Crickets can be really loud. In my living room as I am writing this, an exemplary member of the Orthoptera Acheta Domesticus family has made its way into my house. The chirping fills the living room with sound. With its full voice or wing scrapers to be more precise, it is chirping its heart out to the glory of God, doing exactly what it was created to do.

Have you ever stopped to ask what the loudest song of your church or family is? Another way to ask this question is to ask what is the defining characteristic of your church?

While so many caricatures of family-integrated congregations are baseless, it is nonetheless vital that every person, family, and church conscientiously make the preeminence of Christ their defining attribute. And as churches that practice family-based discipleship are under close scrutiny and observation both from the world and also many other churches, it is even more vital.

At the 2010 Love the Church Conference, the Kendall family beautifully sang and encouraged attenders from Chris Anderson’s hymn “I Love the Church”,

“May Christ be praised: Preeminent! Adored!
I love the church, because I love her Lord”

In the midst of passionate men and families who take the commands of Scripture with ultimate seriousness, it might be possible for very important and biblical things to take a place of preeminence. Clearly, seriousness on all of the Bible’s teaching is to be commended and even expected. Yet, if these vital issues are not addressed because of a supreme and explicit conviction that Jesus Christ is worthy of glory in every area of life, we risk becoming the very caricatures we reject.

So, how are we to keep Christ preeminent? While everything we do, including our eating and drinking can be done to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), there are some practical steps we can take that will guard the preeminence of Christ in our personal lives, family, and churches.

First, it will serve our own hearts to specifically meditate on the supremacy of Christ over all earthly means. Take time to consider, pray, and meditate on texts like Colossians 1:15-18:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

And consider Ephesians 1:17-23 that reminds us that Christ is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

The Puritan Thomas Chalmers encouraged believers about the “Expulsive Power of a New Affection;” that is, that one of the surest methods of loving our own works or the world less is to do all that would cause us to love Christ more.

Second, we should point our families to the supremacy of Christ as a motive for our own obedience. It may be that we are clear on the supremacy of Christ, but those under our care see only the means of our obedience and not the motives. Be sure that in everything you teach and train in your home the preeminence of Christ is frequently taught as the reason for our actions. Christless moralism will spread where motives are assumed instead of taught.

Finally, in our churches, far more than we must call out our difference in methods or even the convictions that undergird them, we must call attention to Jesus Christ as the only hope for sinners to escape the wrath of God. Congregations will be well shepherded by men who intentionally guard the preeminence of Christ in every gathering, every prayer, every sermon, and every word.

When others spend time in the living room of our lives, may the loudest song – the one that rings most clearly – be the preeminence of Christ above all things.