“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served…or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” – Joshua 24:15 NKJV
Family ministry perspectives after the Industrial Revolution. A dramatic shift in family life occurred as the culture of Western civilization was reshaped in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment, the technological advancement of the Industrial Revolution, and the westward expansion of the American frontier (Anthony, 2011, p. 162). The context of family identity moved from a clan that was embedded in a community and united by a common covenant to a humanistic concept of the nuclear unit commenced by two mutually consenting individuals who enter into companionship with one another (Stinson, 2011, p. 146).
Industrialized technology moved people away from a predominantly agrarian society where the traditional nuclear and extended family worked together in a cottage industry centered in the home (Rienow, 2013, p. 200). Conquest of the American west adversely affected families as the libertarian spirit of frontiersmen was unencumbered by larger family structures and faith communities thus setting them free to disengage from their families relationally, spiritually, and even physically for months and even years on “long hunts” into the wilderness (Anthony, 2011, p. 164). Each of these cultural and social revolutions were contributing factors that undermined the legacy of the Puritans and resulted in the widespread disengagement of fathers from the discipleship of their children in biblical truth and the virtues of Christian character (Anthony, 2011, p.164).
Increasing numbers of young people being employed in urban factories disconnected from multigenerational communities and the rise of compulsory public education through social engineers like Horace Mann were two additional factors that negatively impacted family life (Jones, 2009, p. 29). These working young men and women were left virtually alone without moral oversight so the Sunday school movement began in Gloucester, England with Robert Raikes (1736-1811) as a well-intended attempt to remedy the situation but unwittingly helped to further transfer religious instruction out of the home (Anthony, 2011, p. 163).
As weekday public education grew, the Sunday school metamorphosed as churches eventually adopted this as a church-based ministry dedicated for biblical instruction of both children and adults alike (Stinson, 2011, p. 148). The rapidly growing movement was eventually described by George Merrill as “the most potent instrument for moral and religious advancement, to be passed on to the twentieth century for a development beyond the dreams of the most sanguine” (Merrill as cited in Stinson, 2011, p. 148). This may in part be due to the original intent of the American Sunday School Union, who, according to William H. Levering, used it throughout the 1800s as an evangelistic church-planting initiative led by Christian laymen, rather than professional clergy, to reach out to physically and spiritually needy children and adults in unreached neighborhoods and neglected communities (Levering as cited in Rienow, 2013, pp. 237-241). By the end of the nineteenth century, things gradually changed and became similar to the Dark Ages of the Medieval Period as all these factors led to Christians in general and parents in particular to once again think that “religious activities” took place in the church building & “secular activities” took place out in the world (Rienow, 2013, p. 200, 241).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), pastor of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle and the celebrated prince of preachers, declared his concern over the changes that were happening in the Christian culture in the article, The Kind of Revival We Need, where he wrote:
“We deeply want a revival of domestic religion. The Christian family was the bulwark of godliness in the days of the Puritans, but in these evil times hundreds of families of so-called Christians have no family worship, no restraint upon growing sons, and no wholesome instruction or discipline. How can we hope to see the kingdom of our Lord advance when his own disciples do not teach His gospel to their own children? Oh, Christian men and women, be thorough in what you do and know and teach! Let your families be trained in the fear of God and yourselves ‘holiness unto the Lord’; so shall you stand like a rock amid the surging waves of error and ungodliness with rage around us” (Spurgeon as cited in Rienow, 2013, pp. 200-201).
Just as the Puritans, as spiritual heirs of the Reformation, championed the biblical doctrines of family life Spurgeon called his generation to return to the ancient practice set forth by early Christians that ministry begins in our homes (Rienow, 2013, p. 201). The family is a divine institution with divine purposes, explains Rienow (2013), that include the evangelization of the lost, the discipleship of believers, the worship of God, and the love of neighbor (p. 204).
Spurgeon was not alone in his concern over the cultural upheaval as there were others, albeit not as conservative or biblically faithful in their approach, that deliberately set out to do a semblance of family ministry which took the form of family improvement societies and young people associations (Anthony, 2011, p. 165). It is quite interesting to note that one of the first family improvement societies to emerge was around 1815 in Portland, Maine, apparently with an implicit acceptance of paternal disengagement as the bulk of these groups and their accompanying resources primarily focused on equipping mothers (Anthony, 2011, p. 166). David Naismith began organizing societies for the “religious improvement” of young men in the United States by 1824 but eventually gave up on this project and unsuccessfully predicted their rapid demise as many came to be affiliated with the new Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA) which began in 1844 (Stinson, 2011, pp. 150-151). In 1847, Views of Christian Nurture, despite being written by a theologically liberal Congregationalist pastor named Horace Bushnell, called parents and especially fathers to raise their children as Christians from the cradle in order that a child would “grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise” (Stinson, 2011, p. 149).
Francis E. Clark began the first Christian Endeavor societies in 1881 with the singular focus of deepening the evangelical Christian conviction of youth but doing so apart from any commitment whatsoever to the centrality of the family as the primary context for discipleship (Stinson, 2011, p. 151). The wildly popular growth of Christian Endeavor to some 16,274 societies and nearly a million youths enrolled was partly due to its lauded efficiency and that it coalesced other disparate youth societies under a single worldwide federation (Stinson, 2011, p. 152). Whereas these young people would meet in homes and the pastor would typically make a token appearance, the society meetings operated autonomously of the church and any parental involvement (Anthony, 2011, p. 167). Despite encouraging loyalty to the church and fellowship with other believers, these societies isolated the discipleship of youth from their church and, just as importantly, from their families as Endeavorers served themselves, prayed by themselves, and were led by peers as they discipled themselves (Stinson, 2011, p. 152).
On the heels of the Industrial Revolution and the proliferation of young people’s associations, the invention of adolescence & the rise of a teenage youth culture set the stage for comprehensive & programmatic models for family ministry in the twentieth century (Jones, 2009, pp. 28-29).
To be continued…Soli Deo Gloria!
References
Anthony, M. & Anthony, M., eds. (2011) A theology for family ministries. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic.
Jones, T. P., ed. (2009) Perspectives on family ministry: 3 Views. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group.
Rienow, R. (2013) Limited church: unlimited kingdom – uniting church and family in the great commission. Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications.
Stinson, R. & Jones, T. P., eds. (2016) Trained in the fear of God: family ministry in theological, historical, and practical perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
