Becoming a Missional Family

I was recently asked to write an article for a magazine.  The Subject was raising a missional family.  Here are a few of my thoughts...

Missional.  It is a word that is being overused, and often misunderstood.   Missional, is a word that has a verity of meanings and people use it often without knowing exactly what it means, let alone how to live it out.

Honestly, as I write this article on, “How to involve your children in missions”  I find myself staring at a wordless document.  I ask myself, “Why?”  I mean, for over the past decade I have been very involved in mission work around the world.  Preaching the gospel on almost every continent  has taught me many things.  The main thing I have learned from my experiences is this:  Missional is less about what I do as a follower of Jesus Christ and more about who I am as a follower of Jesus Christ!  

What  I hope to convey to anyone who reads this is simple and at the same time I think profound:  “missions”  or being missional at its core comes from the church or family receiving the mission of Jesus  and living that out every day and in every way possible.

In the same manner that Christ was sent, He now has sent us {See John 17}.   We are to have the same mission and purpose as our Lord.  To seek and to save with a godly compassion those who are perishing without Jesus Christ.

As parents it is important that not only we ourselves do this, but that we pass it on to our children.  I have 7 children ranging from 19 to 3 months.  So you can imagine the busy demands upon my family.  Three of my children have surrendered to the call to be missionaries, all of them  {with the exception of my 3 month old} have been on mission projects.  

But more than going on projects let me say it again:   The key to passing on a missional heritage is living it out daily.   I wish I could give you: “Three easy steps to a missional family…”   I know that is what we want these days.  However, it is not that easy.  

I think the writer of  Deuteronomy 6:4-9  said it well:   “4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  {New International Version (NIV)}

Many times, I find that parents strive to correct only the hand of the child.  What we as Christian parents must do it to seek to correct the heart of our children.   When we only concern our time and efforts correcting the hand of the child, we show that we are more worried about WHAT they do.  But,  if we could only learn to focus on the level of their hearts we would then concern ourselves with WHO they are.  I believe that who they are and who they become is far more important than what they do.  

As a parent we must stop and ask ourselves “who am I?”  because who we are is what they see to emulate.  If our children do not see us loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, in the example of faith what we give them will be deficient, void of power and lackluster at best.  On the other hand, if living the missional life is important to us it will be embedded in our hearts, and we will naturally look for ways to impress them upon our children.   For example, we will read to them stories of missionaries and their life impact upon our world.  Also, we will learn to stress that to truly be missional we are to become relational.  All of this begins in our homes as we rise for the day and go down at night, and everything that takes place in between. 

So, as you sit at home learn to talk to your children about things that really matter for an eternity.  The writer of Deuteronomy says: “As you are walking.”  In our modern day vernacular it might be: “As you drive your vehicle.”  The point is is the same,   we are to look for opportunities to take out the earbuds,  turn off the DVD players,  and then talk about the things that really matter, eternally.  

When we read in Deuteronomy 6 about the idea of symbols and signs it is a constant reminder of what really was important.   What I have found to be true is this:  As something becomes important to you it will naturally be important to your family.

 It really is simple to live a missional life.  To steal back a phrase from Nike and put in a christian context, we have to “Just do it!”  Yet, no one has to tell me:  it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done or sought to do.