Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God
Ebook
A Holistic Vision of Family in God's Kingdom
The Christian world tends to have a blueprint for what families should look like, and these models of the family can be hard to live up to. In some circles, picture-perfect families are idealized and even idolatrized. Many Christians have a gnawing sense that this "traditional family" model is problematic or outdated. But is there an alternative way of understanding family that's neither idolatrous nor revisionist?
Theologian Emily McGowin casts a holistic vision for what family can be in light of God's kingdom. Jesus is our first teacher about families in the kingdom of God, and families rightly understand themselves only in relation to God's kingdom and the church.
In Households of Faith, McGowin
- recovers biblical portraits of households of faith that are not limited to just the biological nuclear family, that can be multigenerational households of married and single, with or without children,
- acknowledges the realities of how sin and trauma damages families and communities, and
- calls Christians to practice family as apprentices to love who discern the times and improvise faithfulness together.
Introduction
Part One: Rediscovering Family as Household of God
1. Searching for the Biblical Family
2. Beginning with Jesus
3. God's Kingdom and God's Family
4. Family as Apprenticeship to Love
Part Two: Signs of the Kingdom in an Evil Age
5. Families, Sin, and the Unjust Status Quo
6. Apprenticeship to Love in a Fallen World
7. Singleness and Marriage
8. Children and Childrearing
Part Three: Practicing Family in the Already-Not-Yet
9. Families and Sabbath
10. Families and Baptism
11. Families and Eucharist
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Further Reading
Notes
General Index
Scripture Index
"Resisting short-sighted stereotypes, Emily Hunter McGowin invites readers into an expansive and beautiful vision of the Christian family. Unafraid of facing imperfection, pointing readers toward the richness found in vulnerability and community, this book keeps it real. McGowin's image of 'apprenticeship to love' offers an especially rich way for any family to imagine—or re-imagine—their life together. She invites all readers, precisely in the midst of their own family's particular circumstances, to a way to ask, how will Jesus by his Spirit teach us to love today?"
"Like having coffee with a wise and gracious friend, but also like contemplating well-crafted art, Households of Faith is both approachable and profound. Emily Hunter McGowin embodies her vocation as a pastor-theologian, and in this writing, the reader is invited behind the curtain into the nuts and bolts of her calling. She suffers neither foolishness nor pretense; she gifts her reader the respect of frank speech which makes you want to purge yourself of the false daydream into which you've been lulled concerning the purpose of families and press forward instead, into the coming kingdom. Neither does she guilt trip the reader. Her successes spark ideas; her failures remind you that you are not alone and that it is possible to grow in your apprenticeship of love. Her expertise and her passion shine through on each page, providing insightful life hacks, revelations for difficult theological conundrums, and the confidence that the triune God works graciously and mightily through families."
"What does it mean to be a family in today's world? Emily Hunter McGowin asks this question, inspiring the reader to grasp a holistic vision for what family can be in light of God's kingdom. This is an essential question—one that both stimulated and challenged me to grapple with how family life is influenced and shaped by our culture, history, and sentimental yearnings. Both thoughtful and practical, McGowin invites readers to understand the complex world that families exist within and encourages them to live as apprentices to God's love in the daily chaos of our everyday life."
"A warm and loving space to consider the purposes and complexities of family. Setting aside the all-too-familiar trope of the 'ideal' Christian family, Emily Hunter McGowin instead invites us to explore the embodied reality of family life. Family is hard, and we need companions along the way to help us process our past experiences with God and with one another, frame our present, and cultivate hope for the future. With Households of Faith, McGowin has given us one such companion that is theologically rich and truly practical."
"Emily Hunter McGowin weaves church history, biblical wisdom, and current day applications into a highly readable and deeply knowledgeable work. Households of Faith will challenge and inspire readers within the context of their own family life as well as within life as part of the larger church family."
"The Christian family needs to be further radicalized; that is, returned to its life-giving roots and stripped of parasitic accretions. Emily Hunter McGowin does that work, reminding the Christian of what family really is, and in doing so, offering a great gift to the people of God. By linking the Christian family tightly to the church, the church to the kingdom of God, and the kingdom to its King Jesus, McGowin narrates a beautiful golden chain that provides the Christian with both vision and practice that leads to Christlikeness. I can think of no better gift to the Christian family than a voice that relentlessly points to the kingdom. Emily McGowin has offered such a voice!"
"Finally, a book that actually looks for the blueprint for families from the words of Jesus! Emily McGowin does not pretend to put forward answers or formulas for the Christian family, but she relies on the verb 'practice' as a way of discovering what family means in God's kingdom. For those who desire to practice family as Christians, this book should be your guide."
"Few topics are as contested—and as crucially important—as family. Emily McGowin meets our great need for deeper theological reflection with skill and compassion, weaving together rich theology and careful attention to our lived experience of family life. This is a fresh and thoughtful take on a topic too often bogged down with culture war antics."
"This book is the beautiful and much-needed antidote to family books based on control and 'try-hard-ness.' This book is based in the grace of Jesus Christ and will bless those who read it."
"Pastor and writer Emily Hunter McGowin has a gift for helping readers breathe new life into familiar spiritual practices and beliefs. She teaches us how to be 'apprentices of love' as we create dynamic households of faith. I wish I had this insightful book thirty years ago when I was raising my children!"
"If ever we needed to be rescued from a shrunken and skewed idea of family, revolving around a ruinous commitment to 'me, myself and mine' and resulting in decidedly unbiblical families, it is today. In Households of Faith, Emily Hunter McGowin offers us a better way forward. She invites readers to embrace a vision of the family that's grounded in the triune communion of love and that trains us to become apprentices of love, capable of embracing the 'we, us, and all y'all' household of faith that the New Testament models and earnestly commends to us as followers of Jesus."
"This rich reflection on families offers a much-needed invitation to consider what it means to understand families as communities of disciples, drawing their identity, purpose, and practice in relation to both the church and the kingdom of God. Avoiding easy answers, Emily Hunter McGowin draws us further into the depths of Scripture as she considers the nature and calling of the family biblically, theologically, and historically. With conviction, she calls us to discern what it looks like for us as families to follow Jesus in the Spirit's power with other members of God's household right where we are, with attention to our current cultural context and our everyday practices. Ultimately, she invites us to wrestle with what it means to shift our focus from achieving success to cultivating faithfulness in our families. Amen and amen. This is an invitation we all need to heed."
- Title: Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God
- Author: Emily Hunter McGowin
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 2025
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781514000076, 9781514000069, 1514000067, 9781514013182, 1514013185, 1514000075
- Resource ID: LLS:9781514000076
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-12-05T06:43:27Z
Emily Hunter McGowin (PhD, University of Dayton) is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. She is the author of Quivering Families and Christmas, and coeditor of God and Wonder. Her articles have appeared in Christianity Today and The Week. She is a priest and canon theologian in the Anglican diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others. She and her husband, Ron, also a priest, live in Chicagoland with their three children.