Being Family

Overview

The Christian family isn't a brand. It's a calling.

In Being Family, Dr. Scott Keith offers a compelling vision of what it means to live out the Christian faith through the daily realities of family life. Drawing from Scripture, the Lutheran tradition, and pastoral experience, Keith reminds readers that the home is not a detour from discipleship—it's the very place where God shows up.

With warmth, clarity, and candor, Keith explores the vocations of father, mother, grandparent, child, and friend, showing how faith is passed down not through programs or perfection, but through repentance, forgiveness, and love. This is not a book of parenting techniques. It's a theological and practical guide to embracing your calling—even when it's messy.

Whether you're a parent, grandparent, pastor, or simply someone trying to live faithfully in your relationships, Being Family offers gospel-centered encouragement and a much-needed reminder: you don't have to be impressive. Just present.

Because God is at work—even in your ordinary.

Reviews

"Perhaps the highest praise I can give Scott Keith's Being Family is that it got me excited to drive my sons to swim practice. This is no small feat! The book serves as a powerful reminder that we don't have to go elsewhere to encounter the grace of God. It is abundant in the life we already have and in the often unglamorous tasks of being a person. Clearly the result of a lifetime of study and experience, Dr. Keith packs an enormous amount of Gospel wisdom into a mercifully manageable number of pages--essential stuff for anyone seeking to understand not only the doctrine of vocation but their own life." – David Zahl, author of The Big Relief

"'Vocation is where we hand over God’s gifts.’  That one idea could revolutionize our families and churches.  How?  Scott Keith shows you on every page.  This doctrine of vocation transformed the West.  It can again when Christians recover its grand dimensions.  Read, mark, and inwardly digest this book, please, first for yourself and then for the people who live with you." - Michael S. Horton

“Scott Keith leads us to see the theology of the cross embedded in the family: the true God is the hidden God and just as He hid in the manger, on the cross, and hides to this day through simple water, bread, and wine, He also hides in the Christian family. And it all starts with His call in holy baptism. After being baked into Christ, we receive many calls, the most important of which are in the family. Dr. Keith offers a powerful description that God's purposes are for His children is not to rise above being needy sinners, but rather to walk by faith and not by sight in just getting to work to do what we are called to do: to be what God has called us to be as fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandfathers, grandmothers, supportive friends, and a sanctified community sharing one another's burdens and clinging to the gospel. Being Family describes faithfulness through what appears only as normal and mundane, but when done while holding to Jesus shows us what love and forgiveness really is. Being family is to know Jesus who was born into family for us to be the family of God.” – Rev. Alfonso Espinosa, Ph.D., senior pastor, Saint Paul's Lutheran Church of Irvine, CA

Author Biography