Witnessing in the Family
On 20 Jan 2025, I met a group of Christian students in FES to have dinner together and talk about a pre-selected topic: witnessing in the family.
This dialogue was part of a student-led initiative, Salt & Light Table (S<), which promotes dialogue on modern, relevant and sometimes controversial topics that university students face in living out their faith.
Our conversation that night spanned topics such as participating in religious rites out of respect for Buddhist or Taoist family, disagreeing with Christian family on how much time to spend at church, how to honour our parents while honouring God, and how we should go beyond tolerance and love our family members even though we disagree.
As a second-generation Christian, I hadn’t thought much about this topic. My parents and I disagree on a couple of touchy matters, but most of the time we are of one mind in Christ. I love them dearly, and we respect each other even during our rare arguments. My grandparents on both sides, however, aren’t believers, and not for lack of trying on my parents’ part. There have thankfully been no fights over faith and they’re sometimes even willing to come to church, but they still seem apathetic about Christianity. There’s a sense of helplessness and hopelessness about it; all we can do is love them as best we can, do our best to be a good witness to them, and pray for them. It’s a similar situation with my younger brothers, who are still too young and immature to really understand or believe. My parents try their best, I try my best, and we pray.
And this is the main takeaway, I think, to do the duty God has given us – love our family members who are not believers yet and leave the rest to Him.
– Eliora, SMU, College of Integrative Studies, Year 1
