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How Does Faith Impact Your Life? 10 Examples of How Faith Changes Everything

How does faith impact your life? It changes everything. I have learned from experience, that is not a cliche of false hope; it is the raw truth.

Every aspect of your life will be impacted when you incorporate faith into your everyday, ordinary life. Your thoughts, your decisions, and your relationships will all change.

As Hurricane Ida swirled around us, I took out my phone and recorded the storm’s feisty wind and rain. I felt vulnerable and out of my element. The view was hazy, so I opened the door for a clear shot. I suddenly felt a sense of peace. It is hard to describe how you know when God’s presence suddenly rests over you. But I knew one way or another we would be ok because God was with us.

Although our everyday life does not usually include facing hurricanes, we do walk through threatening storms. On many days, we face interruptions and challenges that cloud our perspective leaving us feeling vulnerable and exposed.

Faith impacts our life because it helps us view storms through a different lens; we put our trust in Jesus instead of ourselves.

Christ’s love for us and His promise to be with us gives us the confidence to embrace whatever comes our way.

How does faith impact your life? Faith is the launching pad from which you base your entire life including decisions, crises, and challenges.

Faith keeps you centered with the realization that you are not alone and can trust God to help you live a confident, joy-filled life.

Why is Faith Important in Everyday Life?

Why is faith important in everyday life? It provides a steady compass . A relationship with Jesus changes how you see things and how you walk in and out of situations.

When the disciples encountered Jesus, they were living ordinary lives. Most abandoned their jobs and began to follow Jesus not knowing how their new faith would impact their life. But one encounter with Jesus changed everything for them.

The transforming power of a life following Christ is available to you too. When you choose to follow Jesus, you are forever changed. It doesn’t mean you won’t face trials, most of the disciples were killed for their faith.

But faith in Christ gives you a new identity and new hope . Faith is a supernatural connection to Jesus that brings, comfort, wisdom, understanding, and peace. Confidence and freedom are two big ways how faith impacts your life.

When you allow faith to impact your life it touches your spirit, your emotions , your relationships, your purpose , and your ability to identify and use your spiritual gifts.

How does faith impact your life? A life following Jesus is transformative, exciting, and resilient.

How to Have Faith in God

So how do we have faith in God? How do we lean on Jesus so we experience how faith impacts our life?

Faith in God starts with the realization that we need Jesus. When we surrender and humble ourselves before God and ask Jesus to take over our lives a wonderful thing happens—we are set free!

From this new place of freedom, y our identity becomes firmly rooted in being a child of God and realizing you are incredibly cherished and loved by the creator of the world.

Your faith defines you and causes an eruption within your soul. When you connect with the Holy Spirit it ignites a new light inside of you to help walk out your faith in God every day.

When you have faith in God it changes the quality of your life.

How does faith impact your life? It changes your view of yourself which affects your view of everything else.

Examples of Faith in Everyday Life

I grew up believing my faith was a ritual. It was a good ritual but not something I carried throughout every aspect of my life.

But now I realize a full life in Christ is possible when I fully incorporate Him into my everyday, ordinary life.

As you go about your day, you make a lot of decisions and get to utilize your faith. But you must be intentional and give up control and fear to let your faith impact your everyday life.

Trusting God with your decisions can be scary, but leads to better choices and a stronger connection with Jesus.

With each decision, we weigh the risk and the reward of our choice. Many decisions are repeated and subconscious, but some decisions require analysis and a tap into faith.

When our decisions involve a conversation with God and a nudge by the Holy Spirit, we are allowing faith to impact our choices and our lives.

10 Examples of How Faith Impacts Your Life

#1 how does faith impact your life faith turns worry into prayer.

Worry and anxiety are unwelcome parts of life that can consume and rob us of joy. Worry is fed by negative self-talk that can consume us. How does faith impact your life? When our worries turn into prayers to God for guidance and comfort, we find peace.

“Every time you start to worry, you should stop and turn the worry into a prayer. If you prayed about everything you worried about, you’d have a lot less to worry about. Worry won’t change anything. But prayer can change everything!” Rick Warren

#2 How does Faith impact Your life? Faith turns Fear into Courage

One example of how faith impacts your everyday life is its ability to help you overcome fear . Fear is a powerful emotion that has the power to consume us.

I used to be fearful whenever I boarded an airplane. I prayed specifically for God to help me be set free from this fear. Eventually, as my faith grew, I was able to let go and trust God when flying.

It took my faith a while to combat fear and turn it into courage, but now I enjoy flying. How does faith impact your life? Faith helps you turn an all-consuming fear into a victory of courage.

#3 How does Faith impact your Life? Faith turns Mistakes into Growth

I dislike making mistakes but make them anyway; we all do. But when you understand how faith impacts your life, you realize you don’t need to stay stuck in the aftermath of a bad decision and can learn and grow.

Most of my greatest spiritual growth has followed a great loss , struggle, or mistake.

#4 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Relationship Trials into Stronger Connections

Relationships bring joy to our lives and are an important link to growing in our faith. But relationship trials and conflict find us and can derail our spiritual growth. When we ask God to turn our hurt, betray al, or rejection into understanding and forgiveness , we grow.

When we grow instead of staying stuck in bitterness , resentment, and disappointment , we enjoy stronger connections with our family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. We learn to see others through the beautiful lens of God’s great love.

#5 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Conversations into Compassion

Relationships require staying connected so we typically have multiple conversations throughout our day. Some are casual and some are more intimate. Some are in-person and some are written. But when faith is laced through our conversations we learn to listen and respond from a place of love and selflessness and we grow in compassion.

A conversation fueled by kindness can change someone’s outlook and give them hope.

“Are you listening to this? Really listening? Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.” Mark 4:23-25 MSG

#6 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Anger into a Release to God

Anger is another emotion that robs us of a free life. I like to think of anger as a balloon full of air. I envision slowly releasing my anger or the air out of a balloon to God.

You may need to repeat this imagery but when anger is released to God we find calm and restored joy.

“A [shortsighted] fool always loses his temper  and  displays his anger, But a wise man [uses self-control and] holds it back.” Proverbs 29:11 AMP

#7 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Doubt into Preparation

Doubt is a great enemy of faith. We can turn our doubt over to God and ask Him to guide us to the truth.

We can use our doubt to prepare us to learn to trust God with our next steps. If doubt is not addressed it can spiritually drain us and make us stagnant in our faith.

#8 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Complaining into Gratitude

For some reason, it is easy to complain. Doesn’t it seem that we default to complaining? We can complain about the weather, our job, our spouse, or our kids. Even when I pass people talking on their phones complaining seems to be the conversation of choice.

Complaining just comes too easily to us. We all need time to process and unravel situations, but we can learn to complain constructively; airing grievances, struggles, or pain to decompress and find solutions not just download criticism.

A true test that faith is impacting our lives is when we can focus on being grateful for what we have instead of complaining about what we don’t have.

When you are invested in how faith impacts your life, you catch yourself complaining and turn it toward gratitude.

#9 How does Faith impact your life? Faith turns Judgment into Reflection

We all have opinions and make judgments. Some judgment is needed to help us make good decisions . But judging can also turn our hearts away from God and cause us to feel superior.

Judging others to discredit them and elevate ourselves reveals a hole inside of ourselves that needs to be filled.

When we catch ourselves judging we can take time to reflect on ourselves and our motives. We can ask God to reveal what is causing us to be trapped in judgment. Spiritual reflection helps turn our thoughts and doubts about a person or situation over to God and be set free.

Although it is easy to judge, it requires strength and wisdom to encourage and affirm.

  “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults —unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Matthew 7:1-2 MSG

“So the next time you start to judge something or someone else, think about all the times you’ve judged yourself. Give the same mercy for others that you would want for yourself. You’re just one perspective and there are as many perspectives in the world as there are people.

So choose your words carefully because we shroud our words with a judgment that is self-defeating, negative, and doesn’t help us get any closer to our goals  and values.”

Rubin Khoddam Ph.D.

#10 How does Faith impact your life?  Faith Turns Self-focus into Christ Focus

The most important example of growing, living faith is a pivot from self-focus to Christ-focused. This does not come naturally and is impossible without a living thriving relationship with Jesus. But it is an exciting, liberating adventure when we take the focus off of ourselves and focus on Jesus.

“So, don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:31-33 NLT

Bible Verses about Faith

Bible stories and verses about faith strengthen our connection with God and give us direction. The Bible is powerful and takes on a living form when you use it as a reference to understand how faith impacts your life.

We are enough and our faithfulness to God is enough.

How does faith impact your life? You walk in the peace of belonging to God and knowing He is beside you to provide wisdom, comfort, and help.

When we put our faith into action, we are blessed to see God move in our lives , change us, and influence the people around us.

5 Bible Verses About Faith

• Galatians 2:19-20 MSG

“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So, I quit being a “law man” so that I could be  God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.

My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.”

• Hebrews 11:6 ESV

“And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

• James 2:14-17 TLB

“Dear brothers, what’s the use of saying that you have faith and are Christians if you aren’t proving it by helping others? Will  that kind of faith save anyone? If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing, and you say to him, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat heartily,” and then don’t give him clothes or food, what good does that do?

So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good works is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.”

• Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this  is  not of yourselves,  it is  the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.    For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

• Proverbs 3:5-6 MSG

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!”

How Does Faith Impact Your Life?

I hope you believe and grasp how faith impacts your life. Prayer, reading books about spiritual growth, and studying the Bible will help you walk in your faith day by day.

And don’t give up! God will meet you wherever you are right now.

To experience a positive, joyful faith journey, it is also important to be active in a church, serve as often as possible, and be part of a small group to help hold you accountable.

Before you go …Have you learned how faith impacts your life? Do you have examples of faith in everyday life? I would love to hear your story in the comments!

Mary Rooney Armand

Mary is the creator and writer for the faith-based blog ButterflyLiving.org. Her writing has been featured on multiple websites and she is the author of the book, “Identity, Understanding, and Accepting Who I Am in Christ” and “ Life Changing Stories ” a collaboration with 34 authors.

Mary Rooney Armand is an Author, Speaker, and Creator of the faith-based blog ButterflyLiving.org. She helps others grow in their intimacy with Christ and thrive in their relationships. Her work is featured on multiple websites including Women of Noble Character, Pray with Confidence , and The Brave Women Series. Mary is the author of, “ Identity, Understanding, and Accepting Who I Am in Chris t” and, “ Life Changing Stories ” a collaboration with 34 authors sharing stories of God’s faithfulness. Besides writing, Mary leads small groups and speaks at retreats. She directed Kids Hope USA, a mentoring program for children, worked in marketing and sales, and has led mission trips to Honduras. Mary is a life coach with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and an MBA. She and her wonderful husband Cory live in New Orleans and are the parents of four children, a new daughter-in-law, and two dogs! Connect with Mary on Instagram or Facebook.

20 Comments

I am with you in this, Mary. I want to let my faith wash over every part of life!

Michele, thanks for stopping by and adding your encouragement!

Amen Mary, thank you for this blessed message today. So beautifully spoken. Blessings.

Faith turns Complaining into Gratitude – And I choose gratitude. Thanks for sharing this very insightful article.

Thank you for reading and encouraging me! Many Blessings!!

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Regarding you 10 Examples of how faith impacts your Life

John (66 years Old) from Belfast here. Local preacher in training., I am about to deliver a service based on Living the Faith and found myself saying yes and amen to all your examples. By following the AA programme starting 8 years ago I can give God all the praise as the Holy Spirit really makes me see (like the blue glass Victorian poison bottles ) actual poison in the alluring adverts for beer etc. So yes faith in my case saved my marriage, my relationship with my children, my sanity. I found my identity and purpose through the trials, Rock bottom jn my case led me to the Rock of Ages. I now thank Him for my affliction. I will always be an alcoholic so I will always need Him and that’s a great existential place to be in… My thanks for your observations

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God is in all things. But we don’t always expect to feel God’s presence in a particular moment or place. We asked readers to share these stories of surprising moments of faith and grace in no more than 100 words. These (very) short essays about unexpectedly experiencing God in the world today include feelings of joy, sadness, laughter, anger and anything in between. They demonstrate the many ways in which God is with us, if only we would take the time to notice.

Two parents and four boys make a small house feel like a sardine tin packed with firecrackers. I had my eye on a larger fixer-upper nearby. But despite its apparent practicality and my eagerness, my husband wasn’t enthused. I suggested a quick attempt at discernment: Pray one Hail Mary while imagining we had settled on each choice, buy or stay.

We both felt God’s presence. The “Stay” prayer brought unwelcome but undeniable inner peace. “Buy” brought anxiety rather than excitement.

I could only respond, “Thy will be done.” Our house is cramped and noisy, but we’ll stay for now.  Jessica Carney Ardmore, Pa.

My sons and I were enjoying the wave pool at our local amusement park on a beautiful sunny day. There was the usual crowd of people—of different ages, from different neighborhoods and cultures—all enjoying the pool. I closed my eyes and was suddenly aware of the joyous cacophony. All the voices, screams and laughter of my siblings, my fellow children of God. I was awestruck, and with my eyes still shut, I smiled broadly, and I thanked God for that sudden grace of connection and awareness. Matthew Whelehan Rochester, N.Y.

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I am now at peace. Jerilyn Burgess North Olmsted, Ohio

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I invited my all-white classmates to Mass at my Black Catholic parish. During Mass, my friend nudged me, “Lee, we’re the only white people here.” I responded, “Frank, how do you think…” but before I could finish my statement, Frank added, “Lee, I never thought about you that way.” The experience helped him to see my struggles as the only Black kid in our classes. We had just had a class that taught we were made in the image and likeness of God. We saw that in one another more clearly now. Lee Baker New Orleans, La.

