by Joe Heins
The Restoration Herald - Nov 2025
Most Christians and Christian families tend to become more secular with the passage of time. Let that thought sink in for a moment. Stated another way, history suggests it is the tendency to fade in Christian conviction and action. Upon careful consideration, this opening statement catches the heart while simultaneously calling each person to action. The news and social media symptomatically illustrate the “slow fade” — a world digressing from Christian values. The unacceptable has become acceptable in thought, word, and action. Crime, morality, and ethical standards of right and wrong are disconnected from the eternal standard of God’s holiness.
The tendency to fade in Christian conviction has affected every area of life. Warring fragments of despairing Christians further illustrate the surgical dismantling of a Christian society. This problem hits the hearts of families. Although it is hard to decide whether society has dismantled family values or if dismantled family values have negatively impacted society at large. But one thing is certain: broken families raise broken children who reproduce broken families as adults. The domino effect starts in early childhood and plays out in adulthood.
“Who is responsible?” There is no singular answer to the cause beyond the effects of sin. However, God’s plan for revival has a home, a Christian home. Changing our culture begins in the living room of each Christian family. The dining room table is a place where families stand strongly against the temptation of fading. Who is responsible for responding to God’s call of revival? The Christian family is responsible. This two-part article focuses on revival within Christian families so that Jesus Christ is proclaimed through the home and into the neighborhoods.
Let me illustrate this responsibility of teaching truth in the trenches of parenting. My wife and I have four adult children, baptized believers in Christ, each blessed with committed marriages. We have six grandchildren. Together, we form a Christian family with Jesus as the anchor. The illustration takes shape because our faith-based family is extremely competitive, to a fault at times. For example, I remember one time we played miniature golf as a family. Our two youngest children were twelve and fourteen years old. Joey, the youngest, was an athlete; Katelyn was an artist. We were on the seventeenth hole, and Katelyn, who hated miniature golf and did not want to play, was obviously going to beat Joey the athlete. His jealous anger finally led to an aggressive swing, sending the golf ball flying across the putting surface, bouncing off rocks, and soaring into the bushes. He then threw his golf club. I was angry. His actions disappointed and embarrassed me. With an unkind voice, I told him to get his golf ball from the bushes because we were leaving. “No ice cream today!” I said forcefully. Minutes later, Joey emerged from the bushes with his golf ball in hand, and to my astonishment, a $20 bill he found sitting alongside the ball. Happiness replaced his anger as he said, “I will buy the ice cream now.” I wanted him to learn a lesson by crawling around the bushes looking for his golf ball; instead, he found money. I wondered, “Where was the justice?”
Later at home, we discussed the experience with a relatable Scripture found in Genesis 4. The biblical story tells of Adam and Eve, and the two children they conceived “with the help of the Lord.” Conflict arose between the brothers, Cain and Abel, leading to the Lord’s intervention. We read in Genesis 4:6, “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (emphasis added, NASB).
Cain’s anger and the Lord’s challenge occurred in a family framework with two brothers, a mother, and a father. The Lord’s challenge employed the imagery of a door representing sin’s entry point. With sin lurking at the door, the scene played forward in Adam’s family. One sin led to another sin that led to generations of sin. At the door of each home, sins lurked. The Lord’s challenge rings true to this day, “but you must master it.” This story of God’s family echoes through the corridors of history and onto the miniature golf courses of the twenty-first century.
In the context of family, how do we master sin? How are we teaching children to deal with anger, peer pressure, and discouragement? After all, nobody wants to become angry enough to murder. How do we develop Christian families who remain focused on Truth, interpreting life through a biblical worldview? How do we ensure generations of children will pursue Kingdom purposes? What is our responsibility, specifically within our families? Who is answerable? Through our ministry at Woodburn Christian Children’s Home and related church-based workshops, we have wrestled with these questions. The result is actionable steps families can use to meet the Lord’s challenge and minister to other families.
Preeminence of Family
Let us first consider an experiential observation that integrates biblical truth, real-world life, and the emotional interconnectedness within families. The truth is simple: Family is God’s chosen medium for the transmission of godly lifestyle and values. This truth statement has guided my thoughts since I first heard it from the previous director of Woodburn Christian Children’s Home. The statement locates responsibility for child development and the Lord’s challenge on the family: dad, mom, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. God’s challenge requires each family member to play an essential role and together form an intricate system, like how individual stars in the sky form constellations such as the Big Dipper. God intends family to be an organized array of lights where the combined effort of each member shines the light of Christ, from childhood extending into adulthood, because we never stop parenting children. The constellation metaphor highlights the consistent nature of family-based parenting, just as stars in the sky are consistent. God provides missing family members through relationships in the local church, thus completing the constellation in single-parent and blended families.
