As a mom, you can live out the Great Commission right in your home by raising your children as disciples of Yeshua. Disciple-making is not bound to any particular place or program; it is bound to relationship.
According to Scripture, God intends for parents to be the primary disciple-makers of their children. Your children are your primary disciples, and you have the privilege, joy, and responsibility to lead them toward Jesus through the ordinary rhythms of family life.
What It Means to Raise Disciples
Children and youth will just “catch” the faith of their parents, right? Not necessarily. Talking with kids about Jesus no longer comes naturally to many Christian parents.
Being the “primary disciple-maker” may burden you with the weight of a calling you want more than anything to fulfill, but you aren’t sure how to do it. After twenty-five years of searching the Scripture for what it says about being a mom, I still have not found a step-by-step set of instructions for producing the “results” I want for my family.
But here’s what I have found in the Word: a Savior who draws me into a relationship with himself. He disciples me through our relationship, and that in turn is how I will lead my children to know him.
I know I can trust Jesus because the depth of his investment in us - his very life, given for sinners - is proof that he is permanently and wholeheartedly dedicated to redeeming us, sanctifying us, and bringing us home to himself.
Parents represent that love imperfectly, to be sure, but when our kids know that our commitment to their thriving is unwavering and our delight in them does not depend on how they behave, they are likely to follow where we lead.
As we follow him, we lead them to Christ.
The Great Commission Begins at Home
Shalom, dear moms! As homeschooling moms, we often wonder how big biblical mandates like the Great Commission apply to our daily lives.
Matthew 28:19-20 calls us to “go and make disciples of all nations,” but what does that look like when you’re at home most days, teaching your kids, managing the house, and maybe even running a family business?
In Matthew 28:19-20, Yeshua tells His disciples, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
As a mom, I used to think, “How does this apply to me? I’m not out in the world. My kids aren’t in public school. I’m home with them all day!” But, you know, I’ve come to realize that our homes are the perfect place to fulfill this calling.
When my husband and I started homeschooling our kids, we felt it was our job to teach and influence them. But it wasn’t until our oldest son was in his early teens that we understood we were raising disciples.
This realization came as we embraced the whole Bible and began walking in the Father’s commands, just as Yeshua instructed: “Teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you.”
In obedience to Christ’s Great Commission, we can begin by seeking to make disciples of those closest to us: our families.
God has entrusted us with each of our children, whether biological or foster or adopted, whether one or many, that we might make disciples, bringing them up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
The Biblical Foundation: Deuteronomy 6
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 provides a solid foundation for parents hoping to lead their children to love Jesus. But rather than providing a series of rules, these verses describe a lifestyle rich with loving relationship:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The most organic way that children learn about God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is through the rhythms of ordinary life, which includes but isn’t limited to devotional time set aside to teach our kids the Word.
This mirrors Deuteronomy 6, which feels like the Great Commission for parents. It says, “Hear, O Israel: YHVH our Elohim, YHVH is one. You shall love YHVH your Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
Doesn’t that sound like talmidim following their rabbi?
Understand Discipleship Through the First-Century Picture
To understand our role, we need to grasp what a disciple was in Yeshua’s time.
In the first century, kids didn’t go to college. They were apprenticed, and the wealthier you were, the further you could go.
Some even became students of great rabbis like Shammai or Hillel. These students, called talmid (singular) or talmidim (plural), followed their rabbi everywhere, copying everything-down to how he sneezed!
Their job was to transfer the rabbi’s knowledge and actions into their own lives.
Luke 6:40 says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.”
It’s the art of imitation, you know, like duplicating yourself before photocopiers existed.
Rabbis even called their students “sons,” fostering a loyalty sometimes stronger than to biological parents.
Imagine following your college professor home, eating dinner at his house, wearing his exact suit and tie, and memorizing every word he says. That’s what being a disciple meant!
The Four Responsibilities of a Disciple
- Memorize their teacher’s words, including the Tanakh, like the Apostle Paul, a disciple of Gamaliel, who knew the prophets by heart.
- Learn their teacher’s interpretations of Scripture.
- Imitate their teacher’s actions, from how he ate to how he tied his shoes.
- Follow him closely, “sitting at his feet” like ducks trailing their mother.
This reminds me so much of motherhood! Our kids follow us around the house when they’re little, copying everything we do.