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Partnering with Parents to Nurture Family Faith - Insights from Research

By John Roberto

We believe that the family “is our first community and the most basic way in which the Lord gathers us, forms us, and acts in the world” ( Follow the Way of Love ). One of the consequences of the 2020 pandemic’s impact on life in the U.S. was the rediscovering of the centrality and importance of the family and the home for our society and our Church. Education, work, and parish life (worship and faith formation) all moved home overnight. Parishes that had developed strong relationships with families (and all generations) and had robust efforts to support parents and nurture family faith at home made a much smoother transition to home-based church life. Those that did not, struggled.  

How can we partner with parents and develop vital and vibrant families of faith? Over the past two decades we have been blessed with some of the best research ever done on the role of parents and the family in forming the faith of children and young people. These studies have affirmed the centrality of parents, and the whole family, in forming the faith of children and youth.  

This essay draws from several major research studies to identify findings that can be used to develop approaches and strategies to engage, encourage, and equip parents for family faith transmission and formation. Use the four research findings in this essay to assess your current practice, redesign ministry and programming, and create new initiatives that engage, encourage, and equip parents and the whole family at home, church, and school. There is no more urgent task for the Church today than strengthening parental and family faith and practice.  

#1. Parents are the most significant influence on the religious and spiritual outcomes of young people. 

At the heart of all the research is the finding that the most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children and youth is their parents. The overwhelming evidence from the research studies shows that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives.  

One of the most basic suggestions of our findings is that young adults arrive at a sense of their fundamental identity and worldview not by weighing all possible intellectual arguments for and against a proposed way of life, but rather by roughly adopting the worldview of those mentors who left the deepest impression upon them—and who loved them and cared for them the most. It should come as no surprise, then, that the emergence of the new generation of dedicated young Catholics will rise and fall with the choices of their parents. (Bartkus and Smith, 70) 

The single most powerful force in a child’s religious formation is the spiritual personality of the parent. We know the parental factors that make a significant difference in promoting faith in children and youth include: 

• parents’ personal faith and practice 
• a close and warm parent-child relationship 
• parent modeling and teaching a religious faith 
• parent involvement in church life and Sunday worship 
• grandparent religious influence and relationship (Bengston, et al.)

It is critically important that parents are authentic examples of what they claim to believe. Their authenticity includes faithful living as well as sharing with their children their struggles and failings. 

#2. The primary way by which Catholic identity becomes rooted in children’s lives are the day-to-day religious practices of the family and the ways parents model their faith and share it in conversation, collaboration, and exposure to outside religious opportunities.  

The crucial location where young people’s religious outcomes are largely decided is not the parish or Catholic school, but the home. The primary responsibility for passing on religious faith and practice to children rests with parents; religious congregations (and Catholic schools) are secondary and primarily serve to provide support. This means that the most important agent in the religious and spiritual outcomes of children and youth are neither clergy nor youth ministers, neither educators nor the voices of popular culture and media, but parents. (Bartkus and Smith) 

In Religious Parenting , Smith, et al. affirm this finding, “Parents have only one good and hopefully effective way to raise children to understand and carry on their family’s religion (or perhaps return to it someday after a period of disaffection). That is for parents simply to practice their own personal religious faith, naturally, for its own sake and as role models for their children. If all goes well, children will over time learn, absorb, and embrace their own version of that faith, almost unconsciously. (Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo, 179) 

#3. The family is the primary community where Catholic faith practices are nurtured and practiced.  

We have discovered through research that certain faith practices make a significant difference in nurturing the faith of children and adolescents at home. “Raising religious children should thus primarily be a practice-centered process, not chiefly a didactic teaching program. Parents modeling religious practices is primary, and explaining belief systems is secondary” (Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo, 179). Among the most important practices are:  

• Reading the Bible as a family and encouraging young people to read the Bible regularly 
• Praying together as a family and encouraging young people to pray personally 
• Serving people in need as a family and supporting service activities by young people 
• Eating together as a family 
• Having family conversations about faith 
• Talking about faith, religious issues, and questions and doubts 
• Ritualizing important family moments and milestone experiences 
• Celebrating holidays and church year seasons at home 
• Providing moral instruction 
• Being involved in a faith community and participating regularly in Sunday worship as a family 

The way that family prayer unifies the family stands out. Family prayer is a time of family togetherness and interaction, a space for social support, and a means for intergenerational transmission of moral and spiritual values. Family prayer include the issues and concerns of individuals and the family, helps reduce relational tensions, and provides feelings of connectedness, unity, and bonding. (Dollahite, Marks, and Boyd) 

#4. The quality of a parent’s relationships with their children or teens and the parenting style they practice make a significant difference in faith transmission.  

Parents cultivate relationships of warmth and love which makes everything else possible. While faith practices and attending religious services are important, the quality of the parent–child relationship is even more important. (Dollahite, Marks, and Boyd) 

Parents balance religious firmness with religious flexibility in their parenting. Parents who can avoid religious rigidity through balance are more likely to maintain more positive relationships with their children. (Dollahite, Marks, and Boyd) 

Parents balance desire for religious continuity with children’s agency. They transmit their faith to their children while honoring their children’s agency by teaching principles and values, providing expectations of religious participation and responsibility, not forcing faith, allowing exploration and mistakes, and showing respect for children’s views. (Dollahite, Marks, and Boyd) 

Parents talk with their children about religious matters during the week. This is one of the most powerful mechanisms for the success or failure of religious transmission to children. When parents talk about their religion in personal terms, that sends a strong message to their kids that it’s really important to them. (Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo) 

Parents practice an “authoritative” parenting style (as opposed to authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved style). Parents maintain and enforce high standards and expectations for their children while simultaneously expressing a lot of open warmth and connection to their children and confidently giving them enough space to work out their own views and values. (Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo) 

Parents listen more and preach less. The way parents approach parent–youth conversations about religion and spirituality matters. It is a more satisfying and successful religious and relational experience when the conversations were more youth-centered than parent-centered. (Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo) (Dollahite, Marks, and Boyd) 

Reflection 

For each of the four research findings as a guide, ask how you can encourage parents to grow in faith and become faith formers, equip parents to incorporate faith practices into family life at home, and engage parents in education and formation, as well as the whole family in faith forming experiences and programs.  

• Assess how well your current practice addresses the four findings. 
• Identify ministries and programming that need to be redesigned. 
• Create new initiatives to engage, encourage, and equip parents and the whole family at home, church, and school.  

John Roberto  is best known for his practical application of the vision and theory for ministry with and for people of all ages and stages in their lifelong growth in faith with a particular expertise in formation praxis for youth in the teen age years.  He founded the Northeast Center for Youth Ministry, later knows as the Center for Youth Ministry Development that continues today as the Center for Ministry Development.  More recent endeavors have focused on strategies for implementing a vision for lifelong faith formation and developing ministry approaches for the 21st Century.

Bengston, Vern, et al. Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down Across Generations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.  

Bartkus, Justin and Christian Smith. A Report on American Catholic Religious Parenting . South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2017.  

Dollahite, David, Loren Marks, and Hal Boyd. “The Best Practices—and Benefits—of Religious Parenting.” Public Discourse. February 6, 2020. (Accessed at https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/02/59688)  

Follow the Way of Love . United States Catholic Bishops. Washington DC: USSCB, 1994. (Accessed at https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/follow-the-way-of-love.cfm) 

Smith, Christian, Bridget Ritz and Michael Rotolo. Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. 

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The Importance of Being a Faith-Focused Family

Disturbing findings about teens and faith in recent years reveal that a majority of high school graduates do not attend church the following year. While youth ministry experts point to several reasons for the phenomenon and seek answers that might change this downhill trend, Richard Ross, Ph.D., professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, found that teens prove three times more likely to stay in church after high school graduation if they encounter regular healthy faith conversations within the home. Faith conversations, including discussions and study about God and the Christian life, most often occur in what feels like a spontaneous conversation.

Because kids typically don’t initiate regular faith conversations, parents must be proactive in developing family times together to make a difference. In our own family, we found that our kids did better with a short, non-lecture format. Families seem to experience the most success when they keep these times fairly light and combine faith conversations with another aspect of family life like dinnertime or a fun activity. The best faith conversations come when the kids see their parents as fellow learners rather than in the teacher-to-student role.

Ideas for your family’s faith conversations can come from everyday experiences such as playground behavior, teachers’ personal points of view in the classroom, a grocery clerk’s actions, a neighbor’s needs, or an advertisement’s meaning. These regular conversations help establish a solid foundation for continued church involvement and spiritual growth beyond high school.

Several decades of research have revealed measurable outcomes with young people who have a positive spiritual experience in their teen years. The research affirms that when young people have a healthy spiritual life, they make better decisions about their friendships, school, and sexuality, and they tend to experience much fewer at-risk behaviors. Knowing that the casual conversations you have today greatly impact your child’s future, engage your kids on a spiritual level as often as possible, and keep the communication going throughout the teen years.

Why Religion Matters: The Twinned Life of Family and Faith

This essay on family and faith is the third in a five-part series about the value of religion.

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“Congregations erect a sacred canopy of meaning over the great chapters of family life: birth, childrearing, and marriage.” — W. Bradford Wilcox [1]

For all its progress and possibilities, our modern world has difficulty seeing beyond itself. Every age has to struggle against its blind spots. In ancient Rome, for example, the span of a person’s influence was reckoned at 100 years. Within that horizon individuals could remember two generations back and care for two generations forward. Then, as the custom went, that influence stopped, and a new century, with new people and new concerns, would reset itself. [2] But lasting societies need a broader vision.

The pull of the present is strong, but so are the tugs to the past and the future. Family and faith — our two great bridges beyond the here and now — stretch far past 100 years, in both directions, and expand the purpose and meaning of our lives.

None of us is born a mere individual. We come to this world with a network of pre-existing ties, bonds and obligations. These family relationships shape our worldviews, instil our values and form our identities. And families of all kinds thrive when they join a community of believers. The benefits go both ways — churches strengthen families, and families strengthen churches. Working together, family and faith reinforce norms of right and wrong, teach us how to love our neighbors and provide a support base where children and parents navigate life’s challenges. In other words, family and faith keep us from being alone. They enlarge our circles of responsibility beyond the self and help us turn strangers into friends. Families then pass this spiritual and social capital across generations.

Marshaling extensive social science research, author Mary Eberstadt shows how closely these forces are intertwined. “Family and faith are the invisible double helix of society,” she writes, “two spirals that when linked to one another can effectively reproduce, but whose strength and momentum depend on one another.” [3]

This partnership can be seen at church on Sunday afternoons. Eberstadt points to broad sociological agreement that participation in the family rituals of “being married and having children is linked to higher levels of churchgoing and other types of religious practice.” [4] Another factor is the effect children have on the religious lives of their parents. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox puts it simply: “Children drive parents to church.” [5] It’s a common story — kids grow up in a church, leave home for college and drift from the faith, only to return when they get married and have children. What explains this phenomenon? The decisions we make about our deepest beliefs and closest relationships are never simple. But Wilcox adds an important insight: “The arrival of a child can awaken untapped reserves of love, recognition of the transcendent, and concern for the good life.” [6] These things matter because family and religion are among the most basic human institutions. When together, they connect society; when apart, society weakens.

The sacred relationships between kin and church, church and kin, tie us to the past, present and future. Such continuity helps us situate ourselves in this big universe. We find out who we are. The poet Wendell Berry gives expression to these aspirations: “The marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to descendants, to the community, to Heaven and earth. It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds.” [7]

The fortunes of family and faith will continue to ebb and flow, as they have in various periods throughout history, but experience shows they will do so joining hands. As the one rises or falls, so will the other. The course of history is not predetermined; it is chosen. And those choices have long trajectories — much too long, indeed, to fit in 100 years.

[1] W. Bradford Wilcox, “As the Family Goes,” First Things , May 2007.

[2] See Remi Brague, “The Impossibility of Secular Society,” First Things , Oct. 2013.

[3] Mary Eberstadt, How the West Really Lost God , 2013, 22.

[4] Eberstadt, How the West Really Lost God , 93.

[5] Wilcox, “As the Family Goes.”

[6] Wilcox, “As the Family Goes.”

[7] Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community , 1992.

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July 6, 2017

Faith and marriage: better together.

• Religious couples are significantly more likely to enjoy wedded bliss than are their secular peers. Tweet This
• The old slogan—“the family that prays together, stays together”—still holds in 2017. Tweet This

Editor’s Note: This essay was first published in Principles , a publication of Christendom College. It is reprinted here with permission.

Over the next decade, count on the press, academics, and pop culture icons to take a more negative view of religion in American life. This opposition has been driven by a variety of factors, such as the rise of the “new atheism” and conservative Christian alliances with the Republican Party and with President Donald Trump. In particular, orthodox religious opposition to today’s new morality—on matters ranging from abortion to LGBTQ rights—has made religion a target of scorn, skepticism, or outright hostility on the part of many of the nation’s cultural elites. This negative view of religion extends to religion’s influence on family life.

Take, for instance, the media’s coverage of a recent University of Chicago study purporting to show that children raised by religious parents were less altruistic than children raised by secular parents. The study’s author, psychologist Jean Decety, claimed that his research showed “how religion negatively influences children’s altruism” and that it challenged “the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior,” calling into question “whether religion is vital for moral development—suggesting the secularization of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness. In fact, it does just the opposite.”

The study had numerous methodological problems and limitations—it was based upon a non-random and non-representative sample of children watching cartoons and sharing stickers in a few cities around the globe—but received glowing, credulous coverage from numerous media outlets. As I noted in the Washington Post , a Daily Beast headline proclaimed “ Religious Kids are Jerks ,” and the Guardian reported “ Religious Children Are Meaner than Their Secular Counterparts ,” while Slate weighed in to say that “religious children are more selfish.” This was clearly a story that some in the media were more than happy to run with.

There is only one problem with this new, negative view of religion and family life: it misses the mark. In the United States, at least, religion is generally a positive force in the family. My own research, which has focused extensively on the connection between faith and family life, indicates that religion generally fosters more happiness, greater stability, and a deeper sense of meaning in American family life, provided that family members—especially spouses—share a common faith. In simple terms, the old slogan—“the family that prays together, stays together”—still holds in 2017.

