© Marcelo A. Tolopilo
Discipleship, God’s Plan for Parenting (Marcelo’s book) is finished and will go to print shortly. It’s intriguing to think that this book will go to places I’ll never see. It will preach after my voice is silent on this earth, and God will use it to impact families I will never meet. It stands to reason all the glory and honor should to go to the Lord. I’m all for it!! Praise God for His sustaining grace to finish this work.
Now our aim is to get the message within its pages into the hands of God’s people. With that goal in mind Walking In The Promises is launching our most important ministry campaign to date.
P.A.C.T. – Parents & Children Together
Building the bond between parents and children through biblical discipleship1
P.A.C.T. is the acronym we have given to this crucial ministry outreach. Specifically, Walking In The Promises is seeking to get the timely message of our book into the hands of some fifteen hundred pastors and evangelical leaders who play a key roll in shepherding countless families—more on that in a moment.
A message critical to the blessing of God’s people
Echoing the promise made in the last two verses of the Old Testament (Malachi 4:5–6), God’s heavenly messenger—the angel Gabriel—announced the birth and coming of John the Baptist, the Messiah’s forerunner “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:5–20). As he described John’s ministry to Zacharias (John’s father), Gabriel informed the amazed priest that his son’s preaching and ministry would largely occupy itself with one pivotal aim: “to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children” (Luke 1:17), and as Malachi prophesied, to reciprocally “restore the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6).
This restorative work between children and parents served one great purpose, “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17). In other words, before God sent His Son to earth at His first coming, He sent His forerunner to restore the spiritual vitality of the relationship between parents and their children. That familial integrity was vital to prepare God’s people to receive their King and to escape God’s coming judgement on the nation. We believe this message will occupy an important place in the ministry of the future herald (an Elijah-like person as John the Baptist was) who will come to prepare the way for Christ’s second coming. This prophecy of restoration will be fulfilled!2 This makes the point of how critical a healthy discipleship relationship between parents and children is in the eyes of God.
God’s message remains the same from start to finish
At the beginning of Israel’s nationhood just before God led His people across the Jordan River to inherit the land promised to their fathers, He gathered together the parents and grandparents (heads of households) and in the seminole address of Deuteronomy charged them to faithfully mentor their children spiritually (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). Why? Because from God’s perspective the spiritual integrity of the family was the key component in Israel’s successful conquest of Canaan, and vital to her future prosperity as a people.
Think about this for a moment, both at the beginning of Israel’s national identity (the Conquest), and in her crowning moment as a people (as she prepares to receive her King, Jesus the Messiah) God delivers the same message: parents and children must be bound together in genuine spiritual relationship. This familial soundness leads to deep spiritual blessing.
This message is still near and dear to the heart of God and as essential as ever for parents and children.
With the Christian family under intense attack, we believe the message of this book is greatly needed. We pray that God will use Discipleship, God’s Plan for Parenting to heal and strengthen the spiritual bond between parents and their children. We know that as parents and children come together in the intimacy of biblical discipleship, God’s blessing is sure to follow.
Footnotes:
1Biblical discipleship in the parent child relationship is the pilgrimage of leading our children to God and teaching them to love God and walk with Him (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Matthew 28:19–20).
2Some have suggested that this heralding role will ultimately be fulfilled by the two witnesses of Revelation, whose ministry resembles that of Elijah (Revelation 11:1-13). Most likely it will be realized by an Elijah-like person similar to the person and ministry of John the Baptist. As with John, an important component of the future herald’s message will be one of spiritual restoration between parents and children so that God’s people may repent, be saved, and be delivered from God’s great wrath coming with massive fury and finality upon the earth.
P.A.C.T.– Getting Marcelo’s book into the hands of shepherds
Given the critical nature of the book’s message, and the need of today’s Christian family to hear and embrace it, Walking In The Promises is prayerfully planning to get this work into the hands of fifteen hundred shepherds and Christian leaders across the US and Canada. Our desire is to better enable pastors to shepherd their families and through them to get these principles into the hands of moms and dads everywhere… so that parents and children may come together in the healing and nurturing ministry of biblical discipleship.
Costs to Implement P.A.C.T.
The approximate cost to reach out to fifteen hundred pastors and their flocks involves the expense of several components. We have simplified these to give you a breakdown of the basic costs. These include mailing materials and WITP literature with each book (approximately $2.50 per mailing), USPS shipping cost (approximately $3.25 per book), and the outlay for the book itself which will be purchased at a 60% bulk order discount ($10.00 per book, hardback with jacket). The outreach expenditure will add up to an estimated $15.75 per pastor, for a total of $23,625.
Will you prayerfully consider joining us to impact families across North America? We need your financial partnership to realize the vision and hope of P.A.C.T.Thank you so much for your heartfelt gifts to this cause, and if you cannot help us financially will you please join us in praying for this effort? You will find a prayer guide for P.A.C.T. on page one at the beginning of this article. We invite and covet the prayers of our ministry friends.
If you would like to give a special offering to P.A.C.T. please follow this link.
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