Faith and family

Hello all,

I think that the most common issue or question that people ask me about is how to share their faith with their family.

Let me offer some [made-up] examples:

• My niece doesn't go to church, how can I get her to go?
• My granddaughter is living with her boyfriend, how can I get her to stop?
• My (adult) son doesn't believe in God why can't I tell him that he should believe?
• My sister is telling her friends that God isn't real, how can I convince her that He is?

These are just a few examples.

The basic issue is, "How can I share my faith with my family?"

My answer, YOU DON'T!!!!

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE don't try to talk, explain, or preach to your family.  It doesn't work!

Disclaimer: this does not apply to those who are raising their children.  If you are raising children, by-all-means, explain your faith and teach them about moral living.

For anyone who wants to share their faith with their family (other than children that they are raising) it can only be done by example.

Please remember that Jesus preached the Gospel in His home town and His friends and relatives wanted to throw Him off of a cliff. (Luke 4:16-30)

I promise that you will receive the same type of reaction if and when you try to preach or minister to your family.  I can speak from experience.  I have deeply hurt a brother of mine because of the way that I presumed to "minister" to my family and it does not work!

What can you do?

I really like the words of St. Francis, "Preach always, sometimes use words."

Here's a list of my recommendations for preaching to your family.

1. Practice your faith with humility (don't do it to be noticed)
2. SMILE!  Nothing is more attractive than joy and peace.
3. Keep being humble.
4. Pray (In secret Mt 6:6)
5. Live your faith.  Be humble. (I hope you are seeing a pattern)
6. Never volunteer answers but you can offer to answer questions if they have any.
7. If, and only if, they ask a question then be well prepared to answer their question.
8. Do not preach.
9. Listen very well.
10. Be ready to share a story of your faith and why it is so important to you.  Nothing is as powerful and personal as a heartfelt story.

I think the bottom line is that if we preach to our family they will draw back.  It will hurt our relationship with them and our message will be rejected.  When we preach to our family we can accomplish the opposite of what we want to do.

We so often want others to believe as we do and love God as we do.  That is wonderful but if we preach to them without their permission then we will actually push them away from God and our faith.  We will be doing the opposite of what we are trying to do.

My experience is that this is not easy to do.  We want to preach to our family but if it didn't work for Jesus it won't work for you.

Trust God that He will send someone into their lives to draw them close to our faith and then make yourself available if God will call you to have a positive effect on the life of someone that is not in your family.

We can't evangelize or preach to our family, others can.

All we can do is live our faith with humility and joy and then 

"always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks for a reason for your hope but do it with gentleness and respect."(1 Peter 3:15-16)