Wedded Bliss

Consider Roberto, 37, and Marcia Flores, 35, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico when they were children. This Catholic couple are representative of some of the unique challenges and opportunities facing Latino couples. These San Diego residents met in their early twenties, lived together for a number of years and had their daughter prior to getting married. In 1997, they wed and had a son shortly thereafter. For most of the early years of their relationship, Roberto struggled with drugs and alcohol, and spent many a weekend focused on soccer and friends rather than his family. “Before, I used to be in the world (‘del mundo’); I used a lot of drugs, I drank a lot, I didn’t care for my family, not my wife, my brothers, mother and father, I didn’t care about them,” he said, also noting, “when the weekend came, I left my wife and I would go play soccer with friends . . . and then go drinking, and that was my whole weekend.”

He also says he took a “macho” approach to family life, leaving domestic responsibilities to Marcia. “You come home and you boss people around,” he said, describing his macho ethic. “You force your wife and your kids to do things for you. And the woman had to take care of all the house one way or another, the man did nothing.” If he had kept up this approach to family life, an approach characterized by intoxication and machismo, Roberto thinks his family would have fallen apart: “I’m sure my wife would have left me. I wouldn’t have my wife or kids anymore if I had stayed in that path.”

In 2000, Roberto took a detour. Some friends suggested that he and Marcia attend a retreat for couples at a local Catholic church, and, after some prodding from her, he decided to go. Much to his surprise, Roberto was overcome at the retreat, filled with remorse over his failings as a husband and father. What happened next was powerful: “That’s when I met God,” he said, adding, “I cried before God, which was something I never did. I never cry. But a lot of things I never did before I did on that day.” Besides crying at the retreat, Roberto felt “all the presence of God” and decided to give up drugs and alcohol and to stop treating his family so poorly.

In the wake of the retreat, Roberto and Marcia have seen a marked improvement in the quality of their marriage. “I started going to church and they taught me that the family is important and you have to care for it,” he said. “I never knew that before; I really didn’t think I had to put family first before.” At church, he has learned that God “has a plan for marriage,” that he must live “unity in all aspects” of his marriage. In practice, this meant temperance, and coming to embrace the notion that “you need a lot of love to raise a good family.”

This has translated into big changes in their marriage and family life. Roberto stopped abusing drugs and alcohol, curtailed his involvement with friends and soccer on the weekends, and took a more engaged approach to “helping in the house.” A religious perspective and religious rituals became more common for Marcia and Roberto. Now, Roberto says, “time with my family is something spiritual to me,” and he and Marcia pray with their kids on the weekends. The changes he has experienced in his marriage and family, in turn, have further deepened Roberto’s faith: “That’s why I know there’s a God.”

Religious communities can provide important resources for a healthy marriage.

The Flores’ experience is suggestive of how a shared faith can help a couple dealing with male misbehavior or other challenges. Their Catholic faith enabled Roberto to experience powerful, life-changing religious rituals, and to become integrated into a religious community that embraces a positive, family-oriented ethos. Their faith—especially Roberto’s—has given the couple a sense of hope. It has helped them make the changes needed to strengthen their marriage and family life. As suggested in Elizabeth Brisco’s The Reformation of Machismo , men’s religious faith can counter some of the misogynistic attitudes associated with machismo in the Latino community; in this case, Roberto has jettisoned his expectation that he could devote all his free time to friends, soccer, and drinking, and leave Marcia with full responsibility for the caretaking and housework that are part and parcel of family life.

Although the Flores’ particular story of faith and family life is emblematic of many of the challenges and opportunities facing Latino couples, my research suggests that the benefits of shared church attendance extend to American couples across racial and ethnic lines. Specifically, my work with Nicholas Wolfinger in Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos indicates that couples are substantially more likely to report being happy in their relationship when both partners attend church regularly than when neither partner does. This result holds equally for whites, blacks, and Latinos, as the figure below indicates.

Clearly, white, black, and Latino spouses who attend church together are about 9 percentage points more likely to say they are “very happy” or “extremely happy” than husbands and wives who do not. This may not seem like a huge boost to marital happiness, but in practical terms, it means that almost everyone in a jointly religious marriage is at least “very happy,” which is striking given the ups and downs of contemporary married life. In other words, religious couples are significantly more likely to enjoy wedded bliss than are their secular peers.

The Power of Prayer & Peers

Why does shared religious attendance lead to happiness? Part of the reason faith matters is that it fosters norms—such as a commitment to marital permanence and fidelity—that strengthen marriages. My research indicates that two other mechanisms, one social and one devotional, also help explain the power of joint church attendance. First, almost half of jointly attending couples form the majority of their friendships with fellow parishioners. Attending religious services with friends accounts for more than half of the association between church attendance and relationship quality, which means that couples who have many shared friends at their church are happier than other couples. Attending church with one’s friends appears to provide many role models of happy, healthy relationships. These friends can also offer support when an intimate relationship hits the inevitable speed bump, and such friends may encourage each other, by example or the threat of stigma, to resist the temptation of an affair. The figure below illustrates the link between shared religious friendships and relationship happiness.

Second, couples in which both members attend church are more likely to say that they often pray together, and shared prayer also helps to account for the link between church attendance and a happy relationship. Previous studies show that prayer helps couples deal with stress, enables them to focus on shared beliefs and hopes for the future, and allows them to deal constructively with challenges and problems in their relationship, and in their lives. In fact, we find that shared prayer is the most powerful religious predictor of relationship quality among black, Latino, and white couples, more powerful than denomination, religious attendance, or shared religious friendships. In simple terms, as the figure above also indicates, the couple that prays together, flourishes together.

Couples who attend religious services together are happier in their relationships than are their peers who don’t regularly attend church. This finding holds for whites, African Americans, and Latinos alike. It is true that most people are happy in their relationships irrespective of church attendance, but black, Latino, and white couples who attend together enjoy an added boost here. Part of the story here too may be due to selection (couples who are happier together may also be inclined to do many things together, including attending church). But selection probably isn’t the whole story. Our evidence for this contention is our identification of two of the mechanisms through which religious participation improves relationship quality: religious friends and shared prayer. Couples who attend church together enjoy significantly happier relationships, in large part because they socialize with friends who share their faith and especially because they pray with one another. In other words, those couples who pray together are happiest together.

Together Forever

But do higher-quality marriages founded on faith necessarily mean more stable marriages? Certainly, in the broader culture, many people think that Christians divorce just as much as their unaffiliated fellow Americans. Some would even argue that Christianity is actually bad for marital stability. Writing in The Nation , for instance, Michelle Goldberg asked: “Is Conservative Christianity Bad for Marriage?” Her affirmative answer was based on a study of red-state Protestant cultures where disapproval of premarital sex has led to earlier, less financially stable marriages. It is true that marital happiness is not perfectly correlated with freedom from divorce. Enjoying a happy marriage doesn’t eliminate your odds of divorce later on; it just reduces them. So, does faith serve as a stabilizing force in American marriages?

New research from Harvard professor Tyler VanderWeele indicates the answer to that question is "yes." In tracking a sample of thousands of middle-aged women across the United States, he found that women who regularly attended church were 47 percent less likely to divorce than women who did not regularly attend church. He also noted that other research has come to a similar conclusion, generally finding that regular church attendance is associated with a reduction in divorce of more than 30 percent.

So, what accounts for the stabilizing power of religion when it comes to American marriages? VanderWeele offered four theories to explain how faith is linked to less divorce:

• Religious teachings often indicate that marriage is something sacred—that an important bond is created in the exchange of marriage vows. Attending religious services reinforces that message.
• Religious teachings also discourage or censure divorce to varying degrees across religious traditions, which may lead to lower rates of divorce; moreover, religious traditions also often have strong teachings against adultery, which is one of the strongest predictors of divorce.
• Religious teachings often place a strong emphasis on love and on putting the needs of others above one’s own. This may also improve the quality of married life and lower the likelihood of divorce.
• Religious institutions often provide various types of family support, including a place for families to get to know one another and build relationships, programs for children, marital and pre-marital counseling, and retreats and workshops focused on building a good marriage. Religious communities can provide important resources for a healthy marriage.

Regardless of how precisely religion fosters more stable marriages, however, this new research from Harvard suggests that the couple that attends together, stays together.

So, the next time you come across an academic study or media story contending that faith plays a pernicious role in family life, be skeptical. So long as family life, and marriage in particular, are based on a common commitment to religious faith, it looks like religious faith lifts the fortunes of American families. And that’s good news in a nation where the fortunes of the family too often seem to be flagging.

W. Bradford Wilcox is the Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Family Studies. This essay is adapted, in part, from Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos , co-authored with Nicholas Wolfinger .

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Importance of Family in Society Essay

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The family institution has always played an essential role in forming society, civilization, and culture. The definition of family has changed throughout the history, and the reason for this was various factors: from ancient religious concepts and philosophies to modern political ideologies and economics. However, this essay provides a look at a family from a particular perspective. The family both forms and changes the worldview of parents who have taken responsibility for people close to them, and it brings up the children born in it as well. Thus, a family is two or more people united by love for each other and, most importantly, by strength and will to take responsibility for each other.

Family values, in their essence, have several elements necessary to create a strong foundation of mutual understanding and dialogue within the group. The central family values ​​include, for example, internal ones: the unity of culture and faith in the family, mutual understanding, love, and support between parents and children. Moreover, dialogue between all family members is significant because mutual understanding and communication are the essential elements of any strong relationship between people. External values are of no lesser meaning; these imply autonomy from the influence of the state and information coming from mass media. Additionally, public school education, school clubs, communities of children, and other activities imposed by the state fall into this category. The influence of these organizations alienates a person from the family, making them operators of political interests that encourage fragmentation within small communities and ideological centralization. To summarize, family values ​​comprise adherence to its firm foundation, consisting of love, shared views and dialogue within it, and autonomy from external influences outside it.

Next, responsibility plays an essential role in the formation of a healthy family. First of all, the authority of the parents as the prominent family members is relevant to this question. Family life for many modern people seems to be a heavy burden, which is easier to quit than to continue the long and challenging building of a strong union. This view comes from numerous factors inherent in modern society, mired in infantilism, skepticism, and reckless atheism, depriving a person of any responsibility to himself and community. Parents are responsible not only for their partners or children. More importantly, parents are responsible for themselves and their will, which keeps the family together. Thus, each parent’s responsibility is to be a person who can maintain the family’s coherence.

On the other hand, children have a colossal responsibility before their families. Sometimes this responsibility is higher than the parental responsibility even. Children might not meet the parents’ expectations to a great extent but instead accept the proper care, time, and resources that have been given to them. However, children succumb to the most crucial test of their will due to childish frivolity and youthful maximalism and the strength of those convictions that their parents helped them find. Therefore, children are responsible for themselves and the proper use of the family’s opportunities, which is sometimes difficult and requires discipline.

As to the discipline, there is a misconception that it should be supported by a steady hand, violence, and emotional pressure on children and partners. This approach has shown its inconsistency throughout the entire history of civilized humankind. For example, research from Howarth et al. (272) reveals that domestic violence “is associated with a significant risk to children’s physical and psychological safety and well‐being across the lifespan.” The key to maintaining discipline without aggression and trauma is dialogue, which includes communication, joint problem solving and discussing essential family members’ life details. In brief, a key to healthy discipline is dialogue instead of punishment and other violent actions among family members.

As a result, a particular foundation is needed for conducting a dialogue and determining the moral and ethical conditions. As such, religion dominates the family and acts as a vital factor in the consolidation and direction of family members’ development. In this essay, the suggested belief system is Christianity for several reasons. The basis of religion is love and compassion; this and the simple way of explaining humanistic values and Christian life in a community imply the importance of dialogue. Faith within the family allows for a discussion within the framework of common morality and ethics, allowing each member to reveal the essence of their thoughts and ideas. Thus, religion creates a moral and ethical consensus in the family, creating a general framework for discourse and setting its vector.

It could be seen that such a perception of the institution of the family is prevalent. In this context, the words of William Bennett (par. 5) are relevant: “it is the values ​​that a child is taught that will more determine that child’s fate”. Looking at modern society, one can notice that the influence of the family is the most critical factor of the personality, both in its initial period and in later life. In his article, Bennett reveals the issue of the family from the point of view, nowadays defined as “conservative.” This is reflected in criticism of the school system and popular culture in the lives of children. In short, Bennett considers the family’s moral and ethical ideals and imperative concepts to be the family’s foundation.

In addition, Bennett also expresses ideas about what positively affects the family in general and children in particular. His ideas include a strong religious and cultural unity within the family. Furthermore, he emphasizes a responsible and humanistic approach of parents to the upbringing of their children, i.e., guidance and upbringing with love and care, instead of harsh prescription and aggression. It also describes a critical element of the family: two parents, especially a father, in the process of raising a child. This is explained by the fact that in modern society, the irresponsible approach of parents to conceiving a child and forming a family leads to the absence of paternal guidance and maternal care. It is this that most fully corresponds to the definition of family discussed in this essay. Hence, Bennett’s position insists on the fundamental factors of family formation in the face of a humanistic approach and love and the presence of fatherhood and motherhood in education.

In conclusion, the family is the foundation of society, allowing an individual to live harmoniously, develop and stick together with people close to her, based on personal responsibility, love, and mutual understanding. Family values ​​are essential since they create relationships in a group, allowing the family to conduct a dialogue and understand each other. Importantly, dialogue requires mutual support; discipline and faith are critical for the comfortable living of several individuals in a unity named family. It is generally held together by the responsibility of both parents and children and the humanism and communication of its members.

Works Cited

Bennet, William. “Remarks by William Bennet — The Forerunner.” The Forerunner . Web.

Howarth, Emma, et al. “Towards an Ecological Understanding of Readiness to Engage With Interventions for Children Exposed to Domestic Violence and Abuse: Systematic Review and Qualitative Synthesis of Perspectives of Children, Parents and Practitioners.” Health & Social Care in the Community , vol. 27, no. 2, 2018, pp. 271–92. Crossref . Web.

