The Family Discipleship Perceptions and Practices Survey -- By: Timothy Paul Jones

Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 01:2 (Spring 2011)
Article: The Family Discipleship Perceptions and Practices Survey
Author: Timothy Paul Jones


The Family Discipleship Perceptions and Practices Survey

Timothy Paul Jones

Timothy Paul Jones (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Discipleship and Family Ministry at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he coordinates family ministry programs and edits The Journal of Family Ministry. Previously, he served sixteen years as a pastor, youth minister, and children’s minister. A recipient of the Baker Book House Award for Theological Studies, the NAPCE Scholastic Recognition Award, and the 2010 Retailers’ Choice Award for his book Christian History Made Easy, Timothy has authored or contributed to twenty books. Timothy lives in St. Matthews with his wife Rayann and daughters Hannah and Skylar. He enjoys hiking, playing games with his family, and drinking French-pressed coffee.The Jones family is involved in children’s ministry at the east campus of Sojourn Community Church.

“How can I find out what parents in my congregation are doing to disciple their children?” Early in my explorations of family ministry, I heard that question many times. Then, in dialogues with churches that were engaging effectively in family ministry, I discovered that the reassessments that had led to transformation in their ministries often started with a simple survey. Recognizing the need for a tool that could be used in a wide variety of congregations, I began to develop the Family Discipleship Perceptions and Practices Survey.

Initially, thirty-two items were drafted. An expert panel of six persons in the field of family ministry revised the items and approved the content validity of twenty items. Eight of these items—items 9 through 16 in the instrument’s final form—gathered objective data related to the frequency of particular practices and experiences. Twelve items had to do with parental perceptions. It was necessary to validate these items statistically.

The twelve items related to parental perceptions were first field-tested with a group of 117 parents in three evangelical congregations. Principle component factor analysis revealed that four items related weakly or negatively to the primary component; these four items were eliminated. The remaining eight items exhibited strong internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha coefficient, 0.88). Two research projects conducted with larger samples after the field test resulted in similarly strong coefficients, suggesting a stable and reliable instrument.

Items 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are reverse-scored. If adding items using a scale of 1 to 6 to analyze data from the surveys, reverse the order of the scale—so that it goes from 6 to 1 instead—on these items.

The survey may be reproduced and used freely, a...

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