Family

Each year, over 45 million babies are born in Christian households, and 93 million to non-Christian households. Since annual converts to Christianity number 15 million, but annual defections number 12 million, the nett conversion growth is just 3 million per year. That means births to Christian families is presently the primary driver in the growth of the church, not evangelism.We might wish it were otherwise, but this is the case, and if you think about it, it’s only natural. When a large group of people consider themselves majority Christian, then conversion to Christianity from non-Christian sections isn’t possible. When everyone professes Christianity, the only thing you’ll have is proselytized growth between Christian traditions (e.g. Catholics to Protestants, Protestants to Catholics) or the revival of the nominally Christian. This is, in fact, the ideal state: it means that Christianity has thoroughly saturated an area, and should be considered a success! (The reality is, if we are successful in the Great Commission, then all evangelists are out of work, and the primary job is discipleship. If you want job security, aim for discipleship-as-evangelism, not evangelism-as-major-ministry.)

In any event, if we see that the primary force for church growth is births in Christian families, then one of the primary goals of the church should be: to help believers marry, and raise believing children, who stay within the church and themselves have Christian families.

“Matchmaking services,” especially in majority non-Christian lands, become suddenly a much more appealing ministry option. In many Muslim countries, for example, if a Christian woman marries a Muslim man (for lack of any other prospects), any children are automatically Muslims and may not convert. (This is one reason why it’s so important in the church to find Christian husbands or wives for people.)

(In this article, I won’t address issues that are presently assaulting the Christian family–such as homosexual unions, etc.– although these are very important.)

Having secured the beginnings of Christian families, it is secondly very important for the church to provide the support, encouragement, and accountability needed for Christian families to stay together. There are no globally comprehensive statistics on divorce, but DivorceMag.com (really!) is one source for several countries. Unfortunately it covers mostly Western countries. Another compiled source lists a few more countries. And in 2008, this Afrik-News article reported that divorce rates were likewise climbing across the Islamic world. Marital counseling and ongoing marriage growth studies are important ministries that must not be shirked by the church, especially where it is smallest.

Finally, raising believing children is the third key component of this formula. It has been oft noted that children grow up are “leaving the church in droves” (see an example, as well as anything that George Barna has written on the subject). This is perhaps more a Western phenomenon, but it bears careful consideration. What programs in the church are aimed not just at entertaining youth while adults are at “grownup services,” but more at discipling youth to be the leaders of tomorrow?

One additional note: many leaders are reflecting on the strategic importance of reaching youth, since most spiritual commitments are made before the age of 14 (see the “4/14 Global Initiative“). If we want to make real inroads into the non-Christian world, which presently is growing twice as fast as Christianity, then we really need to consider the discipleship of youth and enabling them to reach out to their friends in a clear and compelling way. To this end, I’ve always appreciated the approach of Christian Endeavor, which trains youth to run their own youth programs. What better way to train up the leaders of tomorrow than to give them practical experience today, and who better to reach out to the youth culture than the youth who are part of it (as opposed to us old geezers, for whom reaching youth can involve a truly cross-cultural challenge and a significant amount of culture shock)?

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Every marriage can use help. Resources like those provided by Focus on the Family can prove useful. Are you familiar with what your church or denomination offers?

The high price of being a Christian in Pakistan relates the persecution of Christian women and girls, including kidnappings, rape, forced marriage, and forced conversion to Islam. This and many stories like it are terrible tales of marriage used to enslave.

Child marriage is another common issue in the developing world. Some experts believe there are 20,000 new child brides every day, or 60 million girls worldwide.

This study reports that polygamy is harmful to society in some very key ways. An important consideration in unreached sections of the world where polygamy is still an active practice.