2009 Christian Home Month: Families Called to Love -- Introduction
by MaryJane Pierce Norton

The Christian Home Resources are designed for use by family ministry leaders, family life council chairpersons/coordinators, and family ministries teams in local congregations. The purpose of the resources is to help local congregations:

• Develop and strengthen faith in the home;
• Celebrate and support families in their faith journey; and
• Celebrate Christian Home Month during May (or in any other month the congregation chooses for focusing on the Christian home and its primary role as a center for faith formation).

By planning an annual Christian Home Month celebration, a congregation has a great opportunity to lift up families in prayer, consider all that families can be through worship, and provide activities and devotional material that will strengthen faith.

The 2009 Christian Home Month theme is: "Families called to Love." Look at Deuteronomy 6:6-9. Here we are reminded to love God and to keep these words throughout the day in visible ways. Through Jesus' words in John 13:34, we hear the commandment to love one another. As we are called to show love individually, we are called as disciples to show love in our homes and with those we call family.

You can begin addressing the theme, "Families Called to Love," by creating a Family Ministry Team to pray for families in your congregation and in your community. Through their prayer and discernment, ask them to help the congregation identify ways families in the congregation and in the community could become more loving. Let this be their only task. Ask those recruited to intentionally pray for every family in the church during the month of May (or whichever month you choose for Christian Home Month). Ask them to lead the congregation in prayer for families in your community. Ask the family ministry team to provide the congregation with information about the possibilities for ministry to families in the community.

As you prepare to observe Christian Home Month, lift up love in the family. During the month and throughout the rest of the year, provide programs, forums, parenting classes, worship opportunities, learning activities, and times of prayer for supporting families in their faith journeys. As God intended, the home is a place for living in the light of God's love and daily practicing the Christian faith.

Return to Christian Home Month 2009 Home Page.

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