Sometimes it’s annoying, but it’s the perfect setup for raising disciples.
As moms, we have a unique opportunity-maybe even better than men out in the world-to shape our children into talmidim of Yeshua.
The First Step: Become a Disciple Yourself
Before we can teach our kids, we must first be talmidim ourselves, with the Father’s commands on our hearts.
The best discipler is a disciple. The best leader is first a follower.
Your primary call as a disciple maker is to know the Word, love it, and live it.
As a parent your first step in making disciples of your kids is to be a disciple.
Let the Word of God and the love of God be on your heart.
How are you doing in the areas of prayer, sharing your faith, and reading your Bible?
God doesn’t give you children and then fail to give you what you need to raise them in faith.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3, emphasis added).
All things means all things.
If your whole family somehow became marooned on a desert island, the Holy Spirit would be present and give you what you need for raising godly kids.
Three Essential Practices for Raising Disciples
1. Take Time
Raising disciples takes time, a lot of it.
Especially for those of us learning Torah as adults, it takes time to get the Father’s commands in our hearts.
Our kids are already in our homes, so we can’t waste a second.
We need to sit at the feet of our Rabbi, Yeshua, so our children have something worth copying.
Because, frankly, what we are is what our kids will become.
You’ve seen it-they mimic your mannerisms, your curls, even your quirks!
They’re little images of you, just as we’re to be in the Father’s image.
The more we reflect Yeshua, the better disciples our kids will become.
Deuteronomy 6:2 says to fear YHVH and keep His commandments “all the days of your life.”
That’s our discipleship timeline.
Whether we like it or not, our kids are shaped by who we are right now.
Use the 6,570 days from birth to age 18 wisely!
After I had my first child, and all the more after I had my second, I wondered if I would be done with ministry until my kids grew up.
I wondered how I could possibly fit another task on my to-do list when I could not even find the time to eat properly unless my husband was home.
Disciple-making may have looked different in her different seasons of motherhood, but the demands of motherhood could not hinder her from obeying Christ.
Rather than limiting disciple-making to specific times or spaces, we might find freedom, especially as mothers, to view disciple-making as intentional, Bible-saturated relationships with the people right in front of us, wherever we are.
2. Be Intentional
Teaching diligently isn’t casual.
In Deuteronomy 6:7, the Hebrew word shanan means to sharpen, like whetting a sword.
It’s intense, piercing teaching-being so sharp in Torah that you can answer questions without hesitation.
Rashi says a rabbi sharpens his students through constant back-and-forth, ensuring they’re ready.
We may not be first-century rabbis, but we can be intentional.
The word shema, to hear, implies listening with purpose.
Teach your kids to listen intentionally, and be deliberate about what you teach.
Ephesians 5:15-16 urges us to “walk circumspectly, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Every moment-sitting at home, driving in the car, walking, lying down, rising up-is a chance to talk about YHVH.
Pay attention to your kids, because you can’t teach a moving target.
This intentionality is rare in our distracted world, but it’s essential for discipleship.
We must also be vigilant about influences.
1 Corinthians 15:33 warns, “Bad company corrupts good character.”
Monitor the movies, books, YouTube videos, and teachers your kids encounter.
Even innocent influences can shape your kids if you’re not intentional about their discipleship.
Discipleship opportunities are everywhere in your walking-around daily life.
Talk about Jesus in carpool, washing dishes, walking the dog; when the bad report card comes home, when the first breakup happens, when your child strikes out looking; on the first warm spring day, and on the worst day in your family’s history.
It may not feel natural, but the more you do it, the more easily the words will come.
Out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth will speak (Luke 6:45).
Listen carefully to what you say to your kids, and discern if your words deny or confirm the truth of the gospel.
Confess, repent, and ask the Spirit for help when you fail.
That’s the gospel too.
3. Show Love
Finally, love is the key.
Deuteronomy 6:5 calls us to love YHVH with all our heart, soul, and strength.
Rashi notes that obedience from love is far better than from fear, as fear-driven obedience falters under pressure.
A home filled with yelling, mocking, or angry words doesn’t inspire learning.
Our kids need to feel our love, just as we love our Heavenly Father.
Proverbs 16:6 says pleasant words promote instruction, and Proverbs 31:26 describes a woman who speaks with “the Torah of kindness.”
