Romans 1:16      For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

The gospel is not ONLY to be preached to our family members, those of our own race, our bloodline but also to those we call strangers! Nor is it to be our main focus to reach our family.

Mark 3:31-35      ³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” ³³ “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. ³⁴ Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

This text immediately below is a quote from a restoration movement writer and speaker quite firmly opposed to the focus on Youth Ministry in the Mainline churches of christ.

I am excited and relieved that we do not have this horrific problem to sort out.. that our focus and evangelistic effort is not lop-sidedly placed on our kingdom kids and teen ministry but that we see rapid growth in all the ministries.

It would deeply sadden me if we were to cease seeing the miraculous baptisms of family members in our congregations.

Christmas 2015, we saw the adult baptisms of two little sisters and a little brother as well as another person not related to a member. Only yesterday we saw the baptism of the wife of a prominent man whose identity i will not disclose at this time due to persecution… But in the last year we have seen over 52 people baptised and only an approximate 15% of those were blood relatives. That is the church i was baptised into!