Daniel Craig: The tagline of the Generations Ministry is "passing on the faith", because that's essentially what we're all about. And there's two perspectives that I think that are key to introducing this concept. One is, that's what parents want. If there's one thing that parents really want to see happen with their kids is for them to grab hold of their faith. The other thing, though, that we have to consider is if there's one thing that's not happening in today's Christian generation, where 70%, some say 80%, some say 90% of Christian young people are walking away from the faith by their freshman year in college. Boy, this is a really important issue.
Kevin Swanson: Not only is it what parents want, but it's what God wants, too. It's got to be normative. God wants us raising our children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. So it's a normative thing that children be walking in the faith of their parents. It should be something passed on from generation to generation, something we've lost, though, like you say. And I think partly it's because we have powerful institutions, governments, and things that have de-relevantized the family. The family is no longer as integrated as it once was. The family is no longer as involved in education and the raising of children, as mass culture might be, or peer influence, or these large public school institutions that have raised up in the last 100 years or so. So, institutional forces are really pressing against this normative pattern that really should be happening in Christian families.
Kevin Swanson: The passing on the faith should be something that is in the warp and the woof of the Christian family. Deuteronomy 6:7 is really the key passage here, "Teach your children God's word as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise up, as you lie down." That's what we wanna see replicated in thousands of families, tens of thousands of families, hundreds of thousands of families in America, and throughout the entire Western world. We're trying to preserve a faith here from generation to generation, and I think it's happening, I know it's happening, but we'd like to see that multiplying.
Chad Roach: In a time where a lot of people look at the world around us and get a little bit pessimistic, they're a little discouraged. In a fairly dark world, this message of discipleship, it lights a candle. It paints a picture of hope in light of the fragmentation and the degeneration of the culture around us.
Kevin Swanson: Think about the three men sitting here. Each of us were discipled by our parents as we sat in the house, as we walked by the way.
Daniel Craig: I'm so grateful for that.
Kevin Swanson: It happened to me back in the 1960s and '70s. It happened to you in the 1990s. It happened to you in the '90s. Yeah, we are the product of a great reformation of family discipleship that got its start really in the '60s and '70s. And it really has already impacted the lives of tens of thousands. I'd just like to make that hundreds of thousands in the next generation.
Chad Roach: That's the mission.
Kevin Swanson: Amen.
Daniel Craig: You know, the idea that we like to speak of is the one of family discipleship. And discipleship isn't this thing that some crazy, serious Christians do. Discipleship is really fundamental to the Christian faith, to the Christian church.
Kevin Swanson: It should be. And so much of life has sort of wandered away from that vision. Deuteronomy 6:7 really ought to be the fundamental thing that empowers families, and encourages families, and equips families to live and to function in the 21st century. Sadly it's the economy, it's politics, it's modern educational institutions and these sorts of things that have slowly but surely de-relevantized God's word and God's will for family life in the 21st century. But we need to bring it back. We need to find ways to build family economies and family life in the 21st century to accommodate a Deuteronomy 6:7 vision, and that's a real thrust of the Generations Ministry.
Chad Roach: That's the heart of our vision is to see the faith get passed on from generation to generation in the homes of Christian families in America and all over the world.