A while back a friend passed on to me a blog post titled “Top 10 Ridiculous Responses Regarding My Third Pregnancy.” As a mother of four children, all of the responses on the list were familiar to me. As a mother who had four children in four years, I could think of a few more that didn’t make this girl’s list.

She left off “Were you born in a barn?” and “You need some hobbies.” And another favorite, almost always asked in the grocery store: “Are they all yours?”

My kids are all teenagers now, so I remember these comments with a smile. They don’t offend me—I understand that most people don’t have a file folder for people with “larger families,” although a family of six is not extraordinarily large. It doesn’t bother me to be mentally filed under “Hillbilly,” “Catholic,” or even “Mormon”—people are just doing their best to process reality. I remember flying to Cincinnati one Christmas with two lap children and two in car seats. A sweet young Mormon couple on the next row carried on a knowing conversation with us for most of the flight before realizing we were actually just Southern Baptists with no sense of moderation. We deplaned leaving them as baffled by our family planning as many of our Baptist friends were.

Over the years I’ve developed some responses to these repeated awkward questions. For example:

“Don’t you know what causes that?” “Clearly. We’re so good at it we should patent the process.”

“Are they all yours?” “No, I just think Wal-Mart is so fun that I go pick up extra toddlers to bring along with me.”

Being a parent is one of the most exciting, frightening, inspiring, upsetting, amazing, routine, joyful, and, at times, sorrowful experiences in life. Many young people today do not have a close relationship with their parents. Many rarely see a family that loves one another. Marriages end in divorce, with fatherless children, and mothers who struggle to get by.

How can we avoid this path? How can we cultivate a Christ-centered home? In Deuteronomy 6, Moses addresses parents and other adults saying: “Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Jesus called this the Greatest Commandment. Surely, it should be central in any Christian home!

In your decisions as a family, do you seek first to listen to God? Does your family put following what God says above all else? If so, does a passion for the lost have a central part in your home? Sometimes, we miss the centrality of loving God above all when we tell our children to get a good education and a good job, but fail to place as much emphasis on hearing and loving God. If God really is this lovely and worthy of our affection and devotion, then do we inspire our children to share the good news about Him, to know and enjoy Him through Jesus?

We bought our current home with these things in mind. We picked a home that was: (1) in a neighborhood of folks not actively churched (and we have great neighbors!) (2) designed to help us focus on being together; it had a large great room with TV and computer. Growing up, our children spent very little time in their rooms because we shared a home, not just a house. Parents who model love for God and family use their years together to not only love one another but also to welcome in the lost. A Christ-centered home is an evangelistic home.