LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Church Discipleship Assessment of Saint Mark Baptist Church
Submitted to Dr. Brad Reynolds
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
Fall 2018 DSMN 610 – D02
Family Discipleship
by
Krystle Talley McDonald
November 3, 2018
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................... 1
Strategies for Discipleship.............................................................................................................3
Discipleship: The Family-Based Model...................................................................................... 4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 5
Bibliography...................................................................................................................................7
2
Introduction
The design for discipleship laid out in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) was
not just meant for Christian pastors and spiritual leaders.1 When Jesus instructed for believers to
“go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” baptizing and teaching all He commanded, He
knew this could not be effectively accomplished if church leaders did not work in partnership
with those that make up the church – families. God intended from the beginning for the
Christian home to be the small-scale version of the church. Tad Thompson states in his book,
Intentional Parenting, that “God intends for a beautiful partnership to exist between the home
and the local church.”2 Unfortunately, the connection between parents and children with regard
to church discipleship is weak and increasingly evident in the decline of youth ministries across
the nation. The family and the church are not steadily working together.
God created the church and the family to work in relationship with one another in the
discipleship process, but the overall process is ineffective if one or the other are absent.
According to Steve Wright and Chris Graves, the church cannot function as she should without
the home being the main source of nurturing for Christian believers, and the family cannot thrive
as a Christian family unless it is consistently in the circulation of a church that influences
spiritual growth.3 The future of the Christian family will largely depend on how discipleship is
1 Unless otherwise noted, all scripture passages referenced derive from the English Standard
Version Bible (Crossway, 2008).
2 Tad Thompson, Intentional Parenting: Family Discipleship by Design, (Adelphi: Cruciform
Press, 2011), 6.
3 Steve Wright and Chris Graves, ApParent Privilege, (Nashville: InQuest Ministries, Inc. 2008),
99.
1
strategically put in place within both the church and the home. A biblical framework for
discipleship must include an emphasis on how Scripture stresses the need for parents to be co-
laborers with the church in their child’s spiritual growth.
Timothy Paul Jones, an associate professor of leadership and church ministry at Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, believes that youth leaders inside the church cannot efficiently
sustain the spiritual lives of all youth involved in student ministry.4 He soon discovered that the
primary problem is how spiritual leaders and the church envision and define successful student
ministry. Many ministry models for discipleship within churches are fundamentally flawed and
Jones suggests that certain strategies “have not consistently reflected God’s intentions for His
people.”5 The primary context of discipleship should occur in the family. As a result, Jones
defines what family ministry means and lists several models for family ministry which include:
the family-integrated ministry, the family-based ministry, and the family-equipping ministry.6
“Each model of family ministry represents a distinct and identifiable approach to the challenge of
drawing the home and the church into a life-transforming partnership.”7
Saint Mark Baptist Church led by senior pastor, Philip Pointer, understands the
importance of this partnership and is taking the initiative to be a church with families who are
grounded in three biblically sound areas in order to produce disciples; these key areas are
4 Paul Renfro, Brandon Shields, and Jay Strother, edited by Timothy Paul Jones, Perspectives on Family Ministry:
3 Views, 20.
5 Ibid., 25.
6 Ibid., 68-72.
7 Ibid., 74.
2
learning, serving, and giving. The family-based methods employed by Saint Mark and the
parents which are stimulated by these three components are not perfect, but they are getting
better with time. The “learning” component of Saint Mark’s discipleship strategy is to be
admired and is the foundation of how the strategies for discipleship have been formed.
Strategies for Discipleship
Saint Mark understands that the primary responsibility for diligently teaching children
about Christ is on the parents and that God has positioned parents to do so continuously outside
of the church walls according to Deuteronomy 6:6-7. The senior pastor emphasizes to the
congregation consistently about “the streets raising the kids,” prompting everyone to partner with
the church to produce disciples. Dr. Tom Ascol affirms this by stating:
“if you do not teach your children truth and righteousness, be assured that there are a
multitude of teachers in this world who would deceive them into thinking that ‘truth’ and
morality are relative ideas and can be shaped to fit anyone’s beliefs or standards.”8
Dr. Dan Burrell reinforces this belief as well by stating, “the church could and should never
replace the role of parents who God put as the primary disciple-makers in the home.”9 It is a
disservice to the discipleship process for parents to assume that it is the church’s job to lead their
children on the Christian journey.
The learning component of Saint Mark’s strategy for discipleship is centered around the
process of intentionally and persistently realigning the adult members’ desire to be the primary
teachers of their children at home so that the church does not take on the primary responsibility
8 Steve Wright and Chris Graves, ApParent Privilege, (Nashville: InQuest Ministries, Inc. 2008),
101.
