What do you think?
Rate this book
The Church Friendly Family
Of the making of books about marriage and the family, there is no end. The family is in trouble today―and has been since the sin of our first parents. But the rescue of the family requires more than just good advice, helpful as that can be. It requires more than just a focus on the family. It requires that the family be brought into the church of Jesus Christ. In The Church-Friendly Family, Randy Booth and Rich Lusk set marriage and family in the context of the church, showing how putting the church first enables the family to bear a rich harvest in culture, education, missions, and more.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
12 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Randy Booth
11 books6 followersPastor Randy Booth holds degree in history and psychology from Texas A&M, and has completed graduate studies in theology and apologetics. He has been an ordained minister for 32 years and has been the pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nacogdoches, TX [CREC], for sixteen years.
Pastor Booth has been married to his wife, Marinell, for 42 years and they have three grown children and sixteen grandchildren. He has overseen the planting and establishment of six churches, was the Presiding Minister of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches for five years, is the director of Covenant Media Foundation, a conference speaker, co-founder of Veritas Classical Christian School in Texarkana, AR, and served as the chairman of the founding board of Regents Academy in Nacogdoches, TX, where he is currently the chaplain. He is the author of several books, including Children of the Promise and the Church Friendly Family.
Pastor Booth has been married to his wife, Marinell, for 42 years and they have three grown children and sixteen grandchildren. He has overseen the planting and establishment of six churches, was the Presiding Minister of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches for five years, is the director of Covenant Media Foundation, a conference speaker, co-founder of Veritas Classical Christian School in Texarkana, AR, and served as the chairman of the founding board of Regents Academy in Nacogdoches, TX, where he is currently the chaplain. He is the author of several books, including Children of the Promise and the Church Friendly Family.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 15, 2021
Fantástico. O melhor livro que já li sobre a interação família/igreja. Um livro que todo cristão (especialmente pais) deve ler e reler.
April 16, 2024
An excellent book, and also an important book for the church today.
May 21, 2021
Loved this little book. I was surprised I had not heard of it before in my church or circle of friends, but I would start recommending it.
February 23, 2020
There's a lot of good stuff in here. And the basic thesis of the Church's importance--God's own family; the family all our families belong to; the Family through which all the families of the earth are to be blessed--is sound. But, it has led the authors into a few strange places. I think they are overreacting to the tendency in some circles to elevate individual families above the Body of Christ and to neglect the call to disciple the nations.
In doing so they take a few steps back rather than forward. One big issue I had was with the suggestion that our churches need staffed nurseries. I'm not sure how this works with infant communion, or even with the vision of worship as God's gathered people coming before him to be renewed. It seems the authors are so concerned to make our services friendly for outsiders that they are willing (in part) to lose the recovery of worship as covenant renewal for all God's people.
Much of the rhetoric leans into other regressive practices that would impact worship and child-rearing. I commend their heart for the lost, and their desire to balance a few imbalances that have arisen as we have recovered the family, but some of this book is just wrong-headed. And I for one am not a big fan of missional language.
It was okay.
In doing so they take a few steps back rather than forward. One big issue I had was with the suggestion that our churches need staffed nurseries. I'm not sure how this works with infant communion, or even with the vision of worship as God's gathered people coming before him to be renewed. It seems the authors are so concerned to make our services friendly for outsiders that they are willing (in part) to lose the recovery of worship as covenant renewal for all God's people.
Much of the rhetoric leans into other regressive practices that would impact worship and child-rearing. I commend their heart for the lost, and their desire to balance a few imbalances that have arisen as we have recovered the family, but some of this book is just wrong-headed. And I for one am not a big fan of missional language.
It was okay.
January 15, 2013
This book was excellent, and much needed. In our day when so many view the institutional church as a dispensable part of real Christianity, this book brings back into focus the primacy of the church (yes, the institutional church) over all other institutions. Specifically it points out through 7 essays that the Christian family belongs in God's family - the church. The church is the body of Christ and the household of God, and is therefore our first family. Godly parents must recognize this and incorporate their family into the church through membership, consistent attendance at worship, and involvement in the community (family life) of the church.
The book is written from the Reformed Presbyterian perspective, but I think many baptists would enjoy the book and benefit from it.
