Tracing family (and thus family ministry) throughout both Scripture and the history of the church, Stinson and Jones have edited a helpful volume that highlights many key contemporary issues (including gender roles and homosexuality). Although the chapters on historical tradition may not hold interest for the casual reader, they do help cement the foundation of the practical viewpoints discussed in latter pages. While certain contributions outshine others, the book is a worthy (if occasionally repetitive) effort.

God has created Christians to enter into fellowship with the church—not with a specific demographic within the church. It is not good for persons to be alone—but it is also not good for a person to practice fellowship only with others from a similar social demographic. An example of fellowshipping only with one’s “own kind” may include singles exclusively spending time with other singles or married couples doing the same. Such habits of life miss opportunities for singles and married couples to submit to Titus 2:1-8 by teaching and serving one another. [226]

Too many segmented-programmatic churches have assumed that people in a certain life category find meaningful fellowship only when they are placed with others in the same life category. The consistent testimony of the New Testament is, however, that the persons who rub shoulders in the shadow of the cross are people from a multitude of backgrounds—people that the world might never dream of mingling together. [230]

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