the lifestyle of worship we should have before Him. It is not simply an act of singing beautifully crafted songs on Sunday morning. It is not simply praying before a meal. It is not simply telling a few people here and there that Jesus loves them. This lifestyle is one of complete surrender to the one gave everything for us. It is constantly placing ourselves on the altar so that the we can die to our own way and that Christ would get all the glory and praise through us.

For us, this worship life is lived out on the mission field. We have found that this is the place where we are taken out of our comfort zones to grow in our faith and give more and more glory to Jesus. We are not living this life for ourselves. Having our family involved in this journey is one of the keys that God has given us.

I have seen families doing missions in different ways:

Years ago, couples were not able to take their children with them on the mission field and they would send them off to boarding schools. This completely separated children from the mission and they rarely were passed on a heart for the mission. While I have heard testimonies of children who grew up in this manner and went on to be missionaries themselves, I would say this is not the norm for these families. The norm would be for the children to resent the parents, resent God, and resent the mission.

A common method of missions and family that I saw growing up was an ultra emphasis on the mission from the parents. The families were together on the mission field but the parents were so focused on ministering outside of the home that they did not have time to disciple their own children in their walk with Jesus. This could be true for Pastors and other ministry positions in the church, by the way. I personally heard a mother declare once, “I did not go on the mission field to be my daughter’s teacher, I went to minister to the broken and the lost.” I have friends who grew up in homes like this and they were deeply hurt by their parents choices