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Describing Family and Faith Identity

Simple ways to talk with your kids about faith.

Faith Themes

Through the Holy Spirit, Christ unifies us and makes us holy. The marks of Christ’s church are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

Natural Teachable Moments

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Many families have particular ways to identify themselves. For example, in Europe there is a rich tradition of crests, shields, and flags that carry a family’s identifying symbols. In the Celtic world, colorful tartans identify traditional family names. In Latin American culture, the icon that unifies people and gives them a common identity is Our Lady of Guadalupe. Although she appeared in what is now the outskirts of Mexico City, she belongs not only to the Mexican people but to the entire hemisphere. Besides the Virgin of Guadalupe, Latin American people identify themselves by their respective flags and anthems.

The Catholic Church has ways to identify itself, too. Its particular characteristics are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. These four marks of the church are not characteristics that the church creates or develops or learns; they are qualities that Jesus Christ shares with his church through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the source of unity and holiness. The Catholic Church is one because of Jesus, who is its head and whose Spirit unites different people and a diversity of gifts into one body. The church is holy because of Jesus; as the church lives in union with Christ, the Holy Spirit sanctifies and guides its actions. The church is catholic (the word means “all embracing”) because its mission is to proclaim Christ to the whole world and to serve all people. And the church is apostolic because it remains faithful to the faith it received from the apostles.

How can your child see the holiness and faithfulness of the church? By the way members of the church love one another and make sacrifices to help other people in the world. Were people to look at your family as representative of the Catholic faith, what would they recognize in the way you speak, act, or relate to others? What identifying marks would they see in your family?

Starting the Conversation

Talk about any crest, symbol, traditional celebration, ritual, sign, or fabric pattern that identifies your family as coming from a particular heritage or tradition. Share its history with your child and explain why it is meaningful to you. Then brainstorm together about what your family would put on a new crest or a family website that would show the world what you value.

To Help You Pray

Begin prayer with your child by inviting him to still his heart and mind so as to focus quietly on God’s presence. After praying, give him a few moments to pray silently to God in his own words. You might say something like: “Now, if you want, take a few moments to say to God whatever you’d like. You can pray this silently in your heart—and I’ll be doing the same.”

A Prayer Moment with Your Child

Let’s thank Jesus for the gift of his church: Loving Jesus, thank you for creating a church that shares in your holiness and love. Help me to love the church and to identify with unity and holiness, as it does. Amen

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Essay on My Family

List of essays on my family, essay on my family – short essay for kids in english (essay 1 – 250 words), essay on my family – for children (essay 2 – 300 words), essay on my family – paragraph (essay 3 – 400 words), essay on my family –topics (essay 4 – 500 words), essay on my family (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on my family – why i love my family (essay 6 – 500 words), essay on my family – for school students (class 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 standard) (essay 7 – 500 words), essay on my family (essay 8 – 750 words), essay on my family – long essay (essay 9 – 1000 words).

A family is one of the greatest gift god has given to all living creatures on the earth including humans. It is a privilege to have a happy family as not everyone in the world has it.

The joy of living with your parents, fighting with your siblings over petty can just make you smile the moment you think of it. In order to inculcate the values of a family in the students, we have composed some short essays for students.

These essays are suited for students of all ages and classes. Not only these essays shall give an insight on how a family should be but shall also enrich the students with the moral values of a family.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for kids, children and school students.

Family is important to every one of us and we all love our family. Wherever we go in this world and whatever we may achieve, our heart and soul will always be in our home because it is where our beautiful family is. Nothing in this world can be stronger than the bonding of the blood . The members of the same family may have differences of opinions, may quarrel often for silly things but in spite of all these it is our family that supports us during our ups and downs.

As the saying goes, “ Family is the best thing you could ever wish for. They are there for you during the ups and downs and love you no matter what”.

Contrary to this saying, we cannot choose our family as we choose our friends. But I can say that I’m blessed with a wonderful family. My family is very small with four members – my mother, my father, my elder sister and me. My family is a middle class family and my father is officially the bread winner of our family. My mother supports him financially by taking tuitions for school children.

We do not have much money or wealth but what my family has in abundance is love for each other which cannot be replaced by anything else in this world. My father and my mother are the role models to my sister and me. They struggle a lot to give us a better life. More than anything they have taught us discipline and morals of life which is helping us to lead our lives in a righteous path even today.

I cannot ask anything more to God since he has already showered me with my family which I treasure the most every second and will safeguard even in the future.

The family is a valuable god gift which plays a most crucial role in every individual’s life. I love my family very much because all of my family members stand in my good as well as bad times. From moral teachings to love and support, my family has always helped me without any demand. There is no doubt that we experience our biggest triumphs when we really connect to them.

My family is like a strong pillar for me, on which I can rely blindly anytime I require support. From my family, I have learned the social graces of loyalty & cooperation.

My family consists of my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother, my father, two young sisters and myself. My grandparents are the pillars of my family and my grandfather is the head of my family. He is the one whose decision relating to any matter is final and all of us do respect it.

Right from my childhood, my family members have prepared me for the challenges that I’ll face in the years ahead. In addition to this, all of my family members help and serve each other at times of need. These qualities that I have learnt from my family has helped me to shape my adult life in a right manner.

I am really very attached to my grandfather. He holds an excellent life experience because he has already faced so many ups and downs. My Grandfather has helped me to build my perception & vision towards society.

My family has always been there to motivate and encourage me to overcome all difficulties in life and achieve success. The role of every member in my family is unique and important in their own way. I thank God that I have grown up in a family full of love and discipline. My family values will definitely help me in becoming a better person.

A person without family and its love never becomes completely happy in his/her life. I am complete and happy with my family that includes five members. My family is a group of five including me, father, mother, brother, and sister. Family bonding is a unique type of love that gives you every lesson needed to live a harmonious life.

Growing under the supervision of a caring and loving family will increase our social values and overall well-being. Each member of my family carries out equal responsibility in sculpting the strong bonding needed for a better future and develop moral importance in each other.

My father owns a successful business of office stationery store. He uses the money to cover all our expenses and give a better lifestyle to the family. He works hard day and night to get us better education, food, home, etc. He hides all his tiredness when he comes home after a long day to spend quality time with us.

My mother is a talented homemaker who also does a part-time tailoring at home. She does all her duties with at most interest, from taking care of us to all the household chores and finds time to pursue her passion as well. She is a multi-tasker and does all the tasks from helping us in our studies to preparing delicious healthy foods to sculpt us into a better human being.

My brother is an engineering graduate and does a job in a well-known company. He is my best well-wisher and helps me in all ups and downs. My sister is also an engineering graduate and an employee in an IT company. She always finds time to help me with all my difficulties and she is my secret keeper too.

My family is a lifeline to whom I can run to, whatever may be the situation I am facing. My family guides me to be a good person and help me in nurturing good values. We, humans, are animals that live together spreading love and care for each other, and this togetherness is called family. The absence of such a divine bonding make us equal to animals.

Family value and growing in such a caring surrounding helps me to pass all the struggles and hardships that I face in my daily life. Whatever be the situation we are facing, our family will never leave us alone. My family is a blessing for me and I value everyone in my family with equal respect and love.

Most of the people in the world are blessed with having a family. A family, with whom you can share all your joys and sorrows, who is there to guide you through your growing years, who stands by you in the toughest of the situations. I too am blessed to have such a family.

My family is one the most bizarre family in the world. We are four people, my mother, my father, my younger brother and me. While my father is the one who does work for a living, it is my mother who is the boss of the house. My father is a humble person. He is an officer in a government department. My mother is a housewife. It is our mother who takes care of our studies as our father is often busy with his official assignments and even travels for days together. We just miss him when he is not at home.

He never scolds us. But, our mother is just the opposite. She wants us to remain disciplined and we often get scolded by her. However, our father comes to our rescue most of the times. My brother, still in school is the one with whom I love to spend my time the most. Not because I love to play with him, but because, being the elder sister, I enjoy instructing him and showing him who is more powerful at home. He, at a time, seems so helpless when our mother says to obey his sister. I just love that moment. But not all days are the same. I hate having to study all along while he gets to play more than me.

The Atmosphere in my Family:

We largely have a peaceful atmosphere at home. After school, our time is spent on studying, playing and watching television, which of course our mother does not like. Unlike other couples, my mother and father seldom have a fight. In fact, as soon we see an argument brewing up, one of them just withdraws and it is just rare to see a heated conversation between them. This is what I like the most about them as I feel that my parents are so cool. It is only me and brother who love to fight with each other.

However, we know that behind those fights, it is actually our love for each other which binds us together. I just enjoy being at home spending time with my parents and my brother. I just feel how bad it would be when tomorrow I and my brother shall move on for our professional lives and we shall not be able to spend much time together. However, it is the memories of today which shall be with me forever and will bring a smile on my face anytime when I feel low.

The Importance of a Family:

A family is said to be the first school of a child. It is from here you start to learn how to speak, walk and interact with the world. It is important to value the importance of a family in one’s life. At times, people feel that they are grown-ups and that their parent’s advice does not matter anymore, but that is not true. It is the elders of the family who at any given of time would know the world better than us and we should all respect our family members and love our siblings as well. It is the family who builds our character and we should feel fortunate to have a family around us.

Introduction

My family values are what I take so dear to my heart because they have made me what I am today and I plan on passing these great values to my children in future. Every family has those things, acts and values that they hold in high esteem and they cherish so much. These vales have become a part of them: most times, it is what distinguishes the traits in each family and in some ways it makes or mars the future of the family members. Same applies to my family, we have some set values that has become a part of us and it has made my life a lot better because I have become a better person who is not only valuable to himself but also to the society at large. I will be sharing some of these values with you.

My Family Values:

Some of my family values include:

1. Honesty:

This is a principle that is highly protected in my family. My dad has this saying that, “honesty is the best policy.” Ever since I was little, my family has taught me how to be honest and the benefits that lie within. Sometimes, my parents even test us in ways we were not expecting and a reward is given to the person that comes out honest. This is one of my family values that I cherish so much and I am proud that it is what my family hold in high esteem.

2. Kindness to Others:

This is not a common trait to all. My mom has this belief that if the world and everybody in it shows love and kindness to one another, there will be no hatred and wars will be eradicated. This is a family value that we cherish so much. I learnt to show love to everybody. Even when we did not have much, my parents will still give to those who are needy. My dad says that the world is like a river, we would eventually flow into one another later and you do not know the future, the person you helped today might eventually be of help to you tomorrow.

3. Education:

This is a value that has been passed from generation to generation in my family. My dad would say that education is the best legacy you can give to a child. My family does everything in their capacity for you to get a sound and benefitting education. The acquisition of knowledge is also quite important. All of us try to gain more and more knowledge because we all have a family slogan that says “knowledge is power and that power makes me a hero.”

4. Dress and Appearance:

This is a religious value we cherish in my family. My dad would say that you are addressed the way you dress. I do not want to be address wrongly and give out a wrong impression. So, our appearance really matter a lot to us and the way we dress.

Conclusion:

Every family has one thing or the other that they hold in high esteem and tend to pass on from generation to generation. This is what makes a family a united sect not because we are related by blood but because of we share the same values.

Introduction:

Why I love my family is a question that has been floating through my mind for a very long time because no matter how hard I try to pin out a reason why I love them, I just can’t find one. This can be due to fact that they mean the whole world to me and I will do anything for them. I love my family a lot and I would like to share some of the reasons why I love my family and will never trade them for anything.

Why I Love My Family:

I have a family that consists of 6 people: my father, my mother and four children which includes me. For you to understand why I love my family I will tell you a little about each of them and why I love them so much.

My father is the best father in the world: well, that’s what I say. He is a business manager. I look up to my father a lot because I will like to take a lot of his behaviours and make it mine. He taught me to be contented with whatever I have. We did not have much when I was growing up; my dad lost his job and still did not allow anything of the pressure change how he behaved to us at home. He is caring, gentle, accommodating and disciplined.

My mum is the best cook in the world. I do not know where I would be today without my mum. I owe her a lot. She is a teacher by profession and this fascinates me a lot because not only is she inculcating knowledge in the young minds of tomorrow, she is also building the future of our society at large. I want to be like my mum. I remember those times when she had to sacrifice when the most precious of her things just to make me happy. She is loving, caring, understanding, accommodating. In fact, she is everything you can ever wish for in a mother.

My elder sisters are the best. Although they can be frustrating sometimes but that is mostly because of my stubbornness. They pretend they do not really care but deep inside they do. The things they do even subconsciously say otherwise. I remember a day in elementary school, I was being bullied a boy in class. On this particular day, he hit me. Unknowing to me, my sister heard about it and she beat the boy and made him apologise to me, I felt so happy that day because I had someone who had my back.

My brother is one of the best gifts I have received. He is the last child and this gives him an opportunity to be annoying if you know what I mean. He is joyful and always ready to heed correction. There was this day, I heard him bragging to his friends about how awesome I am, and I was the happiest that day.

We all have one reason or the other on why we love our family. I love mine because they are the best gift I could ever ask for and the fact that they have been there for me through the good, bad and funny times.

Importance of family is something that is greatly overlooked and underrated in the world we live in today. The definition that the family had about one hundred years before now was very clear. Back then, a family was believed to be a unit that consisted of the father that was in charge of the finances of the family, a mother whose primary duty was to look after the home and take care of the children and then there were the children. Largely based on the region you are from, a family can also include members of the extended family like aunts, uncles and grandparents. This type of family system is referred to as joint family.

Family Importance:

A family that is important is one that is very strong. If a family is going to be very strong, there is a need for the bond between them to be very strong. Bonds that help in keeping the members of a family with each other are relationships. If there are very strong relationships among all the members of a family, there is going to be stronger commitment between all of them and the family as a unit will be very important.

Better communication is also a result of family relationships that are very strong. If all the family members can take time out to talk and know each other well, the bond between them is bound to be very strong. Even if the conversations are about big things or small things, it does not really matter. The most important thing is that all family members stay connected to one another. It is very important that they all list to each other and understand every member.