The Hebrew word yoreh, like a gentle rain, describes the early rains after Sukkot that soften Israel’s soil for planting.
Our words should be like that rain-kind, gentle, and nurturing-so the Father’s commands take root in our children’s hearts.
Time and intention won’t work without a heart of kindness.
Build a Christ-Centered Home
As a parent, God has entrusted you with a tremendous privilege and responsibility.
We realized very quickly that there is an inertia that drives parents towards having a kid-centered home.
Their noise, needs, desires, activities, homework, etc. require parents to diligently avoid being consumed by the tyranny of the urgent.
Parents have to work hard to build a Christ-centered home and not a kid-centered home, because a kid-centered home produces self-centered adults.
Parents have to constantly strive to take their kids out of the center of the family and remind them that Christ is the center.
Mom and dad, you are the leaders in your home and as such you are uniquely positioned to keep your eyes fixed on God and your finger on the pulse of the family.
The kids that God has entrusted to you are your primary disciples.
And as their mom and dad you have the privilege, joy and responsibility to lead them.
Teach Through Discipline and Delight
Parents can impress the things of God on their children through discipline and delight.
Discipline
The greatest context for teaching kids comes through consistent discipline.
One of the things that I’ve realized is that while I waver in my consistency in leading family devotions, our kids never waver in their need to be disciplined.
The Bible speaks of disciplining kids often:
- “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
- “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4
- “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” Proverbs 23:13-14
The purpose of discipline is to gain a hearing.
Most of the time our kids are running around so fast that they don’t stop long enough to really hear what we are saying.
The goal of discipline isn’t just behavioral modification but heart transformation.
Through discipline we slow them down and create the opportunity to teach them the truths of repentance, grace, forgiveness, and kindness.
A parent’s role, especially a Father, is not to crush his children but to cultivate them.
Through discipline, parents should seek to cultivate their kids so that they become self-disciplined and not continually need a wooden spoon or a timeout or jail cell to have them live rightly.
Delight
Our role as leaders in the home is to equally delight and discipline.
It is not loving to delight in your kids without correcting them, just as it is not loving to discipline them without delighting in them.
The Bible reminds us of the joy of having kids:
- “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.” Proverbs 23:24-25
- “…the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:11-12
- “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.” Proverbs 29:17
- “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the childrenof one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Psalm 127:3-5
Parents, you are to rejoice in and delight in the blessing of your kids today, not in some future version of them.
Before any parent disciplines their children, they are commanded to delight in them.
This means that most of your time is spent enjoying your children, encouraging them, laughing with them, being affectionate with them, and enjoying them so that there is a deep bond of love and joy between your children and their mom and their dad.
The backdrop of your discipline is delight.
Make Disciples in Ordinary Daily Rhythms
Finally mom and dad, make disciples as you go.
Look for opportunities as you drive to practice, play at the park, or put the kids down to bed.
Don’t let discipleship be isolated to Sundays, but let it be a natural part of your day.
It’s not weird for your kids to hear you talk about what you love and are passionate about.
So talk about what God is teaching you and ask them what God is teaching them.
You can’t delegate discipleship.
You take the lead and look for opportunities to “talk about these things” as you go.
Try to create places where your kids ask questions.
Use family devotion times, serving together, going to church together and asking them what they learned as ways to have some conversations.
And be patient, because most of those conversations will be short and fruitless, but there will be one every so often that is powerful and transformative.
This is the way of discipleship: patient obedience over the course of years builds a firmly rooted disciple who will bear much fruit.
And that is what we are praying that our kids to become.
Our children will be discipled by us, either in the Lord or according to our choice idols.
We teach them diligently in the normal, even mundane, rhythms of life (Deuteronomy 6:7), and we also show them what it looks like to follow Jesus in all of life, including our repentance.
Everyday Opportunities for Conversation
- When you sit at home.
- When you walk by the way.
- When you drive in the car.
- When you wash dishes.
- When you walk the dog.
- When a difficult report card comes home.
- When your child experiences a first breakup.
- When your child fails at something important to them.
- On the first warm spring day.
- On the worst day in your family’s history.
Scripture goes on the doorposts to remind us that neither our relationship with God’s Word nor our relationship with our kids will change when we walk out the front door, so neither should our discipleship.
The writer of Deuteronomy knows we will be tempted to behave differently in public than we do at home.
This is hypocrisy, and kids have an eagle eye for it.
