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The Challenge to Preserve the Christian Family Part 4:
How to Preserve Our Christian Families
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families


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It is important to get started on building strong Christian families now. We can't wait until all the studies have been completed. We can't put off acting until data from all the studies have been compiled. We can't delay our involvement until we arrive at some delightful moment in the far distant future when all the psychologists, sociologists and preachers agree on how best to conduct family life.

There will always be new things to learn. It seems like every time we learn something new about the subject of child rearing, mentally kick ourselves and say, "We wish we had known that when we were raising our children." We live family life in the present tense. You have to deal with marriage conflict today. You have to deal with your child's behavior problem before bedtime. We don't have time to become wiser, sharper, better informed before we make a lot of family decisions. What can we do?

• We start by doing what we have always done. Open up the Word of God and ask the same question the ancient people asked of the prophets. "Is there any Word from the Lord?" That means we stand up for the family as the fundamental building block of society. We affirm that God knew what he was doing when he said, in Genesis 2:24 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." We also understand that you don't tinker with that arrangement without severe consequences. Jesus meant what he said in Matthew 19:6 "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." It also means that we proclaim the principles of honor in the home - husbands and wives honoring each other; parents honoring children; children honoring their parents.

• The church needs to be in the business of equipping families. In Ephesians 4, Paul said that the appointed leaders in the church are supposed to make it their business to "prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ might be built up." Are the needs of the family left out of that preparation process? How could they be? If church leaders aren't to be concerned about families then why did Paul say in 1 Timothy 3:4 that an elder must ". . . manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect?" We're going to have to be more creative than we've ever been.

• We can talk about the negatives of women working outside the home until we've run out of words. But women are still going to be working and if all the church can do is put another guilt trip on the mother, who already feels guilty, then we aren't helping very much.

We need to offer help to Christian women who are trying to find a balance between job and family. Maybe we need to help those women with some of their domestic responsibilities instead of pointing a finger and saying, "If you were a good mother, you'd stay at home with your children."

But what can we do for those whose lives have already been scarred by family failure? That will be the subject of our last installment.

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