How to make Family Bonds Very Strong:

We have various things that can help our family bond to improve.

A few of them include:

1. Love: love is the most important thing we need for our bonds as a family to improve. When we love the members in our family, we will also be able to know all about privacy, intimacy, caring, belonging and sharing. When there is love in a family, the family will prosper.

2. Loyalty: loyalty is something that comes as a result of love. Family members should stay devoted to each other. It is important that we are able to count on our family to have our back anytime we are facing problems.

The importance of family can never be overstated even though we live in a different time now and our attitudes to relationships, marriage and what a family should be has changed. The family is something that we need to help share our problems and be there for us anytime we have issues. A lot of the things that were not acceptable in the past and we now see as normal. Even with all the changes that the society has effected on our family system, the family still remains the major foundation of our society and this will remain the same.

My family is the best gift I have got. A family can be simply said to mean a social group of different people in our society that includes one or more parents and also their children. In a family, every member of the family commits to other members of the family in a mutual relationship. A family is a very important unit and the smallest unit in the society. A family whether a big one or a small one is of very great importance and use to all of its members and is believed to be the unit of our society that is strongest because the society is formed from the coming together and culmination of various families.

In many cultures, the family serves a child’s first school where the child learns all about their traditions and cultures more importantly learn about all the rudimentary values in life. A family is very essential in the teaching of healthy habits and good manners to all the members of the family. It gives the members of the family the opportunity to become people with better character in our society. I feel very lucky to be born into a small and lovely family; I learnt a lot of things from my family.

I am from a middle class and average family with six members (my father, my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, my younger brother and me). My grandfather is the head of the family and we all respect and listen to him. He is really wise and tries to advise each and every one of us using his many life experiences. He has been involved in many interesting and adventurous activities that he tells me about all the time. Most of the time, he has the final say on all of our family issues and he does his best to make all his decisions impartial.

Any time we are eating today as a family, he sits at the top of the table; we all have designated seats at the dining table. When my brother and I are available, my grandfather teaches us about our traditions and cultures. My grandfather is very friendly and has a cool and great personality and tries to talk nicely and calmly to everyone passing across his message without being rude. He helps my brother and sometimes me with our assignments. He majorly teaches us about all of the tools we need to be successful in life including punctuality, discipline, moral, cleanliness, continuity, honesty, hard work and trustworthiness.

My lovely grandmother is one of the nicest people I know, she tells my brother and I lovely stories every night. My father is a civil engineer and he is very hardworking, sincere and punctual. He is the breadwinner of the family and does his best to provide for every member of the family even if that means he has to work extra hours. My mother is very sweet and takes care of every member of the family even though she works as an accountant at a firm. She wakes up very early in the morning to make preparations for the day. My brother is a funny and jovial person that enjoys sporting activities and I love him so much.

Sometimes I wish my cousins, uncles and aunts lived with us, I love having them around. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of having everyone around. I have highlighted some below.

Some advantages are:

1. It gives a better routine of living that can contribute to a proper growth.

2. Having a joint family helps in following the numerous principles of an equitable economy and helps teach discipline and respect. It also teaches us how to share the burden of other family members.

3. There is the understanding of having to adjust to the needs of other family members.

4. The children in a large family get to grow up in a happy environment because they have children of their age around that they can play with.

5. All the members of a joint family are usually very disciplined and responsible as everyone has to follow the instructions of the family head.

Some of the disadvantages include:

1. There is always the chance of a rift or fight between the family members because of the possible imbalance of feelings of oneness, brotherly love and feeling of generosity.

2. There is a chance of the members of the family that earn very high looking down on members of the family that do not.

The concept of family is important in India for every individual. Family defines an individual background in terms of social relations and growth. Families influence the lives of individuals from childhood to adulthood especially in decisions concerning life milestones like marriage and career paths. Indian families live together for up to four generations under one roof and they manage to maintain lose family relations compared to other families across the globe. Indian families tend to stick to their cultural practices as a family and they maintain religious practices that cut across the family. Elders in Indian families are respected by the members of the family and their opinions are considered during decision making.

What Family Really Means :

Basic knowledge defines a family as a group of people who share genetic and legal bonds. However, the concept of family means a lot more for other people than just the bond and it incorporates the concepts of culture and religion. In India, the concept of family differs from what the rest of the world perceives as family.

Families in India go beyond nuclear and extend to wider circles, whereby the extended family lives together and are closely related. The relationships in the family are strong such that cousins are considered siblings and aunts and uncles are considered parents. Family also means the unconditional love among the members of the family whereby there is support in terms of finances and emotions.

Why the Family is so important:

The family plays a central role in lives of individuals in teaching of moral values. Parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents have been known to teach the children on morality and disciplinary issue s in most cultures. Both spiritual and moral values are instilled through family. Family give a sense of belonging to individuals because they are over by the family and supported at all times.

A family will always support its members with needs including financial and emotional needs. In a family, there has been established levels of satisfaction and happiness from the joy of being together. Families also helping community development through contributions and participating in activities in the community. The family is important in the society in maintaining order, discipline and peace.

I come from a big family. My family has not moved to an urban area and so we still live as a wider circle together with the extended family. In my nuclear family, I am the first born of four children. I have one sister and two brothers who are still at school. I have three aunts and two uncles. My cousins are twelve in number and most of them are at school except for the youngest ones.

My grandparents are very old and they do not get out of the house much and are being taken care by my parents and aunts. Most of the children are always at school and the house gets quiet but during holiday, we all unite together as a full house. My family is of the middle class in terms of wealth. Our religion is Hindu and we all practice the Indian cultures and traditions. What I love about my family is that everyone is a good cook and the food is always amazing. Members of my family are kind and respectful and that is why we rarely have disputes. The family support is strong and we all love each other.

Why I love My Family:

Having a big family is interesting because the house always feels warm. As I had earlier mentioned, my family is made of good cooks, which makes me love them. There is always teamwork within the family and good relationships are maintained. I like the adventurous nature of my family because we always have fun whenever we go for holiday vacations or have a family event.

Moral cultural and spiritual values are highly cared for in the society. My family is oriented in good moral values and believe we make a good role model for the society. Despite the influence of education, the family has been able to maintain the culture and traditions of Indian people. The love that exists in my family is precious and that is the most important value of all times because what family without love?

Our Weekend Outings and House Parties:

We do not have many of these in our family because of the different schedules among the members. We only have weekend outings and house parties during holidays. Birthday parties are and weddings are the parties that we frequently have as a family. I love parties at home because the food is usually exceptionally good. Also, the dancing and happy faces. Weekend outings are usually in form of picnics and they are usually full of games.

Cousins Visit during Summer:

My family is young and only three of my cousins are in college. The rest are in high school or elementary schools. Whenever my cousins come home from school, it is a happy moment for the whole family and we host parties to welcome them home. Whenever my older cousins are at home, I enjoy their company and I love to hear stories about college because that is where I will be in a few years’ time.

In the spirit of holidays, we have a vacation or two in a year. During these vacations, plans begin early and when the time comes, it is enjoyable and relaxing. Vacations for us as children tend to be more enjoyable because we have an environment away from home and with minimal parental supervision and we tend to explore and talk among ourselves. Team building during vacations strengthens the bond in families.

Family is a blessing to individuals because that is where they belong and it is what defines them. A good family is built through moral values and team effort. Having family events and parties or vacations re important is strengthening the relationships within a family. A happy individual is definitely from a happy family.

Family , My Family , Relationships

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Everyone knows that faith plays a significant role in our spiritual growth , but practically speaking it either occupies too much or too little of our understanding. If our conception of spiritual growth is nothing more than self-effort, we will not experience life transformation.

But if every spiritual pothole is paved with “just trust God,” we will also miss out on true spiritual growth. This is not to detract from the centrality of faith in becoming more like Christ, only to understand its role, so we can better coach those whom we disciple.

In the Christian life there are certain truths that are either so formative, or so fragile, that your disciple may require special assistance in learning to hold them in the shopping cart of faith. As mature Christian we are used to toting these truths around like a handbag (such as the security of our salvation), but young Christians need to develop the spiritual muscles that we take for granted.

What follows is a partial list of these foundational truths that require the exertion of faith, and may require your assistance. It is in these areas that the need for faith is most acute and where the lack of it will have the greatest ramifications.

Faith and Forgiveness

Few of the great battles in life are ever won overnight, so it is safe to assume that your disciples will see many spiritual failures before they finally see the flag raised, hear the national anthem, take their place on the winner’s platform and the world is joined together under the Nike swoosh. It might be a small failure or a stunningly gross one, but in either case they will desperately need to experience God’s forgiveness.

The problem with many sins is that even after we’ve confessed them, it is difficult to feel cleansed, to not berate ourselves, and not suspect that God’s still fuming over the incident. When we sin we instinctively feel someone must pay a price. No one gets off easy. What we need to decide is who is going to pay. Your disciple will therefore move in one of the following directions:

• ALTERNATIVE #1 “I am pig swill.” This is one of the terms I use when beating myself up for having fallen into the same trap of sin, yet again. I’ve not copyrighted the phrase so feel free to use it. In essence, I’m crucifying myself for the sin. Yes, what Jesus did was nice, but I’m going to cover the tab—check, please. Someone must pay and rightfully it should be me, so I pound myself for my stupidity.
• ALTERATIVE #2 “You, you made me sin.” That “you” could be a person, Satan, or even God, but either way someone needs to take the fall for the sin I’ve just committed, and I’ll be darned if it’s going to be me.
• ALTERNATIVE #3 “Now that you mention it, I’m not sure that really was a sin.” Recognize that phrase? It’s called justification. As the word implies, we decide to make a judgment over and against our conscience, declaring that what we did was actually right, or at least not that wrong. Why go to the effort? Because someone must pay for sin, unless of course there is no sin and that’s what we’re shooting for in this approach: to eliminate the offense.
• ALTERNATIVE #4 “I couldn’t help myself, it’s just my personality.” Let’s call this rationalizing, which is equivalent to the courtroom plea of insanity. What I’m saying is, “Yes, it was sin, but I didn’t have the moral capacity to say ‘no.’” My personality was such, and circumstances were such, that I could do no other than what I did. The effectiveness of this strategy lies in how good you are at convincing yourself that it’s really not your fault. I’m pretty gullible, so I usually believe me.

Of course what makes this all unnecessary is that someone has already paid the price, Christ. What is needed is confession. The problem is that we can confess our sins while failing to employ faith. Faith involves a choice of the will to believe that God has forgiven us through Christ’s death, while turning a deaf ear to doubts. We reckon that God is more merciful than we can imagine and believe that through Christ’s death we are completely forgiven, and “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

We often ask our disciples to scribble out their sins on a piece of paper, and have them write the verse 1 John 1:9 across the list, and tear up the list. I see no expiration date on this exercise. It is effective because it develops the faith component of confession: a visual aid to under gird a young and underdeveloped faith muscle. It might be useful to walk your disciples through the different responses listed above to help them see where in the process of confession, they are failing to exercise faith. You must teach them confession but you must also teach them that confession involves faith.

Faith That God Can Make You Holy

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

Most of the great heroes of the Bible share two things in common: they all wore sandals, and they were all required to persevere in their faith, though final victory was often years in the future. We, too—no matter how many setbacks we encounter—must never waiver in our belief that God can make us holy, and, if we persevere, will ultimately lead us in triumph.

Every disciple is willing to trust God for victory over sin at least once. The problem is when the war turns into Vietnam, with infrequent victories, heavy losses, and no foreseeable exit strategy. It is at this juncture that they need to know that faith is a long-term struggle and holiness a lifelong battle. Point to the many battles of faith in scripture fought and won over years, and not days. Show them how the Promised Land was taken one battle at a time.

When victory is elusive they will need someone to help make sense of it and prepare them for the long war. Without a proper perspective, they may resolve the conflict with a ceasefire, and an acceptance of behavior far from godliness. Help them persevere in the battle believing God will, in time, bring victory.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Here is another truth into which faith must sink its teeth: we must choose to believe that our temptations and struggles are not unique and therefore never insurmountable, unfixable, or unforgivable. It is a lie to believe that any temptation is irresistible, or that we are unique in any of our struggles.

God always provides what we need to remain holy, even if it’s simply an escape hatch. Every disciple is tempted to believe that in some area of their lives, they deviate from the norm. Satan desires for us to feel alone. You might ask your disciples if they have ever felt this way or in what area they tend to think of themselves as having unique trials or temptations. Forfeit faith in this area and you’ve dangerously increased the power of sin.

Faith That All Things Work For the Good

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

The next battle of faith is for all those who have experienced damage in their lives, or within themselves, due to sin. God can take any manure and from it grow a garden, as you participate in this promise by faith. While it may be impossible to imagine how God can bring good out of our train wreck of past and present failures, this is hardly a limiting factor. For God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

There is no limit to God’s capacity to redeem evil. Everything in our past can be taken and used for good. Every failure (like Peter’s failures) can be transformed by God’s mercy. Every weakness (like Paul’s weaknesses) can be a vehicle for God to demonstrate His strength. Though we must persevere in faith, and sometimes for years, the equation will always add up: crap + God = life. And faith is the means by which God enters the equation.

Through the examples of biblical characters such as Peter and Paul, and through examples from your own life, you must help your disciples strap on the shield of faith against the lie that anything in their lives is unredeemable, gratuitous, or random.

Faith in Our Reward

Now, there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing (2 Timothy 4:8).

Some years ago I was in China and like any tourist I visited the Great Wall. Along the bottom of the wall, a worker of this communist country was picking up trash. I clocked him at one piece of trash a minute, which at that rate would have taken him longer to clear the grounds than it took to build the Great Wall.

Where we visited included a maze of concession stands, tons of them—Great Concession stands. Someone told me that those who operated the stands employed principles of the free market, meaning that the more they sold and the more they charged for what they sold, the more they profited. One of the women at the booths actually grabbed my coat and dragged me to her counter. It would be an understatement to say that it was a motivated workforce.