So we behave like a person who loves Jesus and neighbor, whether we are sitting on the bleachers, frying the bacon, driving down the highway, cleaning the garage, or attending the parent-teacher conference.
Aim for consistency and repent of your inconsistency.
Model Repentance and Gospel Grace
You don’t have to have all the answers.
Admitting you have questions and yet still believing will be a powerful witness to the dubious child.
When your words, reactions, or priorities fail to reflect the gospel, confess, repent, and ask the Spirit for help.
That’s the gospel too.
We show them what it looks like to follow Jesus in all of life, including our repentance.
God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is learned not only through formal instruction but also through the way a mother responds when she is tired, wrong, disappointed, or under pressure.
When our kids know that our commitment to their thriving is unwavering and our delight in them does not depend on how they behave, they are likely to follow where we lead.
The Power of a Mother’s Influence
Paul’s letter to Timothy shows the impact of a mother’s discipleship.
He writes, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, Timothy, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).
Later, he adds, “Continue in what you have learned… because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).
Lois and Eunice planted the Word in Timothy’s heart, outshining even Gamaliel’s influence on Paul.
As moms, we have the first and most powerful influence on our children.
You are the first and most effective spiritual influence in your child’s life.
This truth has been confirmed by the most recent research.
The good news is that, among all possible influences, parents exert far and away the greatest influence on their children’s religious outcomes.
In almost every case, no other institution or program comes close to shaping youth religiously as their parents do-not religious congregations, youth groups, faith-based schools, missions and service trips, summer camps, Sunday school, youth ministers, or anything else.
Those influences can reinforce the influence of parents, but almost never do they surpass or override it.
What makes every other influence pale into virtual insignificance is the importance, or not, of the religious beliefs and practices of parents in their ordinary lives-not only on holy days but every day, throughout weeks and years.
Do Not Outsource Your Child’s Spiritual Formation
Don’t let this frighten you; God will equip you for the work.
Don’t outsource your child’s spiritual formation.
You do not need a seminary degree.
If you taught your child to brush their teeth, you are a good enough teacher.
You don’t have to have all the answers.
God doesn’t give you children and then fail to give you what you need to raise them in faith.
Parents are not the only disciple-makers.
Raising children to know Jesus does not happen in a vacuum; it happens in community.
Primary means just that - you’re the first and most important, but by no means the only person who plays a role in the spiritual formation of your child.
Invite the Church Family Into Discipleship
Every believing mother is part of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).
Motherhood does not amputate us from his body, only to be reattached after the children are no longer taking naps or have graduated into adulthood.
As mothers, we are still part of the body and contribute to its growth and health as we do the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Discipling one another toward Christlikeness happens not only when the church gathers.
We teach one another to observe all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28:20) even when the church scatters, in our eating or drinking or whatever we are doing (1 Corinthians 10:31).
If you’re blessed with an extended biological family of believers, by all means, foster strong bonds with relatives, but life-giving relationships are found in your extended church family of believers.
Invite youth ministers, Sunday school teachers, pastors, and good solid Christian men and women to spend time with your family.
Teenagers often find other adults easier to talk to than mom or dad.
That may feel like rejection, but it’s not; it’s a beautiful picture of your child learning to rely on the family of God.
Start Small in the Home
For some of us, inviting others into our everyday lives may be one of the hardest challenges of disciple-making.
Making disciples on Saturday morning from eight to ten at the local cafe is pretty safe territory; inviting others into the unstructured parts of our lives, especially in our homes, can feel intimidating.
But God is able to open our hearts in vulnerability and availability.
For mothers with younger or special-needs children, the thought of another relationship to juggle might feel overwhelming, but you can start really small.
Invite another woman over regularly to spend time with you and your children.
Let Scripture applied to daily life be your “curriculum.”
Talk together as you fold the laundry.
Pray together and fellowship over meals, even if your kids are smearing food into their hair.
Share life so deeply that you can say, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me - practice these things” (Philippians 4:9).
She came to be discipled and counseled, but I walked away discipled and counseled too.
Her friendship was a lifeline in that season of motherhood, and God used our relationship to make disciples of us both.
Disciple Your Children Through Every Stage
In practical and thoughtful ways, parents can disciple their kids in various stages of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
Disciple-making does not end when our children or families believe in Jesus.
