Family Ministry Field Guide: How Your Church Can Equip Parents to Make Disciples Paperback – May 25, 2011

Anyone who asks me what book they need to read about children's or youth ministry, or family ministry, or discipling parents, etc. this will be one of the books I recommend.This book was particularly helpful to me as a pastor wanting to transition our age segregated ministries towards more of a focus on family ministry. I didn't realize that even I had the wrong perspective of family ministry until I read this book. Based on the other resources I've checked out regarding family ministry this book is definitely foundational in nature. It starts by addressing the "why" question, long before you're given any kind of "how" prescriptions. At the beginning that was frustrating because I was coming to this book expecting nothing but instruction of how to programmatically transition from age-segregated ministry to family ministry. After getting through the first few chapters I realized that what this book was doing was far more important for me in the long run by making sure that my underlying assumptions were correct before I try to implement any family ministry focus at our church.Timothy Paul Jones includes helpful guides at the end of the chapters to help you think through your context, as well as helpful graphs and illustrations to conceptualize what he's trying to explain.I couldn't recommend this book more.

There has been a lot of discussion as of late regarding the importance of parents as the primary disciple-makers of their children/teens. Largely because of Jones' book here I've come to think that this discussion has often missed the mark. The rhetoric I've observed has largely gone something like this, "parents are the primary disciple-makers of children, and we want to make sure we convince them of this." However, he highlights well that most parents are already convinced of this truth and we do little to help them by bringing further emphasis to this truth. Where the real discussion should be happening is this: how do we EQUIP parents to succeed in their discipling of their children? A lack of clarity over who is the primary discipler is not the issue, the issue is simply pragmatic: how can we help parents in discipling their kids? Toward this end Jones has toiled on this resource. I'd recommend it for anyone within church leadership. Big takeaway? Don't just tell parents they are primary disciple-makers, equip them to maximize this role for God's glory.[...]

The nature of human effort is to ignore God's design due to residual effects of sin. When leaders embrace their own efforts in ministry, a programmatic approach can lead a church to drift from the better, gospel centric, Christ focused, family equipped model. This is a helpful and objective work for ministry leaders that need to explore and move toward a biblical, comprehensive family and church discipleship culture.

This book found me at just the right time. Our church is in the process of trying to re-shape our midweek services (and overall strategy) to better reach/equip the families of our community. When family ministry gets brought up, images of extreme opinions often come to the surface and condemn efforts in Next Generation ministry. This book provides a healthy outlook on the topic that is fueled by an ocean of appropriately conducted research. If one spends just a few minutes looking into who Dr. Timothy Paul Jones is, they would fine information on one of the most valuable voices in our world. Of course, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to examine current practices and shelf/rethink current philosophies to better equip the primary disciplers of the children in our churches.

Of all the books on family ministry available right now, Family Ministry Field Guide is a must-have resource. Dr. Timothy Paul Jones skillfully synchronizes a biblical view of the natural family, the faith family, and a passion for bringing generations together to see the gospel of Jesus Christ passed on to children yet to be born.Dr. Jones puts to right many of the statistical nightmares we hear about so frequently and helps us reframe our perspectives of family ministry by asking insightful questions. He properly directs our gaze toward the gospel in terms of our motivations, goals, and our views of children, youth, and their families.Not only is this book like having a heart-to-heart with the author, but it is interlaced with excellent questions, team discussion guides, and appendices to assist in developing a family ministry that fits your church. Use this as a field-tested guide to lead you and others into a family ministry that will pass faith on for generations to come.

Although I am incredibly appreciative of the youth groups that I grew up in and the role of spiritual formation that they had on me, my parents remain the greatest shapers of my soul during that time. The need to recognize parent’s God given roles and implement church strategies which do likewise is high. Jones lays out both the rational and a practical strategy to get churches started in doing just that.

I am currently reading this book for seminary. It is a good book, idea wise. I'm taking stars off because I'm reading the kindle edition and the formatting is awful! You have to scroll over for chars and extended quotes or side bars, and you end up losing/not seeing the whole chart or quote. In addition, some are cut off and I don't have all of the information that should be in the side bar. I know it's cut off because it might stop mid word. Spend the extra money for the physical book.

This is a very practical, well-written book that will help any church implement a family-ministry strategy. Highly recommend.

eye opening information! this book is so accurate illustration for Youth Ministry wannabe. Please read it if you are going into youth ministry as a full time ministry.

Arrived on time and as expected.