Family Ministries at HCC

Teaching

Read Here

Family

Read Here

Music

Read Here

Stewardship

Read Here

Counseling

Read Here

The GOAL OF Family Ministries:

That God be glorified as we obey His commandments out of a heart of love for Him. Therefore, the simple goal is to have husbands and wives, parents and children, being obedient to the commandments in God’s Word pertaining to their responsibilities within the family. This will be achieved as the Word of God is taught and honored. Therefore we will:

  • Teach husbands to love and respect their wives, and teach wives to love and submit to their husbands. (Eph. 5:21-33; Col. 3:18-19; 1 Pet. 3:1-7). We also need to remember that the parent/child relationship will only be as strong as the husband/wife relationship.
  • Teach parents their responsibilities to parent according to God’s Word. It is not the church’s or youth pastor’s responsibility to teach children the ways of God – it is the parent’s. Therefore, the church’s responsibility is to equip the parents to do this.

Family ministries entail more than just parenting. It also involves education, counseling etc. However, to maintain a solid foundation for future growth, we will focus in family ministries on the arena of parenting only. There are also variations to the normative, i.e. one parent families, adopted children, no children etc. This will mean some changes to the goals, but the principles will remain the same.

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.Colossians 3:18-19
The Family is an institution given by God for the well being and strength of society. The family provides the basis for a nation’s strength. If the families are weak then the nation is weak and vulnerable to moral decay.

It is at this God ordained institution that Satan aims his deadly guns and tears apart the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. Hatred and bitterness are the crippling effects of his attack. Young people are thrown into confusion and distrust, seeking the kind of relationships that leads to further unfulfillment, and the realisation they are being sold something short of the truth.

Satan’s goal is to distort and destroy the Biblical qualification of the family. Satan’s strategy has been to raise the rights of the individual at the expense of the family, to reverse or distort the roles of parents, and to allow the power of ‘State’ to govern parents as to what they teach their children.

It is with a huge burden upon our hearts that we take up the challenge to re-educate, stimulate and bring restoration to the shattered remains of what once was considered a priority in our great nation of America

As the Old Testament ends, Malachi gives us a glimpse of the priority of God toward the family.

“See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

God has ordained that the family exists to pass on truth from generation to generation (Exo. 13:8; Deut. 6:7; Josh. 4:1). God has ordained that within each family there be an authority structure under the headship and Lordship of Jesus Christ (Gen. 2:20-25; Eph. 6:1-4; Col. 3:18-21). Undoubtedly the breakdown of this family responsibility has led to the collapse of truth and authority in our society as well.

At Hickman Community Church, we are committed to re-introducing Biblical standards for families, and to regaining the priority of the family in all that we do. May we find great joy and delight in embracing the principles of Colossians 3:18-21, demonstrating to the world around us the full control of the Spirit to the glory of God.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.Ephesians 6:1
Family ministries, like all other ministries, needs as its focus the overriding principle of 1 Corinthians 10:31, ”…whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God”.

All churches would agree with the priority of the family. Yet, with separate youth groups, Sunday schools, young adults groups and senior citizens, it seems the family unit with the Church no longer exits.
Under the overriding principle above comes the philosophy of family ministries, namely:

  1. That the husband/wife relationship is the foundational and essential relationship, forming the nucleus of the family unit (Gen. 2; Eph. 5:22-23).
  2. Children expand the family unit, and are commanded, among other things, to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1; Col 3:20).
  3. That parents’ God given responsibility, among other things, is to train up their children in the ways of God (Prov. 22:6; Eph. 6:4).
Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.Proverbs 22:6

STRATEGY OF Family Ministries

Primary Focus

  • To make sure that the structure of the church fleshes out our philosophy; to provide family worship times, and teaching sessions that assist the family devotion; to see families as a family, not as a list of separate identities.
  • To have gifted teachers expounding God’s Word regarding family responsibilities with the goal of producing like-mindedness within the church.
  • By implementing the Parenting for Life training course regularly as part of the discipling track for all church attenders. This will strengthen the unity, like-mindedness and accountability required.
  • To make sure that those couples getting married at Hickman Community Church complete the Preparation For Marriage God’s Way course.

Secondary Focus

  • To train up experienced, role model teachers of the material to take classes.
  • To enlarge the ministry by the establishment of a support network of parents (contact Moms).
  • To encourage and expand the area of Christian education through home schooling, and Christian schooling.
  • To strengthen and equip those involved in teaching and overseeing this ministry with a sound, Biblically based, nouthetic counselling course.