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Posted: 24 June 2005 at 4:44pm | IP Logged

One really great resource...and I mean REALLY great...is Andy Stanley/Reggie Joyners parents study, Parental Guidance Required.  You can do it as a six week or four week study. 

We have offered many parent classes (Kevin Leman, James Dobson, etc.) but I must say that this study was a very "hit you between the eyes" kind of work.

It all boils down to this question: are we raising kids who are experientially rich, but relatiionally poor?  It talks about the three most important relationships:  Friends, Family and God.  It talks about the importance of the parents' realm of influence and how that influence can impact the lives of their children.

I would definitely use this as a springboard to working with parents because it emphasizes the need for a good "team" of support...and that is where we come in.  The scripture clearly tells us that parents are the ones responsible for the spiritual training of children...we are back up and reinforcement.  This study is a great tool to enlighten and give a charge to parents.  Of course, not all parents are going to rise to the occaision....but if we can impact some....

Posted: 25 June 2005 at 5:48pm | IP Logged

I can't wait to hear your ideas!  This is something that our CM has been contemplating for several months now.  We have looked into using the Northpoint curriculum (2:52basics), but we don't feel it's the right time to make such a dramatic change (we have several other big changes happening over the next few months).  I will definitely check into the Parental Guidance Required material; maybe that's a good first step to prepare parents for something more drastic in the future.

Two thoughts from me:

I think the majority of Christian adults do not have a strategy for intentionally developing their own spiritual formation (beyond church attendance and a daily quiet time), much less a strategy for their children.  I have just read a book by Glenn McDonald, The Disciple Making Church, and been convicted of my own lack of growth.  It seems that a unified, church-wide strategy for individual spiritual growth (such as Pastor McDonald's book describes), would be more effective than just a CM strategy.  I know - now I'm really talking drastic!!!

My second thought is more of a question.  We have taught two units now in which we have made available materials for family devotion times during the week.  No families took advantage of the material either time.  Should we give up on family devotions as a thing of the past?  If not, how do we get parents on board?  For parents who may think they aren't up to the task, how can we model it for them or even have them role play so that they can begin to feel more comfortable with the role?  Or is there a better strategy than family devotions, that parents will be more likely to adopt?

Please don't keep us waiting too long to hear your ideas, Karl!

Posted: 29 June 2005 at 9:19am | IP Logged

Hi!

I've been reading the postings with great interest.  Ever since hearing Reggie Joiner speak at this year's Promiseland Conference at Willow Creek--my head has been swirling with this whole "partnering with parents" concept.  I don't think it was a coincidence that 4 weeks after the conference a 4 week "Positive Parenting" class had already been planned in conjuction with our Youth Pastor.  And the following month we were having a Child Dedication, which involved my husband, (one of our pastors) and I teaching a required class before the dedication.  The information I recieved at the session w/Reggie Joiner played a huge part in what we taught in these classes.

All these puzzle pieces started to fit together--but the outside pieces (the frame) are not there yet.  We subtly changed our mission statement by adding the phrase "In partnership with families" to lead kids to Christ and help them grow spiritually.   But we haven't launched any major changes.  I am being pretty prayerful about it and purchased the dvd of Reggie's session and am systematically having our leadership team watch it and then dialogue about it.  Because my gut tells me that this is a big enough paradigm shift that we need the buy-in from the top down. 

We're not going to be able to do a "shared family experience" like they do at Northpoint but what I am thinking about is small steps.  How we look at every area and be more intentional to "connect the dots" between parents and kids.  For example:

• When we did an audio devotional for our building campaign-we also provided a companion family devo leaflet for parents to do the devo's together. 
• We are trying to be more intentional in our regular communication to parents, i.e. emails and newsletters.
• We are looking to always have some kind of handout or "question of the day" that parents can use as follow-up with our weekend lessons.
• When we did our baptism small groups, for kids who are thinking about getting baptized, we asked for parents to attend with their child. 

There has been numerous times of affirmation that we are moving in the right direction.  For example-the dad who gave his life to Christ at the end of one of our Child Dedication classes and the mom who did the same thing after sitting in on the kidz baptism small group.  She thought she was there just for her child but God had other plans!

I pray for other churches who are thinking in this direction and eagerly look for more ideas--because I am becoming convinced that we maximize our efforts for kids when we strengthen the family.

