As you may have read in “Radical Discipleship,” the issue of what discipleship meant to first century believers in Jesus deeply affected our understanding of the nature and weight of our job as parents.  This issue is the primary factor which turned NP and I, who always said we would never homeschool our children, in favor of taking full responsibility for the education of our children.

For this reason, I was intrigued to read and review Alan Melton and Paul Dean’s new book, Disciple Like Jesus for Parents.

It is rare that I read a Christian book and want to buy copies for everyone I know and pass it out.  That is exactly what I wish I could do with Melton and Dean’s thoughtful work!  This is far from the typical parenting book full of “how-to’s” and discipline techniques.  While there is definitely a need for books like that, Melton and Dean have taken on the challenge of describing a comprehensive philosophy of parenting based on Jesus’ approach of discipleship.

This book would be interesting to read alongside of Ham and Beemer’s Already Gone, which I reviewed back in July.  Both books are addressing the fact that the majority of “Christian” young people will end up walking away from their faith, or at least disappearing from the church.  Both raise some excellent questions and challenge the status quo among typical American Evangelical churches.  The difference, from my perspective, is that Already Gone addresses the issue primarily from the perspective of church culture and leadership, while Disciple Like Jesus places the burden of change on parents.

Melton and Dean break the book into five sections -
1. Are you discipling your children like Jesus?
2. Jesus told his disciples to follow him while He showed them how to follow God
3. Jesus was with His disciples and He took them into the world
4. Jesus constantly taught Scripture and showed His disciples how to minister
5. Jesus sent His disciples out in twos to protect them from wolves

While I agreed whole heartedly with every section of this book and would consider myself in philosophical agreement, this book was still deeply challenging, convicting, and thought-provoking.  There is no doubt in my mind that some of their pointed statements about parental influence, the practice of constantly segmenting by age in the church, and protecting our children in a multitude of ways will raise some eyebrows or even make some people downright angry.  But wow – does it need to be said!  Now the challenge is to us as parents to listen and be willing to change our mentality and habits to pattern ourselves more closely after Christ in the quest of raising true disciples of Jesus.

I truly appreciated that while sometimes divisive issues such as homeschool versus traditional school and dating versus courting were touched on, I felt that they avoided becoming legalistic or overly narrow in their view.  For instance, they challenge parents to consider how to spend the maximum amount of time possible with their children actively teaching and discipling them – but they are careful to point out that this is not a homeschool/ public school/ private school issue.  You can homeschool your children and fail to truly disciple them, and you could be very intentional about discipleship while your children attend traditional school.

Fellow parents, I strongly encourage you to consider reading this book.  Read it with an open heart – be ready for God to challenge you.  This is not the way most of us are currently parenting – it is not the way most of us were raised.  But perhaps that is what is contributing to two million children leaving the church every year, never to return.

It is time for us to take responsibility to truly disciple our own children the way Jesus discipled the twelve.

I was provided with a copy of this book in exchange for my review.  I always strive to present my honest and unbiased opinion in all reviews as stated in my disclosure policy.  I am an amazon affiliate and would receive a small percentage of any sales resulting from the links in this post.