each night in her sleeping children’s ears these words: “Darling, you are not here in this world for yourself. You have been sent for others. The world is waiting for you.” Discipleship at its core is whispering into our children’s lives for the glory of God and the salvation of the nations. The Great Commission starts in our families.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B7QPJVJY
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (July 28, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 148 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8841150015
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.34 x 9 inches