The book is written from the Reformed Presbyterian perspective, but I think many baptists would enjoy the book and benefit from it.
December 7, 2023
Read for women's book study (men read the same book) and it provided good conversation on viewing the church. I didn't agree with some of Lusk's takes on a few things, but he acknowledges that many in our circles would take issue and that's okay... let's talk about it anyway (nursery, age segregated Sunday school - some in our circles do it well, some do not. Many do not even offer these things, but we don't need to be judgmental of those that do. And, it's still good for us to practice have discussions about things we don't all agree about.) Lusk's last two chapters on marriage are great.
I enjoyed this book from Booth and Lusk especially as someone who has had to truly make the local church their family and the blessings that has come from that have been overwhelming. But, like any family, there are ups and downs. Hard times and good. Our family together seeks the good of the church and that in turn makes us stronger as a family and a local body. We all would do well to think as a body, not individuals, and not merely families at church. Families represent "cells" that seek the good of the body, and not consume it.
I enjoyed this book from Booth and Lusk especially as someone who has had to truly make the local church their family and the blessings that has come from that have been overwhelming. But, like any family, there are ups and downs. Hard times and good. Our family together seeks the good of the church and that in turn makes us stronger as a family and a local body. We all would do well to think as a body, not individuals, and not merely families at church. Families represent "cells" that seek the good of the body, and not consume it.
July 6, 2020
An encouraging and inspiring call to action.
January 14, 2013
I must admit up front that I am biased in this review. The reader will notice, upon reading the acknowledgements section of the book, that I contributed to the editing process. Having admitted that up front, here is my review of the book.
This is a much-needed book for the Church. There has long been debate as to what is the most important institution in God's eyes: Church or Family. It seems there are few who would question whether the State is more important than the Church or Family. In the debate, some will argue it is the Family, since it was created first. Others, will argue it is the Church, since the Church is the only eternal institution.
The Church-Friendly Family provides good theological, biblical, and practical reasons for understanding the family's role as it regards the Church, as well as the Church's role as it regards the Family. The book is a collection of talks that Pastors Randy Booth and Rich Lusk gave at a past conference. Well-thought out, well put together, and well edited (hehe), the book communicates its goal quite well.
Every church and every family needs to read this book. The Church and the Family are not in competition with one another, although it can sometimes feel that way for some. The Church is, however, a Family into which all Christian families are become one, and that means natural families subordinate themselves. But, in doing so, the natural family is strengthened itself.
This is a much-needed book for the Church. There has long been debate as to what is the most important institution in God's eyes: Church or Family. It seems there are few who would question whether the State is more important than the Church or Family. In the debate, some will argue it is the Family, since it was created first. Others, will argue it is the Church, since the Church is the only eternal institution.
The Church-Friendly Family provides good theological, biblical, and practical reasons for understanding the family's role as it regards the Church, as well as the Church's role as it regards the Family. The book is a collection of talks that Pastors Randy Booth and Rich Lusk gave at a past conference. Well-thought out, well put together, and well edited (hehe), the book communicates its goal quite well.
Every church and every family needs to read this book. The Church and the Family are not in competition with one another, although it can sometimes feel that way for some. The Church is, however, a Family into which all Christian families are become one, and that means natural families subordinate themselves. But, in doing so, the natural family is strengthened itself.
February 8, 2013
All of these essays are good, but I found Lusk's particularly helpful. As marriages and families disintegrate in our culture, the temptation for those who want to stand against it is to turn inward and focus primarily if not solely on the family. The church becomes a support group for the family, rather than the family a missional aspect of the church. Lusk looks at the outward-oriented goal of parenting, marriage and families respectively in his chapters Missional Parenting, What is Marriage For?, and The Blessed Family. One of the best books I read in 2012.
October 14, 2012
One does not need statistics, polls or research to know that the family is in trouble. For Christians who believe and live out the belief of the centrality of the church in their lives and the body of Christ, this poses an especially troubling and challenging problem. The church is made up of predominately families and if they are in trouble so is the church of which they are a part. Families make churches and if our families are broken then so are our churches.
