Last time we saw that our children are our apprentices, following us as we follow Jesus to maturity in life and faith. Discipling children is about forming or shaping their heart, mind, goals, habits, character and behaviour into the likeness of Christ, who is the perfect image of God.

Disciple-making at home requires us to be both idealistic and realistic. Firstly, we do need to have ideals to strive for: we need to keep looking to God’s word and to the Word, Jesus, to remind ourselves of what kind of people we are aiming to be and raise.

But we also need to stay realistic, knowing that we and our children will regularly fall short of those ideals. Family discipleship must be built on a foundation of grace: 

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

Now let’s look in more detail at how parents can disciple our children.

I recently started working for Growing Faith—a Christian online magazine for parents. Read the rest of this article on their website here. Find out more about Growing Faith and subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter here.