BOOK REVIEW: A meandering book about intentionally building your family’s spiritual legacy …

After the dedication of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, “That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.”

Ouch!

If you’re like most Christian parents, you’ve likely thought about your family’s faith and spiritual legacy just enough to know you sincerely want your children to be genuine followers of Christ, but like most Christian parents you may not be doing much about actually evangelizing and discipling your own children so you can build a spiritual legacy for your family.

Becoming intentional about your family’s faith and spiritual legacy is the topic of a new book called, “Do Your Children Believe?” by Terence Chatmon (published by W Publishing Group). The subject of leading your own children into a relationship with Jesus Christ is so vitally important that I was excited to see a new book out on the topic, hopeful it would be an insightful resource for Christian parents.

I found myself somewhat disappointed.

The first reason for my disappointment is that this book does a LOT of meandering before ever seriously getting to the subject. I understand you have to set context for your message and the information you share, but the author took about the first 60 pages to do that! I think Chatmon would have been more effective with his readers if he would have been significantly more concise in conveying both his message and related information.

Second, there’s nothing special about the plan Chatmon offers for how to become intentional about your family’s faith and spiritual legacy. Given his background as being CEO of Fellowship of Companies for Christ International, you’ll find Chatmon’s suggested plan to be sourced from his experience in business. Very simply, Chatmon’s plan largely focuses on a family defining and developing their core values, a vision and mission for the family, setting goals, and infusing all of it with prayer. Yes, there’s a little more detail to it than that, but not much more.

Because I think this topic is so critically important, it could be I expected too much from this book; you may get excited about what it has to offer. If you’re at a place where you’re finally serious about becoming intentional about YOUR family’s faith and spiritual legacy, maybe this book is exactly what you need. Just be prepared to do some meandering as you read.

Scotty

I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”