The difference between these two workers was a chasm. Let’s call it the Great Chasm. One worked like a sluggard because he knew that he would always make the same amount no matter what he did (communism). The other worker knew that her effort would be rewarded (the free market).

The doctrine of eternal security (that we can never lose our salvation) was never meant to negate the teaching of rewards. In many places in the Bible, God makes it clear that our obedience and faithfulness will be rewarded. We are called to exercise faith in future rewards, choosing to believe that our actions or inaction will be compensated. When our minds move down the trail of “what difference will this really make?” the response of faith is—a lot. We are not told what these rewards will be, but simply given the assurance that it will be worth our while.

Teaching our disciples to maintain an eternal perspective, or to live for eternity, can cultivate their faith toward this truth, provided that our definition of what is eternal encompasses far more than evangelism, for Jesus states that even a cup of water given in his name will not fail to be rewarded.

Faith in God's Goodness

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

If you go back to the Garden of Eden (which is probably now a parking lot in downtown Baghdad), you will notice that the first sin was a distrust of God’s goodness. Adam and Eve became convinced that God was holding out on them. Eating from the tree was in their best interests. The foundation of most sin is a lack of faith in God’s goodness, and disbelief that His plans for us are really best.

When things are going wrong, we justify our sin with self-pity. We find ourselves thinking, “Well, I’m going to do this because God isn’t taking care of me anyway, and rather than helping, He’s allowing my life to disintegrate.” Such reasoning is designed by our scheming mind to bring us to a sense of entitlement to sin.

More innocuously, many of us fall prey to pessimism and distrust that what lies in wait over the time horizon is anything but good, often brought on by a nagging suspicion that God never did forget our sin, and payday is right around the bend.

We must fight the battle to deny or disbelieve God’s goodness, with faith, never giving an inch. Everything God does in our lives is motivated by love, and any minor deconstruction of that truth is a lie that can have serious ramifications.

In helping your disciples with this struggle, you might ask some questions to discover if their mind has a proclivity to move down this path. You might also share in what ways you tend to doubt the goodness of God. Intimacy with Christ is the best answer to any and all doubts of His goodness. When we feel close to Christ, we sense that He is on our side, and when we feel distant, we come to suspect that He is not.

Memorizing scripture is great, but passages of scripture are animated by our intimacy with Christ.

Identity: Identity Theft

“I got me some of them mud flaps with the naked ladies on them. Ohhh mamacita.”

In a series of ads for Citibank’s identity theft program, the viewer sits and listens to the thief who, having stolen the person’s credit card number, recounts their various bizarre purchases and exploits. What makes the ads humorous as well as memorable is the thief’s story is told (lip-synced) through the identity theft victim, sitting forlornly mouthing the words.

In some way we are all victims of identity theft. Having trusted Christ, we are heirs with Christ of all that is in Him. Most of us never fully grasp what God’s Word says is true of us in Christ, or worse, we simply don’t think about it. We are children of God, chosen before time to be in the family of God, yet these concepts don’t make it to the starting line-up of thoughts that propel us into the day.

In the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen," the youngest child is treated as the family outcast. The other kids call him “FedEx” because they suspect he was adopted and simply delivered to the family, not born into it. Over the course of time he begins to believe it, rumors become a lie, and the lie grows in power until he runs away from the family believing he has no place within it. There’s a message from an otherwise boring movie: our identity matters.

Our faith in our identity in Christ is absolutely foundational to our lives. Faith is fed by reading the Bible. “The Daily Affirmation of Faith” was written to provide a concise, clear statement of the truth of God’s Word as it applies to our victory in Christ (what is true of us in Him). Commend it to your disciples for daily reading particularly during times of deep trials and temptation when they are most prone to forget who they truly are, and believe things about themselves and God which are not true.

The Daily Affirmation of Faith

Today I deliberately choose to submit myself fully to God as He has made Himself known to me through the Holy Scripture, which I honestly accept as the only inspired, infallible, authoritative standard for all life and practice. In this day I will not judge God, His work, myself, or others on the basis of feelings or circumstances.

I recognize by faith that the triune God is worthy of all honor, praise, and worship as the Creator, Sustainer, and End of all things. I confess that God, as my Creator, made me for Himself. In this day, I therefore choose to live for Him. (Revelation 5:9-10; Isaiah 43:1,7,21; Revelation 4:11)

I recognize by faith that God loved me and chose me in Jesus Christ before time began (Ephesians 1:1-7).

I recognize by faith that God has proven His love to me in sending His Son to die in my place, in whom every provision has already been made for my past, present, and future needs through His representative work, and that I have been quickened, raised, seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies, and anointed with the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:6-11; 8:28; Philippians 1:6; 4:6,7,13,19; Ephesians 1:3; 2:5,6; Acts 2:1-4,33).

I recognize by faith that God has accepted me, since I have received Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord (John 1:12; Ephesians 1:6); that He has forgiven me (Ephesians 1:7); adopted me into His family, assuming every responsibility for me (John 17:11,17; Ephesians 1:5; Philippians 1:6); given me eternal life (John 3:36; 1 John 5:9-13); applied the perfect righteousness of Christ to me so that I am now justified (Romans 5:1; 8:3-4; 10:4); made me complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10); and offers Himself to me as my daily sufficiency through prayer and the decisions of faith (1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 1:27; Galatians 2:20; John 14:13-14; Matthew 21:22; Romans 6:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-3,11).

I recognize by faith that the Holy Spirit has baptized me into the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13); sealed me (Ephesians 1:13-14); anointed me for life and service (Acts 1:8; John 7:37-39); seeks to lead me into a deeper walk with Jesus Christ (John 14:16-18; 15:26-27; 16:13-15; Romans 8:11-16); and to fill my life with Himself (Ephesians 5:18).

I recognize by faith that only God can deal with sin and only God can produce holiness of life. I confess that in my salvation my part was only to receive Him and that He dealt with my sin and saved me. Now I confess that in order to live a holy life, I can only surrender to His will and receive Him as my sanctification; trusting Him to do whatever may be necessary in my life, without and within, so I may be enabled to live today in purity, freedom, rest and power for His glory. (John 1:12; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Galatians 2:20; Hebrew 4:9; 1 John 5:4; Jude 24).

Our Salvation

We’ll conclude with the most fundamental of truths, and ground zero for faith. All things build upon this.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

In describing our spiritual armor, Paul uses a helmet to illustrate the truth of our salvation: that which protects the mind, and protects us from a fatal blow. We make it a critical part of basic follow-up, because scripture affirms that it is. Let your disciples doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Let them doubt that the Cubs will ever win a World Series. But, rehearse this with them until that helmet cannot be pried off their head.

How Faith Grows

Faith is like a muscle; it grows by lifting weights. Weights are the resistance—the doubts, mental whispers, and circumstances that tell us the opposite of what faith must believe.

When God seems absent and horrible circumstances swirl around us, everything seems to shout, “God isn’t here! And if He is, He certainly doesn’t care.” In those circumstances, faith curls the barbell toward the heart and says, “No, God is good. He is for me. He has a plan.” Thus, it is the circumstances adverse to our faith that become the vehicle for our growth—they are the weight on the barbell.

And so all disciples are periodically tossed into a boat and sent out into a raging storm, where God is conspicuous by his absence. We are not trying to rescue our disciples from the situations and circumstances that will cause faith to grow. Our role is to come alongside them, strengthen their feeble arms and help them to curl the heavy weights that will cause their faith to bulk-up. (I think I just described a steroid.)

God provides the weight (adverse circumstances and trials), but they must continue to lift the weight. We must spot them helping them push out more repetitions than they thought possible while making sure the barbell doesn’t pin them to the bench-press.

Alternatively, faith grows through new challenges and we serve our disciples well by calling them into circumstances where they will need to trust and rely on God. They take courageous steps, God shows Himself faithful, and their faith grows.

Through the stress and strain of faith development, the truths discussed in this article are the most common fracture points, and the places your disciples may most need your encouragement to wind their way up the hill of faith.

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Happiness in Family Life

• Forgiveness

Building a Family of Faith

Faith in our family begins with trusting our Heavenly Father and His promises. We press forward despite challenges, never giving up on ourselves or our children. We teach our family to have faith in Christ by living what we know to be true. Our children learn their most powerful lessons from our faithfulness.

Fear is the opposite of faith. We move forward, certain that the Lord will watch over us, particularly in the family. ”

He is your beloved Heavenly Father, who seeks your good, your happiness. He desires with all the love of a perfect and pure Father that you reach your supernal destination. . . . All you have to do is trust your Heavenly Father. Trust Him enough to follow His plan. ”

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust. ”

A Stronger Personal Faith in Jesus Christ (5:21)

Trust Him Enough to Follow His Plan (2:06)

A stronger personal faith in Jesus Christ will prepare [your children] for the challenges they will most surely face.”

How can prayer be a more powerful part of our family life?

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Religion in the Family, Essay Example

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Introduction

Religion is a set of beliefs, usually referred to as the belief in a god or gods (“Religion”, 2010). The role of religion in the family is a crucial one since it is one belief which rules of the household are usually based on. Religion sets up one’s beliefs and ethics, these things can affect the characteristics of a person. According to Keister (2008) religion is directly related to family values and how they see economics. Research shows that more theological families base their finances on religion which affects the entire household. A family’s values are directly related to religion, if religion is present in the household. The intersection of family life in religion is important to families in society (“Religion and Family Composition”, 2010). A number of households are run by grounded religious attitudes. It acts as a heritage, and is something which gets passed on along through the generations. However, there are certain family situation which deviate from this, whereas a family member is rebellious of the religious practices present in the household; although this paper refers to the families who share the same belief or religion. Research has shown that the role of religion tightens bonds within the family (Heyrman, 2008). According to Pavone (n.d.) religion makes a difference within the family in terms of stabalized ethics and beliefs.

The sample chosen is a Hispanic girl in her teenage years, living in what can be classified as a family-oriented household. She lives with her parents who are in their late forties, an older brother who is in his early twenties and their grandmother who is in her early seventies. The participants live in a small town, a suburban environment. They practice Catechism and pray together before meals, before going to bed, and the grandmother of the household regular prays the rosary. The participants attend mass every Sunday, and are very close friends with their local priest and other parishioners. The participants were chosen because of their house-hold set up as well as their cultural background, being dominated by Catholics. Religion is not only a part of their lives, it reflects in their culture.

Data was gathered through the means of a face-to-face interview as well as observations in the household. The questions asked revolved around family matters and religion. Questions such as how religion plays a role in the family and what the bases of implementing household rules are. The participants were asked in a group interview.

The participants reveal that religion is a very important part of their family as well as their daily lives. This can be seen throughout their household, which is decorated with religious artifacts adorning the walls and door frames. The participants state that it is their religion as well as their beliefs which keep their family together and safe at all times. It keeps them united and close as a family and is something all of them share as a part of their culture and heritage.

The participants state that they attend mass every Sunday morning as a family, and their entire Sunday is devoted to “family time”. They pray together, for each other and they do this before meals, before bed time and during times of “need”.

Religion is said to have affected their family’s structure because they follow their beliefs in implementing togetherness. This influence leads to their family-oriented structure, of having the grandmother in the household.

Religion has been present in their family for generations so long it cannot be traced back. It has fused in with their culture and has been practices for so long that no one knows its origins within their family.

The participants state that religion is passed down from generation to generation by their family practices of attending mass, praying and implementing house-hold rules which comply to their religion. It is also enforced through their religious rites such as baptism, confirmation, etc.

Implementing rules in the household is based on their religion, according to the participants. Rules such as no cursing in the house and respecting your elders may be common rules, although these rules for this certain household are based on their religion and beliefs of what is right and wrong.

Household decisions in the family which revolve around religion are done for financial reasons as well as implementing rules. The family gives to charity and offers their tithes every week at church.

Religion is said to be introduced to the children of their family immediately. The children are most of the time named after saints or other names with biblical meanings. Their introduction to their religion is made official through Baptism and is continued throughout their whole childhood and teenage years through Sunday school and prayers in the family.

Heyrman (2008) states that religion in Protestant and Catholic cultures influence child-rearing practices. This plays a big role in the family. Religion plays an important role in the subjects’ family and is not just a belief, it is embodied in their culture and is a reflection of who they are as a family as well as individuals. The concepts of child-rearing are practiced in their family through religion and their beliefs. Most of their decisions in the household revolve around their religion, most of the time probably unconsciously. Before this interview was conducted, the idea of religion in the family seemed to have been a lost culture in America. However, there are many families still involved in religious practices. The role of religion in the participants’ family seems to be of a strong structure and will not be lost in time.

• How important a role does religion play in your family?
• What are religious activities or practices you participate in as a whole family?
• How does religion affect the structure of your family?
• How long has this religion been present throughout the generations in your family?
• What are the methods of passing this religion down from generation to generation?
• How do you use religion in implementing certain rules in the household?
• What types of household decisions revolve around religion for your family?
• At what age is religion introduced to children of your family?

Family oriented principles. (2009, November 18). Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/14658-family-oriented-principles/

Heyrman, C.L. (2008, March). Religion, women, and the family in early America . Retrieved from http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/erelwom.htm

Keister, L. (2008). Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty. American Journal of Sociology. 113(5);1237-1271.

Pavone, F. (n.d.). A reflection on how families find their identity and strength in religion. Retrieved from http://www.priestsforlife.org/articles/fmrelig.html

Religion. (2010). Wikipedia.org . Retrieved September 28, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Religion and family composition . (2010). Retrieved from http://family.jrank.org/pages/1380/Religion.html

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Catholic family dedicated to regenerative agriculture says farming and faith go together

By Mary Gates

Lansing, Mich., May 28, 2024 / 16:40 pm

Two Sparrows Farms, named for God’s promise to care for his sons and daughters (see Mt 10:29-31), has provided abundant evidence that God is faithful to his word. Owners Dan and Whitney Belprez have grown their farm and family while holding to the truth that God provides through every trial and triumph.

