Healthy families bring others closer to Christ

Posted: 2/09/07

Healthy families bring others closer to Christ

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO—The peace Christ offers draws people to him—if they aren’t driven away by the conflict in Christians’ lives, David Hormachea, host of the Vision Para Vivir media ministry, told participants at the Hispanic Evangelism Conference.

Non-Christians want the peace and joy Christ offers through a relationship with him, but sometimes they are turned off when they look at the family lives of people who call themselves Christians, Hormachea told the conference, sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. They see broken families, divorced spouses and fighting children and wonder how powerful the gospel can be, he added.

A member of the praise team from South San Fildelfia Baptist Church in San Antonio sings during the Hispanic Evangelism Conference.

Hormachea urged Hispanic Texas Baptists to focus on their families in an effort to reflect what life in Christ can be like. A healthy Christian family presents a positive image of Christ, he said.

Nurturing a healthy family requires parents who spend time reading and studying the Bible and growing in their relationship with God, Hormachea explained. Those parents should then invest themselves in each other and their children as Christ has called them to do.

The health of a Christian’s relationship with God is based on how well he hears God speaking to him through the Bible and prayer, he explained, comparing it to family relations. Similarly, the health of a married couple’s relationship is based on how well a husband and wife hear each other, he said.

If family members invest in each other, they will reflect the values of their faith and draw people to Christ, Hormachea stressed.

“An evangelistic church not only talks about Christ,” he said. “It lives its principles.”

Investing in one’s family does not mean there will not be any troubling times, Hormachea said.

Fabio Murillo plays the saxophone during the Hispanic Evangelism Conference.

“All families and all marriages will have conflict,” he said. But because healthy Christian families already have invested in themselves, they can more easily work through the conflict, he emphasized.

A relationship with Christ brings a joy to people that supersedes any difficult situation that may be happening, Hormachea said. God carries people through the tough times, strengthening them day-by-day.

“Individual happiness is not dependent on things, circumstances of our lives or the people we’re with,” he said.