Editor's Note
Many different authors have contributed to this article, which comes out of the collaboration between The Global Children's Forum and Go Play. As the importance of the family in fulfilling the Great Commission has been recognized across the world, many people have begun to pray, and contribute their perspectives and skills towards this unifying goal: to see families of believers everywhere thrive and live out their unique mission for Christ. This article is published in partnership with Lausanne Children and Family Network. Email cnfnetwork@lausanne.org for more information.
There is a quiet revolution sweeping across the worldwide body of Christ. It’s not about experts or correct procedures. It’s not about programs or social media influencers. It’s not complicated. It’s as simple as looking across your street and seeing what is possible.
It’s being a Family on Mission.
Perhaps it was the disruptions of COVID that saw households spending more time together in lockdown, and the ensuing busyness, that has caused families to reevaluate the need for discipling and mission to be integral to a family’s blueprint. Families of all shapes and sizes spent time together in a new way. It was a time to focus internally as households and also to focus outwards locally to those in our neighborhood. We were reminded of the power of a family devoted to God which is focused on doing two basic things; helping each other grow in Christ, and loving those around us.
A family devoted to God . . . is focused on doing two basic things; helping each other grow in Christ, and loving those around us
This grassroots movement sprang up out of necessity. Now it continues to build momentum as individuals, organizations and movements see the opportunity and make tools to share.
Imagine the impact:
- if every household of believers embraced being on mission for Jesus,
- if all churches supported those households to be on mission so that the church became what God intended it to be, together impacting wider communities,
- if, together, believing households were like ‘cities on a hill’, shining light and bringing hope to others!
Such a vision calls for all households who follow Christ to be ‘Families on Mission’, reflecting Christ’s purpose, identity, and calling.
GATHERING
Families on Mission – Every Family is a Lighthouse
Feel like your family’s a mess? How can we be on mission? How can I fit another thing in? We’re with you. Jesus doesn’t need us to be perfect to be on his mission. Join us on 29 August at 11:00 GMT | 07:00 EDT, to hear how households around the world are catching the vision to be on mission right where they are!
Many families or households all over the world are doing this. In the ordinary, everyday activities of life they are: sharing meals, helping out a neighbor, encouraging a parent on the sidelines of a sporting game, asking a friend from school to a youth group, having a games night with young adults from their university to deepen friendships, praying for their community as they pass by on their daily run, taking extra lunch to school to share with others in need, and many more examples.
Each event is unremarkable in itself. But combined they can change the world. All these examples are households sharing the love of Jesus right where they are.
What do we mean by ‘families’?
Single parents, blended families, couples with and without children, singles (who have people they would call ‘family’ nearby), adoptive families, families with differing needs, neurotypical or neurodiverse children, young adults house sharing . . . All these different combinations of people who live under the same roof and share the same meals, time together and values fall under our definition of ‘family’.
The United Nations states that there’s no single definition of family. Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing. In most of these households, we will find children and young people growing, developing and striving to find the ‘life to the full’ that Jesus talked about.
But my family is a mess
When a conversation begins about families being on mission, many people begin to be overwhelmed by feelings of failure, disappointment, grief, guilt, sadness and so on. This is the reality for so many today. ‘How can we help others when our own family feels like such chaos?’ or ‘Some of my children, or my partner, are not believers.’
Families on Mission as an idea is not meant to create more guilt or feelings of failure but to recognize that right where we are—whatever our household looks like—we can be sharing Jesus’ life, light and hope in the everyday, ordinary moments with those around us. It’s about seeing the potential in the commonplace.
Families on Mission as an idea is not meant to create more guilt or feelings of failure but to recognize that right where we are—whatever our household looks like—we can be sharing Jesus’ life, light and hope in the everyday, ordinary moments with those around us
So what can we do about it?
People from around the world as part of the Global Children’s Forum (GCF) and Sport Movement first met in Brazil last year to look at ways to encourage families everywhere to be ‘on mission’ where they are.
A training guide for families, churches and anyone was created. Animated stories of real families and their examples of ‘being on mission’ were created and shared. Now 24 countries, from Ukraine to Australia, have started sharing these ideas and resources in different ways—trainings, family camps, all age church gatherings, preaching, sharing over a meal.
‘Families on Mission’ does not need ‘experts’ to come and train or households to feel overloaded with more they have to do. It is more a mindset/attitude/heart-condition, than a defined set of strategies or things to do. It is about normal people taking unremarkable steps to be Jesus’ light in their neighborhoods.
So how can we think big, (yet) start small right where we are? We can do this by looking in and looking out, knowing that God is at work in the ordinary.
Be a Family on Mission!