With a “normal” suburban childhood, Dan said it was his mom’s faith and dedication to their family time that inspired him to seek a career that would allow him to spend his days with his wife and children. 

“My mom worked in Catholic schools, and having summers and holidays off is what allowed her to really put a strong emphasis on family time together. So, I initially went to college to study education,” he said. 

Like Dan, Whitney had no exposure to farming as a child, but she was always captivated by nature and dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. After meeting in high school and then attending Grand Valley State University together, Whitney said their experiences and interests led her and Dan to learn more about their food sources and the small steps they could take to care for creation. 

“I interned at a small organic farm, and Dan worked at an orchard,” she said. “We became very interested in organic food and started reading and learning more.” 

Dan remembered that God was drawing the couple into a deeper faith life.

“My family has this overarching Catholic identity and culture, so no matter where we are individually, there is still that unifying force.” 

And, while Whitney’s family wasn’t religious when she was young, she said the example of Dan’s family became a powerful witness to her. 

“His mom was very inspiring in my faith journey,“ Whitney recalled. “She was one of the first people I met who truly lived her faith not just on Sundays — she walks the walk. Her faith informs every decision.” 

After Whitney entered the Catholic Church in 2008, the couple married and graduated, then Dan took a job at a large, conventional dairy farm.

“I liked the work but not the production method,” he said. “I started to think we might be able to do this differently.”

Dedicated to regenerative agriculture, Whitney explained that they aim to farm their land in a way that’s always improving it. 

“Compost manure is the only fertility we add to the land. We farm in unison with nature instead of in opposition to it,” she said. “We rotate our cows on pasture every 24 hours from April to December. We honor the cow as an herbivore and steward the land in the best way possible.” 

The couple took their first step into farming by renting 10 acres of land.

U.S. bishops’ synod synthesis reveals desire for greater unity, evangelization

“We had meat — chickens and sheep — and started canning food and buying from local farmers’ markets,” Whitney recalled. 

They then purchased a 12-acre farm and launched their new business — grass-fed beef and dairy cows. 

In 2017, Dan and Whitney moved to a 40-acre farm and quickly outgrew it as word spread and their business expanded. The following year, they bought their current farm, which consists of 80 acres on which they raise their dairy cows for herd shares, along with beef and pork.

“Farming was initially how we sought to integrate faith and family into this life where we could spend our days together,” Dan explained. Now raising their four children on the farm, the couple said they are grateful for the ups and downs they experience.

“Every decision, we look through the lens of what’s best for our family and how we should be treating the land and discerning all of it,” he said. “We could do more on this land, but our kids are relatively young, and we want to enjoy them and not have them resent the farm. We don’t assume they’ll all end up farming, but they know where their food comes from and how it got here. And they know how to work hard.”

(Story continues below)

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Whitney agreed.

“Our 3-year-old comes out to milk no matter the weather,” she said. “His ‘pay’ is the hot chocolate packet he brings out in his mug so he can pick the cow he wants to milk. Our kids have been a part of this their whole lives. Their definition of ‘normal’ may differ slightly from most kids. We try to keep them away from electronics, and instead, they play with horses, calves, and ATVs, and they explore and make forts.”

Whitney explained that the driving factor in the life of the family and the farm is the faith that brought them to step into this life years ago.

“The first place we encounter God is in the family, so we’re always asking ourselves how we reflect that in the family,” she said. “The home is the center of our family and livelihood, not just for consumption. We talk about decisions in front of the kids because we want them to see that their values and faith should drive them, not what’s easiest or most convenient. Ultimately, farming is a journey of faith. There’s so much out of your control — it smacks you in the face. I can’t control when the rain comes. Farming is the best spiritual teacher; you have to relinquish the feeling that you can control and learn to roll with it.”

“Our kids know what sacrifice looks like, and that oftentimes we need to put other needs over ours,” she continued. “Love sometimes means something else has needs, and I’m here to help. This is the reality of farming: On Christmas mornings, our kids open presents and then we milk for three hours, or on any given day, breakfast might have to wait because a calf is being born.” 

Dan added: “We’ve all had such an opportunity to learn virtue: perseverance and patience, especially when things aren’t going well, and having gratitude when things are going well. The land teaches us the way things are by nature, God’s design is undeniable, and instead of trying to buck that, we do our best to work with it.” 

Ultimately, the couple has learned in practice what they knew in thought before they set out on this journey: Their faith is the unifying reality in their family and in their farming, and God keeps his promise to care for and provide for his sons and daughters. 

“God has created all of this and he’s in all of this. We recognize that this is something to be stewarded. Just like our children are on loan to us, the land was created by God and is on loan to us, and so we should care for it well,” Whitney said. “The best thing we can do in all things is aim to honor God by using what he has given us well.”

This article was originally published in Faith magazine and is reprinted here with permission.  

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Remembering Sr Majella McAlinden: Strong in faith and kind in word and deed

B orn Evelyn McAlinden into a family of nine in a little house in the heart of the Mournes, Sr Majella grew up, like her siblings, with a strong work ethic.

Her baking and cooking were second to none, with her feather-light scones, sponge cakes and apple pies legendary among family and friends.

She was also a great knitter, turning out perfect Aran sweaters. Every article was finished to perfection, a work of art.

She entered the Convent of Mercy on Belfast’s Crumlin Road in 1958 and dedicated her life to the service of God and His people in works of mercy. She was faithful to her prayers, spiritual exercises and community life.

Sr Majella supported her family and friends with her love, encouragement and prayers as we proceeded along the paths of our lives.

When she was at home on holidays she would invite us to call at her brother John’s home in Attical, where we were treated royally. So many who are priests today can thank her for the support of her prayers during their training and beyond. Hospitality was her way – she even apologised that she could not give her visitors a cup of tea when she lay in her hospital bed.

She loved her family, especially the children, and was always interested in what they were doing and how they were getting on in life. She was so proud of them all.

Sr Majella did not always suffer fools gladly. She could have a stubborn streak and might not have been afraid to make it known when things were not as she thought they should be. She was faithful to her duties and expected no less from others.

She trained as a nurse in Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, and on returning to Belfast took up a post in the Mater Hospital outpatients’ department.

Patients who had received bad news were often consoled by her and her word was often taken in preference to the diagnoses of specialists. They trusted Sr Majella and knew that if she said she would pray for them, she would.

She was a great support to many pregnant ladies who approached her, asking for prayers and a blessing with the relic of St Gerard Majella. They always left with gifts of medals, booklets and her prayers.

She was a great support to many pregnant ladies who approached her, asking for prayers and a blessing with the relic of St Gerard Majella

Sr Majella was never one to be idle and on her retirement from the hospital, she went to Mercy College to help with the pastoral care of pupils and staff.

She looked after sick and anxious children and often relieved the receptionist by answering the phone.

She took great care of the plants there too and she was loved and revered by staff and children alike, as borne out by the numerous tributes recorded on Facebook. Some of even nicknamed her “Sr Bonjela”

Thank you, Sr Majella, for being the lady you were for us.

Sr Majella died aged 92 on May 24 in the Royal Victoria Hospital. May her noble soul rest in peace. Amen.

Rosemary McCloskey

Who should be the homemaker — man or woman? | Faith Forum

According to a Gallup pol l, 56% of women prefer to work rather than to be a homemaker, and 75% of men would rather work outside the home. Given the choice between working or staying home to take care of the house and family, a record-high 66% of U.S. adults would prefer to work.

One viewpoint: Homemaking is not demeaning. It is an act of service, equally valuable, eternally important, no less significant, noble, satisfying. Serving others is godly. Homemaking is a ministry. It is the highest calling. Home is a blessing from God.

Another viewpoint: Homemaking is a waste of a good career. It is highly overrated. Sometimes culture, religion and society are used to sell homemaking as the only right path for women. It is unfair to assign the role of homemaker exclusively to women. Women should choose the role which their heart desires and not yield to the pressure of the society, etc.

Irish playwright Isaac Bickerstaff (1733-1808?) said:

Let men say whatever they will,

Woman, woman, rules them still.

We asked our panel: Who should be the homemaker? Man or woman?

Man, financially

Sherif A. Elfass, member, Northern Nevada Muslim Community

Islam emphasizes the man's primary financial responsibility for his family. Allah (SWT) states in the Quran: “Men are the caretakers of women, as men have been provisioned by Allah over women and tasked with supporting them financially” (4:34). Thus, men are obligated to safeguard, protect, and provide for their wives both physically and financially. However, these responsibilities are contingent upon the husband's means. The Quran further advises: “Let the rich man spend according to his means; and the man whose resources are restricted, let him spend according to what Allah has given him” (65:7).

Conversely, wives are not technically obligated to contribute financially to their husbands, children or household upkeep, regardless of their wealth or employment status. While Islam does not mandate wives to provide financial support, it does not prohibit it either. Such decisions should be made based on need and mutual agreement.

Any gender can create a home

Toni King, spiritual leader, Unity Center of Reno

There is no Unity teaching outlining gender-specific roles; however, Unity’s tenets are based on the divinity in all people, equally, and the human development of our qualities of Being. Co-founders Myrtle and Charles Fillmore acted as one in their development of the Unity Movement (circa 1889), proclaiming the Spirit of God is made manifest in the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine. Both actively influenced their sons in a higher understanding of Divine Law: when feminine and masculine spirits unify within, everything in the outer world unfolds in divine order.

As humans house every aspect of God, let our individual gifts inform our roles. From the pulpit Charles Fillmore taught: “… there must be a new standard fixed, and that standard is Spirit; a restoration of the condition that existed before Eve was separated from Adam. There must be an equalization, an adjustment, a righteousness between men and women in all affairs.”

Family decision

Daniel H. Mueggenborg, bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno

The Catholic Church does not offer any teaching regarding who should be the homemaker. While there are obvious reasons which would indicate the mother is best suited to care for infants, there are no household roles for male or female parents. Such roles tend to be more culturally conditioned than religiously governed. It should also be noted that being a homemaker is not an isolated role since both husband and wife share in the responsibility for providing a loving, caring and nurturing household.

Biblical teachings are more descriptive of established cultural practices than they are prescriptive of strict roles. Therefore, scripture passages offer little in terms of relevant guidance for this question. The biblical teachings that do speak of homemaking do so in a way that esteems this role as a noble, essential and God-intended function which expresses one’s love for the family.

Homemaking can actually be considered a ministry.

A strong relationship makes a home

Matthew T. Fisher, resident priest, Reno Buddhist Center

Modern people are flexible by their nature. Who makes the home? The family that lives there. Ability and aptitude are important. If both partners work outside the home then they naturally divide tasks and leadership responsibilities creating a nurturing environment. Rigid roles of the past are long gone.

The Sigalovada Sutra outlines a picture of married life. 2,667 years ago, social roles were very traditional. It was a world where the husband provided the material support for the family and the wife was the homemaker. The husband “should” be — courteous to his wife, respect her, be faithful, hand over authority to her, and provide for her after his death. The wife, in turn, should care for her husband with compassion by performing her duties well, being hospitable to relations and visitors, being faithful, protecting family wealth, and being skilled and industrious in discharging duties.

Patriarchal order continues today

Micheal L. Peterson, NW Nevada Media specialist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

God created man and woman, male and female and commanded that they be fruitful and replenish the earth. Adam was given the Priesthood and appointed to be the head of the family, while Eve was commanded to be an helpmeet alongside her husband as equal partners. Thus began the Patriarchal order, which continues today and will continue throughout eternity as God decreed.

We have also been appointed divine roles within the family. The man is to remain worthy to hold the Priesthood of God and lead, provide for and protect the family. The woman is given the privilege of bringing new life into the world and nurturing that life with the divine qualities given women.

Children have the best chance to develop when raised in a righteous family with a mother and a father. God will bless those righteous fathers and mothers who are tasked with raising their children alone.

Can’t we all just get along?

Anthony Shafton, author and atheist thinker

What can an atheist say, as an atheist, about the rights and wrongs of other people’s domestic arrangements? Nothing — apart, that is, from the negative certainty that no guidance on the matter can ever arrive from on high, or from down low. Nor, obviously, can any guidance be inferred, regardless what proxies and prophets might claim.

My personal viewpoint on homemaker roles deviates somewhat from the “woke” viewpoint which a religious believer might well impute to woke nonbelievers, to scrap tradition in favor of equality and personal choice: Dad can do the dishes and diapering as well as Mom; Mom can earn a paycheck as well as Dad. Right, though a lot of evolution underpins especially maternal childcare. But here we are. What of nonbinary households? I have a cousin in a marriage of three women. What’s needed is tolerance in every direction, tradition for woke, woke for tradition.

All of the above

Dawn M. Blundell, lead pastor, Epworth United Methodist Church, Fallon

The United Methodist Church does not have an opinion on this. And the Bible says nothing whatsoever about who “should” be responsible for the home.

People in the Bible lived together in multigenerational extended family groups, working and raising the family together. Generally, women were in charge of the home and the children, while men primarily concerned themselves with whatever business gave the family its income. However, the Bible also contains examples of women working outside the home (Proverbs 31, Judges 4-5, Acts 16, Romans 16:1-2) and men lovingly and personally raising their children (Psalm 103:13, Matthew 7:9-11, Luke 15, Hebrews 12:9-11, Ephesians 6:1-4).

In Genesis 1:26-28, male and female are created equal, with identical roles and authority in caring for the world and each other. The Bible does not give any command regarding who should be the “homemaker.” So, let each be who God created them uniquely to be.

Depends upon your translation

ElizaBeth Webb Beyer, Jewish rabbi

Traditional Judaism says men and women aren’t equal because men are physically stronger and women are spiritually stronger. That is why G-d told Abraham, “Whatever Sarah your wife tells you, listen to her” (Genesis 21:11). A Biblical verse may hold vastly different translations. Eve becomes “ezer kenedgo” to Adam which, translating from Hebrew, means either his helpmate or opposing him (Gen. 2:18, 20). Later commentators say the goal is to come together to complement and benefit each other.

