Do you have a plan (a vision) for your family? 

Do you have a plan?  By plan I mean a plan for yourself and/or your family to live a godly life that leads to discipleship.  We set goals and make plans all the time for  different things in our lives.  Maybe it is a plan to lose 10 pounds before you go to the  beach.  Your plan of action: diet and exercise like crazy to achieve that beach body you  want for vacation.  Maybe it is to get a job working as a school teacher.  You pick your  college, attend school faithfully and study until your head explodes to graduate in 4  years and pray the Lord gives you a job.  We all make plans for different things.  If we  make no plan to achieve a certain goal, there is a good chance that we will never get  there.  The question is, do you have a plan (vision) for living out God’s word (the Law) for yourself and/or your family?

A few years ago I had a professor pass out what he called “The Stinson Family Plan.”  This was a plan that he and his wife made each year that would serve as a guide for their family to fulfill God’s plan for them as they strove to honor God and live their life in obedience to Him.  He passed it out to each of us students to look at and challenged us to use it as a guide for our individual situations.  After my wife and I looked at it we were very eager to make one for ourselves.  We took it and tailored it to our family needs, and it has been a useful guide for us.  Whether you are single, newly married, parents with kids in the home, or empty-nesters, I believe having a plan to act as guardrails for you is a great tool to have in gauging your effectiveness in the Kingdom.  Below is a sample of what it looks like for my family.  I will say, there are times that we fail in the areas we have listed, but in having this as a guide, it allows us to check ourselves and see how we are doing and what we need to do a better job at.   I encourage you to take it as a template and apply it to your home and your own discipleship strategy for a year and see how it does for you.  There are four areas addressed: our relationship to God, our family, our church, and our neighbor.  If you find more areas, feel free to add them, or take some away if they do not apply in your current context.  My wife and I revisit ours annually to see how well we are doing and to adjust it as life changes.  I would encourage you to do the same as need be.  This family plan is just one option for doing that.  The important thing is to have a plan.

If you click here you can find an example of the ” Burrell Family Plan.”

Soli Deo Gloria,

Adam B. Burrell