It’s easy to take a healthy home for granted — whether you’re part of one or wish you were. They don’t just happen, though.
Healthy homes are built (and rebuilt!) with sweat, tears, and laughter. With loved ones committed to supporting each other through good and bad. And with humble reliance on the One who created family in the first place.
Maybe you have an opportunity to teach another family the marks of a Christ-centered home, but you’re not even sure what makes your family tick. Or maybe you know something’s missing in your own home, but you can’t put a finger on it.
Every Christian family, like every Christian individual, is a unique masterpiece — God’s workmanship. So to an extent, a Christ-centered home looks different from family to family. Still, there are common elements:
- Joy. Joy and happiness aren’t the same thing. Happiness is about what happens to us; joy has deeper roots. Every family has hurt and trouble that threatens their happiness. But no circumstance can steal joy when we remember that Christ is the key to our present and our future.
- Order. A healthy home is intentionally peaceful. The craziness of the world has to stay outside. Family members are vigilant about every influence that tries to get in. Should it stay? Does it build up or tear down? Does it encourage us to value each other over things?
- Grace. Home should be a safe place to mess up. Love is the goal — not perfection. There’s enough hostility out in the world. Home must be a retreat where wounded hearts find comfort, rest, and healing.
- Service. Kindness, respect, humility, and love are all traits of a healthy home. Family members discover that serving each other in Christ comes first. That serving a wider world is built on selflessness at home. And that all of life — including mundane tasks like laundry and landscaping — can be sacred.
- Spiritual growth. Everyone learns how to study the Bible, pray, and spend time alone with the Lord.
- Goals. A Christian home is based on God’s purposes for each family member — their daily lives and their long-term dreams. Consider writing a family mission statement to help define and live out God’s values in your home.
A healthy home isn’t driven by restrictive religious rules. Instead, it’s a place where we live under the safeguarding authority of God — where we speak and act and relate to one another with the knowledge that Jesus is lovingly involved in everything we do.
Keep Christ in focus. He’ll give you the wisdom to build a home that nurtures your family and is an oasis for others in desperate need of Life.
Want to dig deeper? We recommend Robert Wolgemuth’s book The Most Important Place on Earth and Focus on the Family’s broadcast with Pastor Tommy Nelson The Essentials of a Healthy Home. Both are available through Focus’ Online Store.