In orthodox teachings about Proverbs 31, “Who is a good woman?” — The one who 'osah' her husband’s will.” Again, there are two meanings: either “do” or “create” his will. Why entirely opposite meanings? As with many verses, interpretation follows the translator. As to who should be primarily responsible at home depends upon the couple. How can they complement and benefit each other? Orthodox and Reform Jewish households may differ.

What we have is to benefit others

Stephen R. Karcher, presiding priest, Saint Anthony Greek Orthodox Church

Scripture doesn’t elaborate much on homemaking — though it’s mentioned that a bishop “must manage his own household well” and also that older woman “train the young women to be managers of their households.” But notice how it’s both men and women "managing" the household. Further in the letter to Titus, we read “men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in patience,” and immediately the apostle adds, “women likewise.” The exhortation is not gender-specific but for both men and women who are to “reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.” This is a general principle throughout Scripture.

Our concern is with character development and the acquisition of virtue, not so much with prescribing behavior patterns. All that we have is from God to use for the benefit of others in every situation, society and community, including the home.

Either, depending upon interest and aptitude

Nancy Lee Cecil, Baha’i teacher

One of the fundamental teachings of the Baha’i Faith is that men and women are equal — a spiritual and moral standard essential for the unification of the planet and a prerequisite for peace. In fact, Baha’u’llah, our prophet founder, wove this principle into the social fabric, requiring the same standard of education for men and women. Equality does not, however, imply sameness; certain differentiation may be observed in specific areas of Baha’i life.

For example, any household chores such as laundry or cooking may be undertaken by the woman as was once stereotypically the case, while outside chores such as lawn maintenance are often the man’s choice. However, in a truly egalitarian household, the undertaking of each task is decided by the criteria of aptitude, interest, and time or flexibility afforded by each spouse’s work schedule. Such criteria support more harmonious relationships and are not decided by predetermined gender expectations.

Wives are to submit, men are to love like Christ

Bryan Smith, lead pastor, Summit Christian Church, Sparks

The Bible does not delineate who does the laundry, makes dinner, or is the breadwinner. Scripture establishes roles within the marriage though — the man is the head and is to love his wife like Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25). Wives are to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22).

I can almost hear the eyes rolls! There is both a high call and a beauty in honoring the roles God gives within the family unit! Within these roles we are free to operate within our giftings and talents. This allows room for men to be stay-at-home dads and moms to enter the workforce. It also allows for dual income families that are dividing and conquering roles and tasks on the home front. Culture may assign expectations and value to different roles, but God does not. We celebrate the oneness of marriage and cooperation in making a home.

Circumstances vary greatly

Kenneth G. Lucey, philosophy/religion professor emeritus, University of Nevada

Throughout human history, the role of homemaker was held by women, but history also includes many women who were business people, scientists, etc. Today, women having employment outside the home is very common.

The question asks who “should” be homemaker, man or woman? This question ignores the fact that many modern families consist of two men or two women, in which case the question lacks a plausible answer. In some families one parent may be more employable than the other, in which case it’s likely the unemployed parent becomes the homemaker. However, often both spouses have employment, and then the various household tasks will get shared by both members of the couple. Often, the partner with the better culinary talents does the cooking and the other will do the clean up. The financial status of the family may also influence whether outsiders get employed to handle tasks within a household.

Next week’s topic: Is our attire a reflection of our souls?

Faith Forum is a weekly dialogue on religion produced by religious statesman Rajan Zed. Send questions or comments to [email protected] or on Twitter at @rajanzed.

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A father-daughter duo wrote a book on faith and family. Here are other books targeted at Christian teens

‘suddenly rural girl’ showcases how faith can help teens through hard times.

By Sydney Jezik

The book “ Suddenly Rural Girl ,” released earlier this year, started out as a school assignment and grew into something much more, according to Northfield News .

It became a book for Christian teens about a Christian teen written by a Christian teen — and her dad.

Kennedy and Dann Hurlbert explore faith and the challenges of growing up in their new book.

Writing together, sharing faith together

Co-author Kennedy Hurlbert, a 15-year-old lover of young adult fiction, petitioned her father, Dann Hurlbert, for help in completing her school assignment, the Northfield News reported.

With his involvement, the assignment became a novel. Together, they formed a plot, established a routine and wrote the book out together.

Kennedy Hurlbert primarily focused on crafting “authentic teenage dialogue,” while Dann Hurlbert handled moving the plot along, the article said.

“We had a huge cork board in a spare bedroom where we’d stick photos of the characters,” Dann Hurlbut told the Northfield News.

The story follows a teenage girl, Dakota, who relocates to rural Minnesota with her mother after her father’s death. She must navigate loss and a new school with the help of some new friends — and a local miracle worker. Her faith is tested and ultimately rewarded for an inspiring conclusion, per DannHurlbert.com .

Kennedy Hurlbert drew from authors like Jenny B. Jones, a prolific YA writer. Her dad drew on his favorite wilderness novels. They blended their passions and ideas together to develop “Suddenly Rural Girl,” according to Northfield News .

Best fiction books for Christian teens

Are you interested in other faith-based fiction books targeted at teenagers?

These five books might be of interest.

• “Fade to White” : This book by Tara K. Ross discusses mental health through a religious lens. It takes a close look at anxiety, depression and the restorative power of faith using a fictional tale focused on young teens.
• “A Soul as Cold as Frost” : Author Jennifer Kropf spins an epic holiday-themed fantasy tale that takes a 16-year-old on a journey of faith during the Christmas season.
• “This Dreamer” : This book is a modern retelling of the biblical story of Joseph. It explores his struggles and eventual success, including how he learned to forgive and found purpose in hard times. It also features portals and swords, so it may be perfect for teens who like fantasy.
• “Purple Moon” : “Purple Moon” by Tessa Emily Hall follows a teen who moves in with a new family. She learns to put her faith in God over the world in a story about overcoming insecurity and a troubled past.
• “Unbetrothed” : This Christian fantasy book by Candice Yamnitz brims with magic, princesses, romances and life lessons about learning to find worth in God and not in comparisons.

Inside The Duggar Family's Controversial Religion: Everything To Know About The IBLP

It's currently headquartered in Texas.

Content warning: mention of sexual assault.

The documentary investigates the lengths Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar went to hide this information about their son. It also details the ideologies of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, or IBLP—the family's controversial religion that may have had something to do with these events and other harm.

The Institute in Basic Life Principles is an extremely conservative Christian organization founded by Bill Gothard. The organization describes itself as a "Christian-centered discipleship for individuals and families through events, programs, and teaching resources," but Shiny Happy People reveals the abusive tactics and problematic lessons at its core.

Here's everything to know about the IBLP, the religion followed and promoted by The Duggar family.

What is the IBLP?

The IBLP isn't technically a religion by itself—but rather a Christian-leaning organization. It was founded in 1961, originally as a campus group called "Campus Teams" according to Chicago magazine . Its ideals stemmed from a master's thesis Bill Gothard wrote at Wheaton College in Illinois. Originally, the group focused on helping teens resolve conflicts with their families.

In 1974, the organization was renamed the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, and then given its current name in 1989—Institute in Basic Life Principles. The religion detailed exactly how its members should act—down to how women should style their hair. It also created several offshoot organizations and ideologies including Advanced Training Institute, or ATI.

ATI was a biblically-inspired curriculum that integrated Christian teachings into all school subjects. Based on reports in Shiny Happy People , it seemed many IBLP families would substitute an academic education with ATI, but the lessons were far from standardized.

Stream 'Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets'

In one interview in Shiny Happy People , a former IBLP member said she had only learned up to fractions in math—and her father said that was satisfactory because it's all she needed to bake (women in the IBLP followed very traditional domestic roles). ATI stopped acting as an exclusive education program in 2021, according to its website .

Who is Bill Gothard?

Bill Gothard is the founder and leader of the IBLP. He is currently 88 years old and founded the IBLP shortly after graduating college because he thought his peers "seemed to lack direction in life and were making unwise decisions," per InTouch Weekly .

Gothard situated himself at the top of a hierarchy he created for the IBLP—which was extremely authoritarian, per Chicago magazine. He engaged in countless problematic practices, in addition to the teachings he instilled on members.

Although he had no medical degree, he saw members for counseling and gave objectively poor advice (in a lawsuit against Gothard, one member alleged that he told her not to seek psychological treatment after being raped as a young girl). He also regularly recruited "attractive" young staffers to work closely with him.

In 2014, several women members accused Gothard of sexual harrassment. The organization pursued an internal investigation that same year and he eventually stepped down. IBLP deemed his behavior inappropriate, but not illegal, per Chicago magazine. Several former members filed a lawsuit against Gothard in 2015, but it was dismissed due to statute of limitation issues, according to Yahoo .

Gothard currently resides in La Grange, Illinois, according to tax records obtained by Patch . The IBLP headquarters relocated from Hinsdale, Illinois to Big Sandy, Texas in September 2015, per Chicago magazine.

What rules do the IBLP follow?

IBLP's main gist is that men are subservient to God and women are subservient to men. However, Bill Gothard often inserted himself in the place of God, making himself an almost cult-like leader of the organization, according to Shiny Happy People .

IBLP rules get specific, but most fall under an umbrella of order . The documentary details the discipline invoked on children by their parents (which leans toward emotional and physical abuse). But one former member says that this type of discipline is also expected between husbands and wives, due to the "umbrella" hierarchy.

Most of the IBLP rules fall under this main practice, but they can become extensive. Dancing, rock music (including Christian rock), and even Cabbage Patch Kids dolls are prohibited. Women are required to dress in ways that avert "eye-traps" or anything that could be construed as revealing or sexual to a male gaze—including pants, skirts that hit above the knee, long necklaces, and sleeveless shirts. Television and most books are also prohibited.

Also: Traditional dating is forbidden within the IBLP. As documented on 19 Kids and Counting , members must go through a specific courting process that's mostly orchestrated by the parents of those pursuing a relationship. Courting is defined on the Duggar family website as "a commitment to honor and protect both individuals in the process of getting to know one another." It involves a couple spending time with each individual's families and often refraining from intimacy of any kind until marriage.

Tim Levendusky currently runs the IBLP.

According to its website, Tim Levendusky now runs the organization. He lives in Big Sandy, Texas with his wife and son—and he leads the IBLP Board of Directors with three other men: Gil Bates, David York, and John Bechtle.

The IBLP estimates that more than 2.5 million people have attended its seminars. And because it is split into so many offshoots, it's difficult to ascertain how many members are currently affiliated with the organization.

Not all of the Duggars follow IBLP.

While Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar often preached the teachings of IBLP on their television shows, and continue to do so on their family blog, some of the older Duggar children have broken off from their family's beliefs.

Jinger Vuolo née Duggar recently released an entire memoir, Becoming Free Indeed , about breaking away from IBLP practices. In her book, she compares her older brother, Josh, to Bill Gothard. “My faith is still intact, but it has changed. Instead of leaving the faith entirely, I've been disentangling it," she wrote in her memoir, per PEOPLE .

Audible Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear

Jill Dillard née Duggar has also stepped away from the IBLP and details her experience in Shiny Happy People . She also plans to release a memoir of her own, Counting The Cost with her husband, Derick , which will examine the "red flags" she noticed within her family.

Jessa Seewald née Duggar has also publicly broken away from some IBLP ideologies (including her clothing choices and allowing her children to dance), but she's never publicly renounced its teachings.

You can learn more about the IBLP and The Duggars in Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Olivia Evans (she/her) is an editorial assistant at Women’s Health . Her work has previously appeared in The Cut and Teen Vogue . She loves covering topics where culture and wellness intersect. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, running, and watching rom-coms. 

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Dolly Parton to spotlight her family in new album and docuseries 'Smoky Mountain DNA'

On nov. 15, 2024, parton will release the album "dolly parton & family: smoky mountain dna – family, faith & fables.".

Dolly Parton 's desire to fully embrace her family's roots amid her now perpetual place in the global spotlight has reached a new level.

Via a partnership between Dollywood and Parton's co-owned Owepar Entertainment, on Nov. 15, 2024, the "Coat of Many Colors" vocalist will release the album "Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA – Family, Faith & Fables."

The release will create a musical lineage from the Parton family's roots in the United Kingdom in the 1600s to their home in Appalachia's Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.

The project will be available on vinyl and CD and via digital download and streaming. A four-part docuseries to accompany the album is also in production.

How to order Dolly Parton's new album

A pre-order will accompany the reveal of the album's full track list on June 21. Those who pre-order the album will receive two of the album's tracks for free.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Dolly Parton spills on Cowboys cheerleader outfit, her iconic look: 'A lot of maintenance'

What to expect from Dolly Parton's new album, docuseries

"I cannot believe that it has been 60 years this month since I graduated from Sevier County High School and moved to Nashville to pursue my dreams," recalls Parton. "My Uncle Bill Owens was by my side for many years helping me develop my music. I owe so much to him and all the family members past and present who have inspired me along this journey. I am honored to spotlight our families' musical legacy that is my Smoky Mountain DNA."

Parton's cousin, Richie Owens, produced an album featuring generations of her immediate and extended family (including those who have passed away) performing songs important to the Parton family legacy from the UK to present-day East Tennessee. Of note, particular focus is given to the Reverend Jake Owens, Parton's grandfather, who, as a press release notes, "instilled in her and her relatives a profound respect for faith, a deep love of music and storytelling, and strong enduring family values."

For the attached docuseries, performances of the songs — featuring Parton and her relatives — were filmed at Knoxville's Bijou Theater.

Owepar Music is Parton's six-decade-old songwriting business administration company, which she founded alongside her uncles Bill Owens and Louis Owens. For 25 years, work from Porter Wagoner, Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marty Robbins, Bill Monroe and many more were handled via its Music Row offices. Relaunched in 2019, Owepar Entertainment handles legacy recordings and publishes songs by contemporary artists, including Jada Star and Richie Owens.

For more information about Parton's forthcoming project and all Owepar releases, visit https://owepar.com .