The experiential truth suggests that family is responsible for developing a framework to teach biblical lifestyle and values. Schools, neighbors, coaches, and counselors are helpers, at best. They are not primarily responsible. Too often, we pass responsibility to the church as the only biblical teacher of our children. We pass responsibility to schools as primary educators. We allow media to define emotional processes such as grief, sorrow, and joy. We allow peer groups to define identity, purpose, and value. This is not the best way. Family is God’s choice for the development of a biblical worldview in our children, not society at large. The church is a helper for the Christian family, a cloud of witnesses for encouragement and exhortation. Narrative after narrative in the Old Testament highlights this point. From Cain and Abel to Noah, from Abram to Isaac and Jacob, from David to Solomon, God’s truth about a family’s responsibility is clear. The proof text is found in Deuteronomy 4:9, “Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known [teach] to your children and grandchildren” (NASB). Family is the place where we teach children how to master sin, remain focused on Truth, and pursue Kingdom purposes.
Permanence in Christ
Now, let us transition to a biblical characteristic known as permanence. Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5, NASB). Abiding or remaining in Jesus develops permanence and fuels discipleship. This is especially true at home. Christian families thrive when permanency is the atmosphere of the home.
What are the characteristics of permanency as related to family development? Three words come to mind: available, predictable, and accountable. When adults model these characteristics in a family system, children of all ages learn most effectively. The opposite is also true. Families in crisis typically lack these fundamental characteristics. That is why our ministry at Woodburn Christian Children’s Home, illustrated in the diagram, integrates permanency as a key platform for the process of child development. Modeled by adults, the triangular supports of availability, predictability, and accountability characterize the platform of permanency that stabilizes the four developmental domains in a Christ-centered home-learning environment. Growth and the construction of a biblical worldview happen despite a messy and fractured world. Permanency is the key.
Permanency is also part of God’s challenge. I learned this truth the hard way. While serving at the Auburn Church of Christ, my children were school-aged. During one sermon series from the Book of Ephesians, the sermons connected biblical truths to family life. The sermons challenged dads, moms, grandparents, uncles, and aunts to be available, predictable, and accountable to Jesus and their families. The Scripture challenged families in the church to create a “platform of permanency” in their homes. About halfway through the series, while having dinner with my family, we discussed the sermon series. Our high school daughter politely affirmed the messages, suggesting the material was concise and understandable. She closed her comments with a spear that pierced my heart. She said, “I wish you were more available and predictable to us. The ideas sounded good in your sermon, but we do not see that at home.” What made matters worse was that my wife and other kids were affirming her words with nodding heads. Wow! From the mouths of children come the truths of family. I was upset, even angry. How dare she accuse me of not practicing what I preach? As the days and weeks unfolded, I knew she was right. Our family was out of balance. The “platform of permanency” was teetering due to busyness and other stressors.
Thankfully, the dinner conversation brought new life into our family. Together, we found ways to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually available to one another. We committed to more meals together, before and after school. We placed boundaries around three of the seven evenings so that when we were together at home, our attention was on one another. My wife and I no longer gave our family the “ministerial and vocational leftovers” of our time and energy. We did not allow distractions from social media or TV to invade our time at home. We started exercising and changing our eating habits. We affirmed our marital covenant and commitment to develop our relationship. We reembraced the truth that parenting occurs through the health of the marital union. As a family, we took walks together, discussing the highs and lows of the week. We shared the emotional backdrops of our experiences. We embodied Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” We began teaching biblically based devotions three times a week in our home. The five-minute teachings included object lessons and truth. Our home became our home church. The Auburn Church of Christ, where we served, became our second church. The elders embraced our new perspective. God blessed our efforts. The result was a renewed Christian influence in our neighborhood and with our children’s friends. The Auburn Church of Christ also grew deeper in discipleship and larger numerically. We were building our family from the ground up with Christ as the cornerstone.
One highlight occurred on an icy, snowy Sunday when the weather disrupted power and closed the roads. Since we could not attend church, our kids created a worship service in our home where the girls sang, and the boys led communion and a short devotion. With tears in our eyes, we watched the fruits of our labor unfold. The efforts of change poured forth joy into our family. The difficult dinner conversation, where I learned I was not practicing what I preached, was timely in other areas, too. Three years later, tragedy would strike our family as two of our son’s best friends died in a tragic car accident on a Friday night before the high school football game. The night the boys died impacted a large group of teenagers. As peers, they were unable to reconcile the suddenness of death and grief. Our son was overwhelmed, but he knew what to do. He invited all his friends to our home, where we wept and prayed. Joey brought them home because he knew somehow it would be okay at home. In time, God integrated that horrible experience and the associated grief using our home as the “platform of permanency” — a Christian home rooted in Jesus Christ.
Responsibility and permanency. Children thrive when adults in the family constellation shine the Light of Christ and embrace the responsibility of primary Christian teachers. Children succeed in Christ, despite toxic social media and unrelenting peer pressure, when adults in the family system model availability, predictability, and accountability. The problem may reside in the secular world, but the solution resides in a Christian home, sitting around the dining room table. In the next article, we will discuss why “table time” is so important for child development.
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