As long as we both live, or until Jesus returns, we pray and labor for their growth and perseverance to the end.
After this, Disciple Dad and I will no longer be the sole contributors to E’s developing worldview.
We’ll be letting teachers and kids from other families have a lot more sway in his life than anyone else has right now.
No matter how much we trust his teachers, it’s definitely a bit scary to think about letting him go.
That concern highlights the importance of using the years before and during school to establish a foundation of identity, truth, curiosity, kindness, perseverance, and love.
Make Disciples Beyond the Home
Neighbors
Where mothers are prone to seek only “their own interests,” or the interests of their own homes and families, Christ gives us a better alternative: to seek the interests of him (Philippians 2:21) and others (Philippians 2:4), including others outside the home.
Put another way, he calls us to love God and neighbor (Luke 10:27).
“And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).
As mothers, we share the road, so to speak, with many different people in our community.
We might see a neighbor while we run out to grab the mail, a store cashier might start a conversation with us, electricians or plumbers might pass through our homes, we might meet other caretakers at the park, or we might share a cubicle with a coworker.
We can deliberately weave neighbor relationships into everyday life, or like the Samaritan, we can hit pause to show Christlike mercy.
If we have young children, we can invite others to walk with us, run errands with us, or accompany us wherever we are going.
Whether we have one minute to give or twenty, we can welcome our neighbor’s presence not as an interruption but as an opportunity.
Disciple-making happens at the intersection of love for God and neighbor.
Mothers, our neighbors’ proximity to us is no mistake, as God is the one who has determined “allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:26-27).
How do we know that the neighbor in our path has not been placed there to find God through us?
Strangers and People Beyond Your Natural Circle
We are not limited to the relationships right in front of us; we can look to make disciples beyond our natural realm too, among people who are currently strangers to us.
Some mothers might begin looking beyond even while the children are young.
God might call some of us to foster and adopt.
He might call some of us to go beyond the natural bounds of culture and language to an unreached people.
He might call some of us to enter into the world of the prisoner, the refugee, or the recovering addict, that we might make disciples of them as well.
Some of us might seek out the elderly in our community to come alongside one or a few in friendship.
Some of us might open our homes to international students.
Even mothers with young children can break routine and transplant dinner to someone else’s table or nap their young children in someone else’s home as they read Scripture together.
We can pray by name for those being reached and discipled by others, and our husbands and church families can also help us carve out focused time for ministry outside our normal routines.
Every mother is different, so we cannot compare schedules, capacities, or individual callings, but all of us can ask God where else we might pursue relationships with gospel intentionality.
Release the Pressure to Control the Outcome
It’s not your job to save your children.
Only the Holy Spirit can convict your child of sin and lead him or her to saving faith.
Your primary role in your child’s developing faith does not mean you’ll be able to control outcomes.
That is the hardest and most freeing truth that a parent can know.
God did not give you the responsibility for their salvation.
He reserves that for himself.
So, teach God’s word diligently to your children.
Take them to church.
Show them how to have a quiet time, foster relationships with other godly adults, and hold a family Bible study.
Do all of these things with a little less pressure and a little more joy, because you know your child’s salvation does not depend on following all the right steps.
Your child’s heart is in the hands of your wise heavenly Father “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,” even turning imperfect parents like you and me into primary disciple-makers (Eph. 3:20).
Keep Christ’s Mission Before You in Every Season
Rather than limiting disciple-making to specific times or spaces, we might find freedom, especially as mothers, to view disciple-making as intentional, Bible-saturated relationships with the people right in front of us, wherever we are.
It is “the covenant lifestyle of redeemed women” as they teach and model life in Christ (Titus 2:3-5).
“Mothers, we have but a vapor of a life. The trials of motherhood are fleeting, but the souls around us are eternal.”
If self-love rules us, then disciple-making will find no room in our priorities, no matter how many ideas we are given.
But if the love of Christ controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), we will love even those toward whom we have no natural obligation or affinity, and we will make ourselves servants to all to win more to Christ (1 Corinthians 9:19).
We will pray, “Lord Jesus, there is nothing I want more in my life than what you bled to obtain.”
Our children will grow up quickly, and eventually, the day-to-day demands of motherhood will ebb.
But Christ’s charge to make disciples remains unchanged.
Today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Today is the day to exhort one another (Hebrews 3:13).