But there is hope of family restoration. While salvation may be an individual working of God on a person we understand that salvation is not merely individual. As John Barach points out in the foreword, Christ “dies so that relationships could be restored, so that every aspect of life, including our families, might be healed and made new….healing for our families is found in right relationship to God through Jesus Christ and that the context for that healing is the Church, which is the body of Christ.” (p. xii)
While the reader may initially may be thinking that this is a book about making the church family-friendly (though there are some points of agreement there), that would be missing the point of the book entirely and a misreading of the subtly of the title of the book, The Church-Friendly Family. While there is some legitimacy to making the church family-friendly as in being family focused. What Randy Booth and Rich Lusk want the church to see is the subtle and yet drastic difference there is between making the church family friendly and the family church friendly. “We must come to see the Church as the primary family and our individual families as outposts of the Church.” (p. 20) Barach sums up the book well when he states
"Our families are not ultimate, and they will not be restored and glorified by an exclusive focus on the family. In fact, if we make our family and its well-being our highest priority, we sow the seeds of our family’s destruction. Rather, our families must be placed in the context of the family of God. The nuclear family does not need more advice or exhortation; it needs Jesus and it needs His body. Only if we make our families “Church-friendly” – only by putting our families in the context of the church, by putting Christ and His people first, by bringing our families to share in the Church’s worship, fellowship, calling and mission – will our families be restored, and more than that, be transformed from glory to glory." (p. xii)
In his editors introduction the book, Uri Brito continues to crystalize the central focus of the book with the following words:
"The mission of the Church is the heart of God’s mission for the world. And since the future of the natural family is not based on the centrality of the natural family but on the centrality of God’s new cosmic and supernatural family, then the future of the individual family is a future found in the Church. The family must die so that it must be raised to a new status, so that it may embrace the glorious and eternal family of the Church." (p. xix)
Following these two summaries, Randy Booth and Rich Lusk set out to explore what the Church-friendly family looks like in all of life such as work, worship, school, society, politics and the various relationships within the home itself. One of the founding themes that runs out of the Church-Friendly family idea is the role that the Church plays in the life and redemptive success of the family. It is the idea of the Church as an outpost of the kingdom of God and families as outposts of the Church. What we see is that there is a circular relationship between the Church and the family of giving and receiving. The Church gives to the family that the family might give back to it and vice versa. A healthy Church cannot exist without healthy families and vice versa.
Another important aspect of the Church-friendly family philosophy is how the activities that happen at Church shape the families activities at home. Central to the family shaping activities of the Church is the act of worship. Booth explains,
"Family worship is an extension of the Church’s corporate worship; it doesn’t stand alone. The same is true for individual worship. The worship of the congregation is central or primary, and the failure to understand this has diminished the influence of the Church in the culture." (p. 25)
One of the natural aspects of the outflow of corporate worship into family worship is the family dinner table. In a world of soccer mom vehicles carting kids from one thing to another and fast-food chains every five miles the stable family dinner table has been traded for a mobile table that is not conducive to family growth, togetherness and table worship and fellowship. “Fast-food and drive-thrus have replaced the family table.” (p. 49) On the centrality of the family dinner table Booth writes,
"We begin each week gathered around the Table as children to be instructed and nourished just before we are sent out to live. And so, too, we go to our homes and gather around smaller tables to be instructed and nourished, and from there we also fan to live and to love. The liturgy is practice for life." (p. 50)
But if we are to have Church-friendly families then we need to have families who are raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Too often in our parenting we just want to raise “good” Christian kids who obey the ten commandments and live “good” lives in our secular world. But we “don’t just raise godly children so you’ll have godly children. You raise godly children so they carry forth the mission of God…” (p. 73) Since Christians are on the mission first given to Abraham we are raising kids with the kingdom in mind. “Raising kingdom kids means a lot more than just raising kids who are ‘good Christians’…..We cannot settle for moral kids; we must raise missional kids, kids who learn to live with a sense of being ‘sent’ into the world with a divine mandate.” (p. 77)
There is no shortage of good things to say about The Church-Friendly Family. It was a pure joy to read and put a smile on my face time and time again. My heart kept singing amen and amen with each passing page! This is a book the Church needs to read and head. Yes, we need Churches to be for the family. But Churches for the family are nothing without families for the Church.