9 Burrell, Dan. “Why the Topic of Family Discipleship is Important.” Liberty University Website, DSMN
610, Course Content, Week One Video Presentation. Accessed November 1, 2018.
https://learn.liberty.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?
course_id=_450999_1&content_id=_26129111_1.
3
of discipleship. Every parent or future parent within the congregation is therefore responsible for
engaging in the process of spiritual formation so that the family then becomes the normative
context for discipleship as children are born and grow older. The senior pastor emphasizes a
spiritually structured home life for his members as well as a structured church life that involves
interacting with the community through events like “Role to the Poll” for voting and the Tendaji
Project which serves the impoverished areas surrounding the church. There are planned
strategies that impact the world too, through annually planned missions’ trips which are open for
people of all ages.
Discipleship: The Family-Based Model
Parents cannot teach their children what they do not know. Therefore, a biblical
methodology for discipleship is necessary mainly for parents if the children are to glean from
them away from the church. The parents need to have a healthy understanding of God’s word
embedded in their everyday life so that this knowledge is immersed by the children. Tad
Thompson positions that Christian parents are called to counteract worldly influence on their
children by “continually teaching and reinforcing the Word of God” in children’s hearts and
minds as instructed in Deuteronomy 6:6-7.10
The family-based model reflects this type of discipleship and Saint Mark Baptist Church
emulates this through their age-organized programs that have been structured to teach according
to age demographic but still bridges the gap with corporate worship etched into the monthly
vision for services. Each ministry within Saint Mark plans and implements events that are
intentionally designed to draw all demographics of the church together so that the church family
and individual families do life together. The age-organized ministries within the church do not
release parents from their ultimate responsibility as disciple-makers; this component is
10 Tad Thompson, Intentional Parenting: Family Discipleship by Design, 58-59.
4
emphasized during the six-week new membership orientation classes where the strategies for
“learning, serving, and giving” are laid out for each new joining person, adult and child alike.
Each petal (ministry) of Saint Mark remains separate but all the petals come together at the
central disk.11
Pastor Pointer can be described as a family-based pastor because he values flexibility and
balance.12 There are intentional evangelism efforts for non-Christian families while still
supporting the Christian families that join and become active participants in the growth of the
church. The pastor often mentions that his services are scheduled a certain way with the
consideration of family time at the forefront of his planning strategy. He is constantly looking
for ways to bring together the different age-groups of the church.
The purported statistics that claim youth and adolescents are no longer attending church
services or events, especially by the time they reach college, does not reflect the involvement of
Saint Mark’s numbers. There are many involved young adults and children, especially with the
hiring of a new youth and young adult pastor recently. Brandon Shields affirms that the “dropout
statistics are misleading because, in some cases, what is presented as hard evidence is actually
based on anecdotes and personal experiences masquerading as evidence.”13 There are most
certainly plenty of people who are busy in ministry at Saint Mark, especially fathers and young
children.
11 Paul Renfro, Brandon Shields, and Jay Strother, edited by Timothy Paul Jones, Perspectives
on Family Ministry: 3 Views, 71.
12 Paul Renfro, Brandon Shields, and Jay Strother, edited by Timothy Paul Jones, Perspectives
on Family Ministry: 3 Views, 144.
13 Ibid., 151.
5
Conclusion
There is no division between home and church for Saint Mark members which is the
ultimate goal for effective discipleship. What aides in the spiritual formation of those who are
connected to this church is that the senior pastor emphasizes that the church is an important part
of God’s plan and so is the family.14 The family-based church model for Saint Mark is necessary
to bridge the gap between adults and children so that children can know they are loved by their
parents and their spiritual leaders, especially those children who may not have a stable family
structure outside the church.
Every single day Christians and unbelievers are influenced by secular culture. Therefore,
ample time must be devoted by the church to investing in the spiritual formation of the old so
that the young are influenced and subsequently discipled too. Church leaders and parents must
both do everything possible to have Christ and share Christ with others, especially the generation
raising up in today’s contemporary church.
14 Steve Wright and Chris Graves, ApParent Privilege, (Nashville: InQuest Ministries, Inc.
2008), 107.
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Bibliography
Burrell, Dan. “Why the Topic of Family Discipleship is Important.” Liberty University Website,
DSMN 610, Course Content, Week One Video Presentation. Accessed November 1,
2018. https://learn.liberty.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?
course_id=_450999_1&content_id=_26129111_1.
Renfro, Paul, Brandon Shields, and Jay Strother. Perspectives on Family Ministry: 3 Views.
edited by Timothy Paul Jones. Nashville: Lifeway Church Resources, 2009.
Thompson, Tad. Intentional Parenting: Family Discipleship by Design. Adelphi: Cruciform
Press, 2011.
Wright, Steve and Chris Graves. ApParent Privilege. Nashville: InQuest Ministries, Inc. 2008.
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