The Crisis Beneath the Surface: Why Faith Formation Is a Relational Issue

Introduction

We often talk about church decline, cultural decline, moral decline, and faith decline. We see it in empty pews, confused young people, fractured communities, and a growing indifference toward God. Those concerns are real.

But underneath much of what we are witnessing is something even more foundational.

The decline of the family.
The breakdown of relationships.
The unraveling of the spaces where faith is meant to be formed.

Scripture has always shown us that faith does not grow in isolation. It grows in relationships. It is cultivated in homes, modeled in marriages, and nurtured in spiritual community.

So when families weaken, faith formation weakens.
When marriages fracture, discipleship fractures.
When relationships collapse, spiritual formation is disrupted.

Psalm 78 reminds us that God’s design was never merely individual faith—it was generational faith:

“We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord…” (Psalm 78:4)

Faith was meant to move—heart to heart, home to home, generation to generation. When that chain breaks, spiritual transmission falters.

What we are witnessing in our culture is not first a crisis of information, or even primarily a crisis of belief. It is a crisis of formation. And before it is theological, it is relational.

God Designed Faith to Grow in Relational Soil

From the beginning, God has embedded spiritual formation inside relationships. Adam was not created alone. Israel was formed as families and tribes. The Law was taught at the dinner table. Jesus formed disciples in community. The church is not called an organization, but a body and a household.

Paul writes in Ephesians 3 that God is the One “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”

Faith is not sustained primarily by programs. It is sustained by presence, patterns, and people. God’s design has always been clear: faith is formed in the context of covenant relationships.

Faith does not grow well in factories. It grows in greenhouses.

A factory produces through efficiency, systems, and speed. A greenhouse produces life through environment, nurture, protection, and time. Greenhouses care about soil, light, water, temperature, and seasons. You cannot mass-produce spiritual maturity. You cultivate it.

God designed the family and the faith community to be that greenhouse. That is why family breakdown has such massive spiritual consequences. When covenant weakens, when fathers disappear, when marriages become temporary, when sexual ethics dissolve, the environment God uses to grow faith is damaged.

The seed may still be good. The truth may still be preached. But the soil of formation has been compromised.

This helps us see what is really happening in our culture. The decline of faith is downstream from the decline of relationships. We are not only dealing with intellectual doubt. We are dealing with relational disruption. We are not only facing disbelief. We are facing dislocation.

So the church cannot respond merely with better content, sharper arguments, or more events. We must respond by becoming what God designed us to be: a people, a household, a spiritual family, a community of formation.

We are not just sermon distributors. We are soul gardeners.
We are not just event planners. We are greenhouse keepers.
Which means investing in marriages is not optional. Equipping parents is not secondary. Walking with singles is not peripheral. Healing broken relationships is not side ministry. This is front-line discipleship.

Because if relationships are where faith is formed, then renewing relationships is how faith is restored.

The Gospel Doesn’t Just Save Individuals — It Restores Relationships

One of the most powerful truths of the gospel is that Jesus didn’t just come to forgive sinners—He came to reconcile what sin destroyed (Colossians 1:20).

The gospel certainly includes forgiveness. But it never stops there. Through Christ, God is restoring our relationship with Him and our relationships with one another. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that God has given us “the ministry of reconciliation.”

Malachi ends the Old Testament with this promise:

“He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.”

And the very next movement in redemptive history is this: Jesus arrives.
The gospel is not only courtroom language. It is family language. Adoption. Marriage. Inheritance. Body. Household.

Christ did not simply come to change our record. He came to change our relationships.
Imagine a judge who declares a guilty man innocent and sends him on his way. That would be mercy. But imagine a judge who steps down from the bench, pays the penalty himself, takes the man by the hand, brings him into his home, gives him his name, seats him at his table, and calls him “son.”

That is the gospel.

Jesus doesn’t merely cancel our debt. He rebuilds our home. He doesn’t only justify us. He restores us. He doesn’t simply pardon rebels. He forms a family.

That’s why Scripture keeps using relational images—because salvation is not just rescue from wrath. It is restoration to life together.

So when the church invests in marriages, parenting, singles living faithfully, healing broken homes, and strengthening relationships, we are not doing side ministry. We are standing at the very center of Christ’s redemptive mission.

Every marriage strengthened, every parent equipped, every prodigal pursued, every relationship healed becomes a visible sermon of the gospel. Reconciled relationships are living proof that Jesus is alive.

The Church Is God’s Relational Renewal Strategy

Jesus did not establish an event. He established a people. He did not leave behind a schedule. He left behind a body.

The Great Commission is not attendance-driven. It is formation-driven. Jesus never said, “Go and get decisions.” He said, “Go and make disciples.”

Paul echoes this in Colossians 1: “Him we proclaim…that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That word “present” is relational language—like a father walking a child into adulthood.

People don’t drift into spiritual maturity. They are walked into it.

Acts 2 shows us what forming community actually looks like. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship. Truth and table. Doctrine and dinner. Worship and walking together.

They did not only gather crowds. They formed people. And “the Lord added to their number day by day.”

Healthy relationships created a credible witness. God grew the church by deepening the church.

The goal, then, is not merely “get them here.” It is “help them grow.”
Real discipleship is not drive-through. It is life-on-life.

So when a church invests in spiritual formation, relational health, marriages, families, and people at every stage of life, it is not drifting from the mission. It is fulfilling it.
Because the mission is not simply to fill the church. It is to form the church.

Why This Matters for Us

At the center of every healthy family is not technique. It is Christ.
The goal is not strong marriages without Christ, or intact families without Christ. The goal is a church where Christ is trusted, obeyed, displayed, and passed down.

When Christ renews hearts, He heals homes.
When He heals homes, He strengthens churches.
And when He strengthens churches, He reaches cities.

This is why, as a church, we are intentionally partnering with Communio this year.
Not to add another program—but to more faithfully live out what we see in Psalm 78.
Communio exists to help churches build cultures of relational discipleship and gospel-shaped care—walking with people across every stage of life: singles, marriages, parents, and families in need of healing. They help churches move from simply gathering people to actually forming people. From hosting services to cultivating disciples.

In other words, they help churches build greenhouses, not factories.

And that is our prayer—that God would use this partnership to help us become more and more what He has called us to be: a spiritual family, a community of formation, a people who carry faith forward.

So that one day it could truly be said of us:

“We did not hide these things from our children, but told the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.”