But there is hope of family restoration. While salvation may be an individual working of God on a person we understand that salvation is not merely individual. As John Barach points out in the foreword, Christ “dies so that relationships could be restored, so that every aspect of life, including our families, might be healed and made new….healing for our families is found in right relationship to God through Jesus Christ and that the context for that healing is the Church, which is the body of Christ.” (p. xii)
While the reader may initially may be thinking that this is a book about making the church family-friendly (though there are some points of agreement there), that would be missing the point of the book entirely and a misreading of the subtly of the title of the book, The Church-Friendly Family. While there is some legitimacy to making the church family-friendly as in being family focused. What Randy Booth and Rich Lusk want the church to see is the subtle and yet drastic difference there is between making the church family friendly and the family church friendly. “We must come to see the Church as the primary family and our individual families as outposts of the Church.” (p. 20) Barach sums up the book well when he states
"Our families are not ultimate, and they will not be restored and glorified by an exclusive focus on the family. In fact, if we make our family and its well-being our highest priority, we sow the seeds of our family’s destruction. Rather, our families must be placed in the context of the family of God. The nuclear family does not need more advice or exhortation; it needs Jesus and it needs His body. Only if we make our families “Church-friendly” – only by putting our families in the context of the church, by putting Christ and His people first, by bringing our families to share in the Church’s worship, fellowship, calling and mission – will our families be restored, and more than that, be transformed from glory to glory." (p. xii)
In his editors introduction the book, Uri Brito continues to crystalize the central focus of the book with the following words:
"The mission of the Church is the heart of God’s mission for the world. And since the future of the natural family is not based on the centrality of the natural family but on the centrality of God’s new cosmic and supernatural family, then the future of the individual family is a future found in the Church. The family must die so that it must be raised to a new status, so that it may embrace the glorious and eternal family of the Church." (p. xix)
Following these two summaries, Randy Booth and Rich Lusk set out to explore what the Church-friendly family looks like in all of life such as work, worship, school, society, politics and the various relationships within the home itself. One of the founding themes that runs out of the Church-Friendly family idea is the role that the Church plays in the life and redemptive success of the family. It is the idea of the Church as an outpost of the kingdom of God and families as outposts of the Church. What we see is that there is a circular relationship between the Church and the family of giving and receiving. The Church gives to the family that the family might give back to it and vice versa. A healthy Church cannot exist without healthy families and vice versa.
Another important aspect of the Church-friendly family philosophy is how the activities that happen at Church shape the families activities at home. Central to the family shaping activities of the Church is the act of worship. Booth explains,
"Family worship is an extension of the Church’s corporate worship; it doesn’t stand alone. The same is true for individual worship. The worship of the congregation is central or primary, and the failure to understand this has diminished the influence of the Church in the culture." (p. 25)
One of the natural aspects of the outflow of corporate worship into family worship is the family dinner table. In a world of soccer mom vehicles carting kids from one thing to another and fast-food chains every five miles the stable family dinner table has been traded for a mobile table that is not conducive to family growth, togetherness and table worship and fellowship. “Fast-food and drive-thrus have replaced the family table.” (p. 49) On the centrality of the family dinner table Booth writes,
"We begin each week gathered around the Table as children to be instructed and nourished just before we are sent out to live. And so, too, we go to our homes and gather around smaller tables to be instructed and nourished, and from there we also fan to live and to love. The liturgy is practice for life." (p. 50)
But if we are to have Church-friendly families then we need to have families who are raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Too often in our parenting we just want to raise “good” Christian kids who obey the ten commandments and live “good” lives in our secular world. But we “don’t just raise godly children so you’ll have godly children. You raise godly children so they carry forth the mission of God…” (p. 73) Since Christians are on the mission first given to Abraham we are raising kids with the kingdom in mind. “Raising kingdom kids means a lot more than just raising kids who are ‘good Christians’…..We cannot settle for moral kids; we must raise missional kids, kids who learn to live with a sense of being ‘sent’ into the world with a divine mandate.” (p. 77)
There is no shortage of good things to say about The Church-Friendly Family. It was a pure joy to read and put a smile on my face time and time again. My heart kept singing amen and amen with each passing page! This is a book the Church needs to read and head. Yes, we need Churches to be for the family. But Churches for the family are nothing without families for the Church.
