Every family is building something.
The question is: Are you building your family by default or by design?
It’s easy to have hopes for your family. You want your children to make wise decisions. You want them to love God, respect others, develop strong character, and eventually build healthy families of their own.
But good intentions aren’t enough to create those results.
In this message from the Home Run series, Pastor Keith Craft continues teaching how to structure your life to run the race God has given you and win. This week, he focuses specifically on the family race and the structure necessary to build a family that can remain strong for generations.
Your Future Requires Structure
Imagine God showing you everything He wants to do through your life—your calling, marriage, children, family, and future.
Would you currently have the structure necessary to sustain it?
Pastor Keith explains that the race God has called you to run requires you to become the person who can build the structure to win it.
God may give you vision, dreams, gifts, and opportunities, but you still have a responsibility to develop yourself and establish the structure necessary to steward them.
That principle becomes especially important when you begin thinking about your family.
A strong family doesn’t simply happen because everyone loves each other. You have to intentionally decide what you’re building and what you’re building it on.
First Base: Build Your House on the Word of God
In baseball, hitting the ball over the fence isn’t enough to officially score a home run. You still have to run the bases.
The same principle applies to your family.
The first base of the family race is simple:
Build your house on the Word of God.
In Matthew 7, Jesus describes a wise person as someone who hears His teaching and puts it into practice. That person is like someone who builds a house on a solid foundation. Storms still come, but the house remains standing because of what it was built upon.
The difference isn’t whether storms happen.
The difference is the foundation.
Your family will experience challenges, disagreements, disappointments, changing seasons, and unexpected circumstances. You can’t control everything that happens around your family, but you can decide what your family is built upon.
That means biblical truth can’t simply be something you hear at church on Sunday. It has to become something you live at home on Monday.
Your Children Are Watching You
Deuteronomy 6 instructs parents to keep God’s words in their hearts and diligently teach them to their children.
Notice the order.
Before God’s Word is taught through you, it must first be alive in you.
Your children don’t only learn from what you tell them. They’re watching how you live.
They see how you respond when you’re corrected. They hear how you speak about other people. They notice how you treat your spouse when you’re frustrated. They watch how you handle money, authority, disappointment, success, conflict, and your relationship with God.
That’s why one of the greatest things you can give your children isn’t simply a comfortable lifestyle.
It’s an example worth following.
You won’t model everything perfectly. No parent does. But your children can watch you grow, repent, receive correction, honor God, and keep becoming the person He has called you to be.
Second Base: Teach Your Children What Matters Most
Once your family has a foundation, you need direction.
Second base is teaching your children what matters most.
Psalm 127 compares children to arrows in the hands of a warrior.
An arrow has tremendous potential, but potential needs direction.
You don’t simply release an arrow and hope it lands somewhere good. You aim it.
One way you can create direction for your family is by establishing core values.
What does your family believe?
What matters most?
What attitudes will define your home?
How will you treat people?
What kind of people are you becoming?
Pastor Keith shares five values he intentionally reinforced in the Craft family: honor, excellence, generosity, positive attitude, and leadership.
The goal wasn’t simply for his children to memorize a list. The goal was for those values to influence how they actually lived.
Your family’s values may be expressed differently, but the principle remains: when you know what matters most, you can build a life that most matters.
Third Base: Build Your Family Culture by Design
Every family has a culture.
Your family culture includes your shared attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, traditions, conversations, expectations, and rhythms.
The question isn’t whether your family has a culture.
The question is whether you created it by design or by default.
That’s third base.
Pastor Keith describes intentional family culture in three simple areas:
Here’s how we act.
Here’s what we believe.
Here’s how we behave.
When those things aren’t intentionally established, outside influences will help establish them for you.
That’s why family conversations matter.
Family meetings matter.
Traditions matter.
Celebrations matter.
Prayer matters.
Reading God’s Word together matters.
Being planted in a local church matters.
Even ordinary moments can become opportunities to reinforce what your family believes and who you’re becoming together.
Create Family Rhythms That Reinforce Your Values
You don’t need an elaborate system to begin building family culture.
Start with conversations.
Ask your family questions like:
What matters most to us?
What do we want our family to be known for?
What does honoring God look like in our home?
How do we treat one another?
What traditions do we want to create?
What are we believing God for as a family?
From there, you can create intentional rhythms that reinforce those answers.
Pastor Keith shares how family meetings, core values, celebrations, and traditions became practical structures within his own family. They weren’t random activities. They reinforced the identity and culture he wanted to build.
Over time, those repeated decisions become part of your family’s story.
It’s Not Too Late to Build Differently
Maybe you didn’t grow up with this kind of family structure.
Maybe nobody taught you how to establish family values, have intentional conversations, or spiritually lead your children.
Maybe your children are already adults.
It’s still not too late.
Your past can teach you what you want to repeat—and what you want to change.
You can begin today.
Become the person you want your children to learn from. Build your home on God’s Word. Decide what matters most. Create conversations around those values. Establish traditions that reinforce them. And intentionally build a culture that points your family toward God.
Your family doesn’t have to be built by default.
You can build it by design.
And when you establish the right structure today, you aren’t only thinking about yourself.
You’re building something that can impact generations.
If you’re looking for a church in Frisco, Texas, where your entire family can grow in faith, discover God’s purpose, and build meaningful relationships, we’d love to welcome you to Elevate Life Church.
