Chris and Melissa Swain on Discipling Children

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (May 2024) it’s Write it on Their Hearts: Practical Help for Discipling Your Kids by Chris Swain with Melissa Swain, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

Tim Chester and Ed Moll on Family

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (August 2022) it’s Gospel Centred Family: Becoming the Parents God Wants You to Be by Tim Chester and Ed Moll, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

Theos Report on Passing on Faith

The latest report from Theos has recently been published:

Olwyn Mark, Passing on Faith (London: Theos, 2016).

Here’s the summary blurb:

‘What do parents think about passing on their faith – their beliefs (or lack of them) about God – to their children? How seriously do they take it? And what difference do they make?

‘Conducted in partnership with Canterbury Christ Church University, Passing on Faith examines these questions through new polling research and a detailed study of academic research into the subject. British parents, the polling shows, are generally not too bothered about whether their children go on to share their beliefs, although that varies – significantly – depending on the faith of the parents in question, with atheist, agnostic, Christian, and other religious parents having some very different views.

‘The academic literature, in contrast with this, is clear about the impact parents can have. In the first instance, insights from psychology show that children have a natural propensity towards ‘belief’ of some kind. Building on that, and examining and assimilating the findings of 54 published studies, Olwyn Mark shows that the family and the home is incomparably important when it comes to passing on faith.

‘The role and faith commitment of both parents, and the integrity, consistency and unity of parents’ beliefs, practices and relationships are all shown to be key influencers on whether believing children become believing adults.

‘Ultimately, for all the effects that cultural pressures or evangelistic measures will have on determining the next generation of believers (and non-believers), parents and home life will consistently have a resounding impact on the passing on of faith.’

A pdf of the full report is available here.

Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry 2, 2 (2012)

The latest issue of The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry, from The Center for Christian Family Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is available in its entirety as a pdf here. In addition to its regular features, the main articles – listed below – are devoted to ‘biblical and theological perspectives on motherhood’.

James Merrill Hamilton

A Biblical Theology of Motherhood

William F. Cook III

When Only One Spouse Believes: A Biblical Perspective

Wayne Shealy

The Church as Bride and Mother: Two Neglected Theological Metaphors

Kevin Smith

The Challenge of Matriarchy: Unique Challenges to Family Ministry in African-American Churches

Mary Somerville

A Substantial Grace: Effective Ministry to Single Teenaged Mothers

J.C. Ryle on the Duties of Parents

Feedbooks make available (here) a pamphlet on the duties of parents, originally published in 1860, written by J.C. Ryle (1816-1900), the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.

In the Introduction, Ryle writes that this ‘is a subject that concerns almost all’, that ‘all of us, I suspect, can do something here, either directly or indirectly’, also reminding his readers that ‘this is preeminently a point in which men can see the faults of their neighbours more clearly than their own’!

He calls the following points ‘hints about right training’, and asks readers not to reject them ‘because they are blunt and simple’ or ‘contain nothing new’.

1. Train Your Child Rightly

First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way that they would.

2. Tenderness, Affection and Patience

Train up your child with all tenderness, affection, and patience. I do not mean that you are to spoil him, but I do mean that you should let him see that you love him.

3. Much Depends on You

Train your children with an abiding persuasion on your mind that much depends upon you.

4. Consider the Soul of Your Child

Train with this thought continually before your eyes – that the soul of your child is the first thing to be considered.

5. A Knowledge of the Bible

Train your child to a knowledge of the Bible.

6. A Habit of Prayer

Train them to a habit of prayer.

7. Diligence in the Public Means of Grace

Train them to habits of diligence, and regularity about public means of grace.

8. A Habit of Faith

Train them to a habit of faith.

9. A Habit of Obedience

Train them to a habit of obedience.

10. Always Speaking the Truth

Train them to a habit of always speaking the truth.

11. Redeeming the Time

Train them to a habit of always redeeming the time.

12. Fear Over-Indulgence

Train them with a constant fear of over-indulgence.

13. How God Trains His Children

Train them remembering continually how God trains His children.

14. The Influence of Your Example

Train them remembering continually the influence of your own example.

15. The Power of Sin

Train them, remembering continually the power of sin.

16. The Promises of Scripture

Train them remembering continually the promises of Scripture.

17. Continual Prayer for Blessing

Train them, lastly, with continual prayer for a blessing on all you do.