Family to Family Book Review

Jerry Pipes is a rather public speaker in that he has spoken to millions of people in conferences, assemblies, and crusades; moreover, he is on the staff of the North American Mission Board. (Pipes, back cover) Victor Lee however has been professionally writing for twenty-two years, and he ministers at the Single Adults and Evangelism group at a First Baptist church. (Pipes, back cover) Overall, both Pipes and Lee worked together in producing Family to Family.

Family to Family came about through people like Kenny Rains that lived the principles modeled in the book as he became an inspiration for the project. (Pipes, vii) Also notable is that the authors used 'precious pearls of wisdom entrusted by God' from several people in order to put together Family to Family. (Pipes, vii) Overall, many other people as well contributed to the development of the work through dreaming the dream, hosting a corresponding video, and working with the text directly. (Pipes, vii)

The point to be made is that both authors of Family to Family not only had been people that had awesome ideas, but instead the authors worked through their ideas among a collection of people that all made contributions. The point is that most authors will write a book themselves and then try to convince others of its claims, but the authors of Family to Family instead have worked through the material of the book somewhat by a group thought process. Overall, the authors of Family to Family would have thus gotten the family orientation of the book directly from people in their families.

Content Summary

Family to Family is best described by Pipes as not being a quick fix while attention is placed upon the fact that passing faith in Christ down to family members is worth the sacrifice (Pipes, 4), however, the work can detail a very uncomfortable practice of extreme family organization. According to Pipes his book examines the ways to avoid an explosion in a person's family by structuring it in a fashion that is healthy that is prescribed by God while applying the proper significance that is applied by God himself. (Pipes, 7) Overall, Pipes thus sees the process of structuring families, for the most part, to be the entire method for passing down faith in Christ to the next generation.

What is most central to the thinking of Pipes is that healthy families must develop a family mission statement, and next those families must prioritize and organize around the family mission statement. (Pipes, 3) The family mission statement is a declaration of what every family member in a family decides to live by (Pipes, 26), but what becomes evident in Christianity is that to live the principles that Jesus lived by means to be put to death on a cross. Pipes indicates that families are under incredible stress however because they have no central focus, and the central focus of a family should be Christ. (Pipes, 8) Thus for Pipes an on mission family will intentionally carry the love of Christ and the hope of Christ to the friends, neighbors, community, and acquaintances out of the overflowing of a walk with God that is personal. (Pipes, 10)

For Pipes the process of developing a family mission statement involves collecting a family inventory of actives, motives, perceptions of others, fears, priorities, and the lack of family relationship. (Pipes, 33) According to Pipes a family should then consider their goals, conceptualize the statement, personalize it and fine tune the statement. (Pipes, 33-34) The process of Pipes thus involves getting an entire family together to discuss and come to a conclusion on what the family mission statement should be, but in reality the motto is to find out what God is doing in the real world and join him. (Pipes, 71)

Pipes then goes on to discuss raising the next generation of Christians by using the phrase, "passing the baton", and the point that Pipes makes is that families should be oriented in such a way as to give the faith in Christ to the next new generation when a child is ready to receive Christ. (Pipes, 43) For Pipes several signs exist to indicate that a child is ready to receive Christ, and these include understanding the meaning of sin, realizing he or she has sinned, realizing that he or she has sinned against God, realizing his or her separation from God, and realizing that God became sin. (Pipes, 44) Overall, Pipes brings out the point that no one can ever make anyone follow God (Pipes, 46), and such a point appears foundational for Pipes views on rearing children into Christians through accountability and choice.

Pipes breaks in the powerful statistics that eighty-eight percent of children developed in his type of churches leave the church by age eighteen. (Pipes, 50) Pipes then goes on to say that nine out of ten people that come to Christ do so by age twenty five. (Pipes, 51) Overall, Pipes thus by referencing Robert Coleman by saying that the work of the great commission is what starts in the family. (Pipes, 57)

Evaluation

Although Pipes gives credit to the Holy Ghost for being the source of power and strength (Pipes, 107), most of his book unfortunately focuses on goals, planning, and strategy. The problem is that strategy, planning, and goals could easily be humanly made instruments for living a godless life that fakes a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Even Satan himself stands before God as noted in the book of Job, but what is good about the work of Pipes is that it at least focuses some on surrender to Christ and the reception of the gospel.

The problem for example is that if a family is spending lots of time developing a mission statement and being on mission, then the Holy Ghost may not be in charge. An entire family could easily orient themselves around good Christian beliefs while entirely missing a true relationship with Christ, and thus the work of the family may not add up like it should with the work of other families in a church. The point is that the usefulness to ministry is that the book's approach may work best for families that are otherwise good families but just happen to be lost with a lot of good Christian beliefs.

Although Pipes does not specifically indicate that families without a mission statement are lost, families without their central focus on serving Christ would be lost. Using what appears to be family management techniques in disguise, Pipes in a grander scheme of things is just simply trying to explain how to run a family in a Christian way for Christian purposes. The problem is that God should be running Christian families in such a way that the power of God is embodied so that people can understand the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ first hand.

If a person was a new Christian with a new family that is looking for advice on how to run his or her family the Christian way, then Family to Family may provide a lot of help. The problem is that although Family to Family may provide powerful benefit to some, it may be nothing more than a self-help book in the end. Many of the people that read self-help books will think that they are learning something valuable, when really all they are leaning is how someone invented a new way to optimize a person's life to accomplish a goal. In the case of Family to Family the type of readers would either know that they have problems in their family or would be new to Christian families, and in either case the goal is to get advice from someone on how to run a good Christian home.

How the work of Family to Family thus compares to the work of the New Testament is that instead of the New Testament focusing on families running good Christian lives instead it focuses on the church and individuals believing in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Deviating from being just focused upon the gospel and the Old Testament scripture to suddenly dealing with complex management ideology for running a family is quite a jump and many would have to wonder if the jump is too vast. Overall, although the book has a purpose that could be utilized for much good, it also can be utilized in such a way as to cause even more problems in the church.

Consider what would happen if a small group used Family to Family as a primary text, but some members of the group really knew God and wanted to discuss the scripture. The problem that would occur with the text is that it would only work best for a specific type of group, and that group would be the type needing assimilation while others may need discipleship. Overall, even if the contents of the book had good reception by readers, then the problem that would likely occur is that it still would not have a Biblical foundation because even Jesus Christ said that because of him a family would be divided (Luke 12:52) while Family to Family on the other hand starts out by assuming that this is not the case.

Bibliographical Entry:

Pipes, Jerry and Victor Lee. Family to Family: Leaving a Lasting Legacy. Alpharetta, Georgia: North American Mission Board, 2010.