How to use this material

I. In recent years, owing to the propagation and increase of the church, many young families have been brought into the church life. These newly saved young parents urgently need help — both in vision and in practice — so that they may work together with God, shepherd their own sons and daughters according to God, build up children's meetings, and rear their children to be vessels useful to the Lord, that their homes too may be useful to the Lord, becoming stepping stones for His move in every locality.

II. The foreword of this book is excerpted from *Life-Study of 1 Thessalonians*, Message Thirteen, *"The Reward of Fostering."* Paul is the best pattern for parents — one who lived in God's economy and, according to God's economy, took himself as a pattern in fostering the saints newly born in the Lord. The messages in this book are gathered from fellowship given at the church-wide trainings on the God-man family, organized into three major parts: *"Home,"* *"Shepherding Children,"* and *"the Children's Meeting."* The contents have not been reviewed by the speaker.

III. We have arranged the message portion into a 95-week (about two-year) pursuit schedule. Each month has one theme, carrying one or two practice points, with about two to three pages of content per week. We encourage parents — especially mothers — and the saints with a burden, to find a fixed time each week, taking up this material and pursuing and praying together according to the schedule, that all the saints may continually be renewed and strengthened in vision and in practice. We also encourage the saints to hold a monthly display, that the riches of what has been pursued and the grace experienced in the practice may be testified to more parents.

IV. Our burden is to ask the Lord to raise up in every place a band of people, filled with the divine commission in the vision of God's economy, coordinating together in the church (in the district), to bring in the following four blessings: 1. Newly saved parents entering these riches and pursuing together, leading their sons and daughters in the God-man family life. 2. More homes not only saved but further gained by God's economy — homes of faith, open homes that love the church and love the saints. 3. Our next generation becoming seeds, bringing in the spread of the gospel on the campuses. 4. More children's meetings bringing in the multiplication of the gospel in the community.