Pastor's Portal

Faith and Life Survey

Rev. David Schmidt

November 1, 2026

Faith & Life Survey

During the month of November, I am asking the members of Faith to participate in the Faith & Life Survey, provided by Concordia Center for the Family.

Back in August, in a sermon I preached on Matthew 16:13-20, I opened the sermon with the concept of a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift happens when you have been doing something one way, and everyone assumes that’s the only way to do it. Then someone challenges the status quo and introduces a new way of thinking or doing things.

I gave the example of Blockbuster and Netflix. Blockbuster asked, “How do we get people to the store to rent movies?” Netflix asked a different question: “How do we get movies into people’s homes?” That different question changed the way we rent movies.

At the end of that sermon, I mentioned the paradigm the church has been operating on for many decades when it comes to discipleship. The church operated under the assumption that faith formation happens primarily through the congregation, with the family supporting that work. The question has often been, “How do we get people to church so they can know Jesus?”

But Scripture presents a different model. Faith formation is primarily the responsibility of the family. Discipleship is family-centered and church-supported. If we want to get back to that biblical model, it requires a paradigm shift. The question we need to be asking is, “How do we get Jesus into the home?”

Jennifer Akbar, Ryan Nichols, and I have gone through the training to become Family Discipleship Facilitators, and one of our goals is to help Faith Lutheran implement family discipleship into the life of our congregation. The survey will help us better understand the households in our congregation; their strengths, challenges, and where they need support. Concordia Center for the Family describes the purpose of the survey this way: “Family ministry is strongest when church leaders know their people.” The survey gives us an opportunity to listen to our families so that we can better equip and support parents in their calling to raise their children in the faith.

We aren't simply looking for ways to get families more involved in church activities. We want to think differently about discipleship and how we can support what happens in the home. The church remains essential to this model. We gather together around God's Word and Sacrament, teach the faith, and equip parents to live out their calling in their homes. The goal isn't to move discipleship from the church to the home, but to strengthen the connection between what happens in the church and what happens in the home.

The goal isn't to completely change the way we do ministry. The goal is to ask a better question: How do we get Jesus into the home? We want to help families bring Jesus into their homes, so that the faith we confess together on Sunday continues to be lived, taught, and shared throughout the week.