Intentional Relational Formation Framework
a disciple making process that begins in the home
Excerpt from book: Disciple Making: The Core Mission of the Church
by Bobby Harrington & W. Scott Sager
see video: Introduction Disciple Making
When God (through Moses and his disciple, Joshua) led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, He established a core method for disciple making for families. By this method the Israelites would learn to love God, know His ways through Scripture, and obey Him.
"4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." - Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV
The key verses are from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and the Israelites deemed them so important that they incorporated the verses into a prayer called the Shema, which they later required to be recited daily in the synagogue as formative to living a life that both pursues and pleases God...
This earlier Great Commission offers the core method by which the Old Testament people of Israel made disciples and also offered the relational framework of disciple making that Jesus himself would utilize centuries later when he chose his first disciples. This method is intentional, relational formation [for life transformation]...
Passing on the faith to the next generation was so critical to Israel's budding future that Moses called parents to intentionally and sacrificially spend time relationally discipling and helping their children to know, love, and follow God. The [one passing on the faith] is then to "impress" the God-life upon their children through purposely living out the faith and faith-filled instruction. These instructions show us the pursuit of God was to be the topic of conversation around the house for God's people as they sat together and along the road as they traveled together...
The disciple making commission from Deuteronomy 6 begins with God first calling parents to be disciples themselves... and then it calls parents to disciple their children so they too will love God with their heart, soul , and strength.
1. Intentional
Parents are to be purposeful and goal-oriented. Their mission is to impress the teachings of God on their children so they too will love God... It is to be a thorough and all-encompassing mission, from the time they "get up," until the time they "lie down" each day. This intentionality expresses itself by the use of Scripture everywhere...
2. Relational
Parents should disciple their children in a relational way and in the normal stuff of life. The text (Deut. 6) envisions many natural conversations, for example, at home, during walks, in the mornings, and at bedtime... Parents constantly use the relational conversations and discussions that come up in life to integrate the teachings of God into their children's lives.
3. Formation
When children grow up with the Deuteronomy 6 disciple making model, they are very likely to grow up as those who love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. They become disciples who leave their homes to establish families of their own, where—following the example of their parents and the teaching of the Shema—they too are equipped to disciple their children, repeating the model generation after generation.
Jesus... used this same model when he made disciples as a spiritual parent... He formed his disciples through this intentional, relational process in the normal, everyday course of Jewish life in the first century. Then he commissioned his disciples to go and repeat the process by making disciples of others, doing for others what had been done for them.