Equipping the Generations: Family Ministry and Motherhood -- By: Donald S. Whitney

Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 02:2 (Spring 2012)
Article: Equipping the Generations: Family Ministry and Motherhood
Author: Donald S. Whitney


Equipping the Generations:
Family Ministry and Motherhood

Donald S. Whitney

Dr. Whitney is Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality and Senior Associate Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has authored six books, including Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life and is a popular conference speaker, especially on personal and congregational spirituality. He served in pastoral ministry for twenty-four years

Twenty-four years of pastoral ministry have taught me that moms—especially mothers of young children—often come to church feeling tired, then return from church feeling guilty. While at church, they hear sermons and announcements about doing evangelism and serving in the church, and they often sense that they are failures at both. There never seems to be enough time for their maternal responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, changing diapers, wiping noses, and teaching their children, much less for reaching out to a lost world with the gospel of Jesus in fulfillment of his Great Commission or for building up the body of Christ in their local fellowship. Even finding a few minutes for Bible reading and prayer occasionally is difficult.

Thus the pulpit proclamations of the biblical mandate to reach the nations for Christ, and the earnest pleas of the pastor about the need for workers in the church do not sound like spiritually-galvanizing challenges that inspire greater faithfulness, rather they often fall as crushing condemnations upon the weary hearts of many moms.

Seasons change in everyone’s lives, and perhaps there is no more radical change that occurs in the life of a woman than the one that happens the day her first child arrives. It’s a season that changes with dramatic suddenness and lasts as long as there are young children around the dinner table and until she has watched her final soccer practice and piano recital. And among the parts of life that seem forced into hibernation during this season are private devotions, personal evangelism, and consistent ministry in the local church.

My wife and I have a friend named Jean who was one of the countless Christian women who felt as though her options as a believer were either family or spirituality; children or church. Discipled well after her conversion in her late teens, Jean thrived on a spiritual diet meaty with disciplines like the reading, studying, and meditating on God’s Word, prayer, fellowship, service, evangelism, worship, solitude, journal-keeping, and Scripture memory. She felt herself making spiritual

progress almost daily. All this continued after she married her equally-dedicated husband, Roger.

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