December 27, 2024
Like most teaching arising from the Theopolis sphere this book contains wholesome and edifying instructions in practical Christianity. Though, it is somewhat dated in its defensiveness against various errors among other conservative Christians. Additionally it suffers from an underdeveloped appreciation of the natural family and of the varying degrees and order that must characterize Christian affections and duties toward others.
The church, local, becomes a bit too closely identified as the church catholic, and even, heavenly—which would be lovely were it not for the divided state of the church and the problem of sin.
The church, local, becomes a bit too closely identified as the church catholic, and even, heavenly—which would be lovely were it not for the divided state of the church and the problem of sin.
January 15, 2018
This book was great. It really challenged me into looking into covenantal succession again. The Family is not the primary institution but The Church is. The goal is not to be isolated families of Christians but instead The United Family of God ! Challenging, filled with admonition and encouragement.
January 20, 2023
Our little church all received a copy of this book.
Very pleased with it! Enjoyed both Pastor Lusk & Pastor Booths insight of putting Christ’s bride first and shaping a culture in our homes to make ourselves proper parishioners and followers of Christs.
Very pleased with it! Enjoyed both Pastor Lusk & Pastor Booths insight of putting Christ’s bride first and shaping a culture in our homes to make ourselves proper parishioners and followers of Christs.
October 29, 2023
Pastors Booth and Lusk advice on marriage, family, and worship is a cold shower and a needed reminder. I ought to read it yearly.
May 6, 2024
Read for a church book study. Probably would never pick it up otherwise.
May 27, 2025
A helpful book for thinking biblically about the role of the family in the church and vice versa.
April 8, 2013
I came to this book really expecting to love every page of it. That's why I only give it three stars. It didn't meet up to my expectations.
It's a series of loosely related essays by two men. While most of the essays are pretty good, others are not. It's uneven. Lusk's essays tend to be really good, and he has some really great insights about family life and the Bible. The book really shines where Lusk is exegeting passages from Scripture. Especially helpful to me was his exposition of Genesis 18 and 19. I never thought to connect the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with the lack of Abraham's family, and how faithful children from Abraham might have influenced the cities to save them.
Randy Booth's essays lack cohesion. He has lots of great ideas, but when he writes each sentence is a disconnected idea from every other sentence. It's like he could turn every sentence into its own essay, but instead of developing the ideas, he leaves them as they come out on the page. The effect is that his essays feel like he jumps from topic to topic until he gets tired of writing. It's an information dump. Perhaps his best essay was the one on education, but even that one was a bunch of jumbled concepts thrown together.
The book is worth reading, but Booth seriously need to rewrite everything.
It's a series of loosely related essays by two men. While most of the essays are pretty good, others are not. It's uneven. Lusk's essays tend to be really good, and he has some really great insights about family life and the Bible. The book really shines where Lusk is exegeting passages from Scripture. Especially helpful to me was his exposition of Genesis 18 and 19. I never thought to connect the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with the lack of Abraham's family, and how faithful children from Abraham might have influenced the cities to save them.
Randy Booth's essays lack cohesion. He has lots of great ideas, but when he writes each sentence is a disconnected idea from every other sentence. It's like he could turn every sentence into its own essay, but instead of developing the ideas, he leaves them as they come out on the page. The effect is that his essays feel like he jumps from topic to topic until he gets tired of writing. It's an information dump. Perhaps his best essay was the one on education, but even that one was a bunch of jumbled concepts thrown together.
The book is worth reading, but Booth seriously need to rewrite everything.
May 17, 2013
Booth and Lusk get many things right. When so many are retreating into the family as the church looses it's place in the relational center, these authors ask us to reexamine this trend. The church is the institution that God designed to bring his gospel to the world. The family is intended to serve the church. I would recommend this book to church family leaders with only a couple reservations.
July 21, 2013
This book was exactly as I thought it would be: easy to read, easy to follow, easy to digest. Nothing in it was extraordinary and yet all of it was better than the typical mainstream values relating church & family & worship.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews