Families of the Frontier (FOF) exists for one simple reason: strong families are formed together, not divided apart.
What Families of the Frontier Is
Families of the Frontier is a family-based community built around monthly gatherings where entire households come together to learn, work, and grow side by side.
At each gathering, families learn practical skills centered on:
- Self-sufficiency
- Outdoor recreation and survival
- Fitness and physical competence
- Christian faith and formation
This is not a drop-off program. It is not a kids-only club. It is not parents standing on the sidelines while someone else does the forming.
FOF is built for families learning together.
Parents Participate, Families Lead
One of the quiet burdens placed on modern parents is the assumption that the same few adults must always be the organizer, the instructor, and the program director.
Families of the Frontier is intentionally different. Leadership is shared. Responsibility rotates. Parents are not locked into running meetings week after week, nor are they left to shoulder everything alone.
Each tribe has Lead Families who help coordinate gatherings, delegate responsibilities, and ensure the group moves together. That may mean arranging for outside experts, assigning lessons to different parents, or organizing logistics for a given season. Planning is part of building a tribe, but it is shared work, not a permanent title.
This structure frees parents to participate alongside their children most of the time, rather than always standing apart as managers. Parents still lead, but they do so as part of the community, learning and growing with their families.
When parents are freed to participate, families can finally move together.
Marking Time Like Humans Again
FOF also helps families recover something modern life has nearly erased: meaningful markers of time.
That includes:
- Remembering and observing Christian seasons and holy days that many families have lost track of
- Recognizing life stages, rites of passage, responsibility shifts, and growth milestones for children
- Aligning family rhythms with creation, seasons, and the church calendar rather than school schedules and sports calendars alone
We don’t believe families thrive when every day looks the same. Formation happens when time has shape and meaning.
Why Families of the Frontier Exists
Families today are surrounded by good opportunities, so many, in fact, that they are often forced into a divide-and-conquer strategy just to keep up.
Different activities for different ages. Different schedules for each child. Parents constantly coordinating logistics instead of sharing life.
Families of the Frontier exists because we believe this fragmentation weakens families over time. Formation is diluted when it is constantly separated by age, interest, and convenience.
Our aim is not to add another activity to an already crowded calendar. It is to offer a unifying alternative, a place where families learn the skill together, do the project together, train together, worship together, and mark time together.
When families move in the same direction, formation deepens and bonds strengthen.
Formation is stronger when it is shared.
This is not about doing more. It is about doing the right things together.
Our Priorities
Everything we do flows from three core priorities.
- Frontier Skills
Frontier skills are about re-rooting families in the real world. We focus on outdoor ability, homesteading competence, and time spent in creation because these skills cultivate responsibility, patience, and stewardship.
Working with the hands, learning to care for land and tools, and spending unstructured time outdoors forms people differently than screens and schedules ever can. These skills slow families down, put them back in touch with limits, and remind them that provision ultimately comes from God, not convenience.
- Formation
Formation is the heart of Families of the Frontier. Skills without character lead nowhere, and faith without practice fades quickly.
We emphasize Christian practices, virtue, and discipline lived out in daily life. Functional fitness is part of this formation, not as performance or aesthetics, but as preparation for service, work, and responsibility. Training the body alongside the soul teaches self-control, perseverance, and readiness.
Parents lead this formation, children grow within it, and families practice it together through prayer, Scripture, service, habits, and physical challenge.
- Family Life
Strong families are built through shared responsibility and shared work. We focus on practical skills that strengthen the home because daily life is where formation actually happens.
Cooking together, maintaining a home, preserving food, hosting others, and serving as a unit teaches cooperation, hospitality, and sacrifice. These practices bind families together and turn ordinary responsibilities into opportunities for growth and gratitude. They are formation.
Who This Is For
Families of the Frontier is for families who are looking for something more integrated and intentional.
It is for parents who want faith lived at home, not just discussed. For families who believe shared work and shared challenge create deeper bonds. For those who are weary of constant fragmentation and are ready for a steadier rhythm.
If you have felt the pull toward a more grounded way of forming your family, one shaped by faith, work, and life together, you are in the right place.