pull the younger generation up, that [next] generation perishes.” I fear
this is happening today.
One way to build a mentor corps is to set a three-year goal to
recruit five mentor couples for every one hundred people in a local
church. Mentors need to be made available first to couples in the first
five years of their marriage. Statistically, that is when the divorce rate
is at its peak. Of the five couples per hundred, I would assign one to
pre-marrieds and a second to newly married couples. Then I would
find two couples who are parenting mentors, one for young children
(preschool through elementary) and one for parents of adolescents.
You also need crisis mentors, a couple whose marriage was rescued
from trouble, who can come with encouragement to help other cou-
ples whose marriages are in trouble.
If you establish these mentor couples and present them to your
church some Sunday, members of your congregation will respond
enthusiastically to this mentoring initiative. The problem is not find-
ing the people who want to be mentored, but challenging the right
people to be mentors. Leaders in the local church and in parachurch
ministry need to call on laymen to step out of their comfort zone, to
step out of the bleachers, and to step onto the battlefield to win the
war for the soul of the family.
Those are my mandates for furthering a family reformation. The
task is substantial and may require more than a generation to com-
plete, if the Lord tarries. But I believe it is a battle our generation must
fight.
The importance and value of the cause is demonstrated over and
over. Here’s just one story. In 1999 FamilyLife began holding a large
arena event called I Still Do. To date, nearly 200,000 men and women
have gathered for a day to honor the marriage covenant and to focus
on how to do a family “right.” In the fall of 2000 I received some inter-
esting letters from a woman I will call Melanie (some details have been
altered to maintain confidentiality). With permission I share this fam-
ily’s inspiring story:
Melanie and her husband, Larry, started dating when she was just
sixteen. They married seven years later and eventually had threeLocal Church Family Ministry in the New Millennium 25