Book Critique Family to Family

Liberty Theological Seminary

Book Critique #2- Family to Family

A Paper
Submitted to Dr. Yat Por
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Course
Evangelism
Evan 565

By
Amy Bradley

27 February 2012

Bibliographical Entry

Pipes, Dr. Jerry and Lee, Victor. Family to Family: Leaving a Lasting Legacy. United States: Victor Lee, 2010.
Author Information
The purpose of this section is to identify the author (translator or editor) of the book. If available, present the author's background, academic training, and practical experience. You can help a reader understand a book by describing the author. Contemporary Authors or other biographical sources may provide author information.
Content Summary In Family to Family, Dr. Pipes and Mr. Lee set to establish routines and suggestions for building quality family time for Christian families. According to Pipes and Lee, the reason why churches are losing teens once they become adults is that families are too busy, too involved in outside activities and not incorporating Christian values and quality family time into their routines (Pipes and Lee, 2010). It is a very simple book, written in plain terms that does not incorporate a lot of technical terminology or rules for families to follow. The authors suggest activities at the end of each section. They cover ideas such as creating mission statements for the family, how to lead a child to Christ and engaging in volunteerism as a family. Within each chapter, the authors allow for different age groups for the children, for single parent families and for traditional two parent families. Pipes and Lee also include many references for follow up to activities. From scripture from the Bible to different books by other authors to website information, the authors provide multiple avenues for follow up for parents and families to keep the job simple for incorporating these activities into family time.

Evaluation

Pipes and Lee seemingly intended to write a "self help" book for families that have limited time in the first place. The suggestions that the authors make at the end of each chapter are indeed time consuming. They are also elementary for someone who may have all teenagers in the house or be newly married or a blended family that comes with other conflicts. The purpose being intended to make the implementation of these activities easier for families missed the mark by stating that the family could "sit down and figure out which activities take the most time away" from the family. Really? It seems that all activities would take away and that discussing this may cause for more stress and discord amongst the family members. The main theme for the book is time management with a dose of Christianity thrown in. In that way, the main theme is convincing. The problem with the strategy is that it makes the family choose to get rid of certain things that inhibit their time together and this may not set well with some family members. The follow up to that would be handling confrontation within the family. If the family already spends a lot of time away from each other, most likely they are not going to be very good at communicating needs, wants or handling conflict. The authors could have offered more advice on how to dispel these conflicts or build from them. The authors presuppose that the family is willing to set aside certain activities and are willing to make time for the activities that are suggested. They seemingly assume that the families reading this book are families with small children that can incorporate these ideas at an early age, thus heading off conflict most likely found with older children. By assuming these scenarios, the authors miss the mark with including all families in the audience. Parents of blended families may face completely different challenges within their home. They may wish to increase bonding time with their step-children, but be facing real hostility in doing so. If the parents start taking away activities to incorporate family devotional time, that could be a bigger obstacle in furthering that relationship. The authors do not seem to have well supported arguments for establishing these routines. They take statistical information that could be skewed by the reporting company and they base the results on an opinion of others. Family time is a balance. Some families thrive in busy schedules and activities. That is just how they work. Other families may need direction and look to books such as this to provide guidance. The argument is that churches are losing their young people by the age of eighteen due to limited family involvement in quality time. If just reading this book alone, with no further outside knowledge, then yes, the argument is well supported and convincing. The authors use statistical information from national polls to base their info. They also quote the American Family Association and other sources that legitimately back up their conclusions. Unfortunately, they do not cover the blended family issue, the same-sex parent issue or having older teenagers adequately. The conclusion that Pipes and Lee come to is that outside activities are taking away from the Christian family experience. The growth of the family as a unit relies solely on establishing a routine of prayer, devotions and outreach that all of the family participates in. The authors conclude that if these types of things are not done within the family unit, then the likelihood of the children staying in the church is very slim. The interesting thing about this book is what is missing. For the book to have been reprinted in 2010, most of the ideas in the book are sorely outdated or not useful for today's families. The single parent issue, though addressed a few times, and the families with older children, again, addressed in a limited way, only gives a glancing blow to how to deal with this type of conflict. The examples used in some of the chapters, such as Chapter 2, with "Joey" leaving home because the rules are too strict, come across as a scare tactic to a parent that may be struggling with a rebellious child (Pipes and Lee, 2010). The authors did not include any unusual traits in the book, but the biases are quite evident. The Fundamentalist values of a two parent home, consisting of a male and female, are the basis for the suggestions and studies. Nowhere in the book does it even remotely hint that eighteen year olds may be leaving the church because of the lack of compassion or love they have felt or been taught in that church. Churches can be very legalistic and teens rebel against that. They know when compassion and love are not present. Does family time increase stability in the home? Sure, but so does quality teaching from a Biblical source and seeing that quality lived out in day to day fashion.
What does the book/author teach us? The authors strive to teach the reader time management skills with a dose of "Leave it to Beaver" scenarios for implementing the suggestions to their family routine. The authors seemingly feel that everyone has time to actually sit down and figure out where they could eliminate activities, have children that are excited to do studies together as a family and that no conflict is present. At least the authors are positive in their approach. The problem lies with the parts that are not present in the book. The lack of realism of today's families and today's issues makes this book seem to be unlikely a Best Seller for families, Christian or not. This book is definitely written for families that are Christian, traditional, two parent and have the willingness to facilitate these types of changes into their routines. On the other hand, families in crisis would most likely not benefit from this application due to the increase of change and new rules or routines would likely increase the crisis.