Thanks Karl, for bringing this issue into focus!

in His service,

Patti Kirkland

Posted: 29 June 2005 at 11:07pm | IP Logged

hi Karl and all-

We stuggled with this issue for a few years! We are taking steps to get families involved as family and for parents to take the responsibility of being the spirtual leaders. Barna's book really hit us between the eyes! We had dabbled with the idea, but had no idea how to do get parents alongside of kids.

We took a huge leap and started a family service last year. We sandwiched it inbetween our two regular services. So regular attenders could come to both services, adult and family. We still run kids porgrams during the adult services, so it was a huge labor of love, but the benefits have been tremendous!

It is modeled after Kidstuf, Reggie's church and yes they started with the church with this focus, but it is never to late!

I had to drag my pastor out there to finally catch the vision, but our church and community was so ready for this! At the core, I believe parents do want to be the spirtual leaders, but as stated above, not sure how, I also believe it really focus us in ministry to seek what does it mean to be a spirtual leader!

We just did a survey and the feedback we got from our parents is unbelievable positve and wonderful about our step to reach out to parents as the spirtual leaders!

We are now looking at other ways to get in depth on what it takes to be a spiritual leader for our kids. I am working with our pastor on this whole idea, as well as we will restart our family serivce again this fall. BYW we named it the The Link, and started the vision of where families connect and virtues come alive. We like to think of it as linking kids to parents, to linking the bible to our everyday lives, linkning our lives etc. and we had key meetings with people about the concept. We got a few key people on board, we showcased it in our main service, we talked a lot about parents taking a lead, they changed my title from CHildren's Pastor to Family and CHildrne's Pastor, we tried to make a lot of of little, yet very intentional steps to get things moving in this direction to start partnering with parents!

When we had our last family service for the spring, we did a family party and celebrated! We had over 90 volunteers on board that had come forward to help us lauch this new "thinking" for lack of better words!

I am anxious to see all of your stuff Karl! We are ready to take the next step! We have parents talking to their kids now on a daily basis about thier faith, we have parents thinking, we now need to go deeper, as all ministry steps do, so I am hoping to learn from you all and adding to what we have started!

It is never to late to change, if that is where God is leading you!

Posted: 02 July 2005 at 11:01am | IP Logged

Hi, My name is Lucy.

My husband and I work with ages 7-12 in our church.

As some have said, most parents barely take the time to even sign their children in.  We have had events which we've invited parents to join in, but parental attendance has always been very low.

But..........I don't think we should give up on parents, just always be there for them and always do things for the whole family whether there is a huge turnout or not. If just one family benefits out of 1000 families the angels in heaven still dance for joy and the Lord is still glorified.

Also, we continously teach the kids to be an example of Jesus at home, to show the change in them, to show their fruit, to be the light in their home, to praise and worship at home, to pray for their family, to honor their parents, and on and on. Somehow, sometime some day, some family has to feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit.We leave it to the Lord.      Thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts.  Can't wait to see what your idea is.  Is t posted yet?Is so, where?  God blesses you.  Lucy, Miami, Florida.

Posted: 02 July 2005 at 3:30pm | IP Logged

I FULLY support the idea of partnering with parents!!!!!!!!! Do any of you do ministry to urban kids, many of whom come from single parent homes (57% in the area surrounding the new ministry that I serve). Most of the children who attend the kids church service are from non-christian homes...

Any ideas concerning how to support and reach out to parents in this type of setting? The desire is in my heart, but I can't figure out strategic ways of how to do it. Any ideas are welcome/invited.

Posted: 09 July 2005 at 12:41pm | IP Logged

Glad to see your name again Denise. Noticed it had the description of CP Team Coordinator. Are you back again as that?

Anyway, concerning this topic I think I have checked all the choices above that apply. There were so many and I kept forgetting which one I had marked when I was ready to mark another. We do monthly family services, although we don't call them family services. The reason is due to our church has alot of people who would not come if they heard family because they may be a family with no kids, or kids out of the house. We also enjoy using our Chi-Alpha group (college age kids).

The service is made up where our preschoolers have a song or two they help with. They also are used in the skits. The whole worship service has ages 6 years and older in the band and worship team. Everyone of all ages help in skits, human videos, worship, puppets, altar workers, offering etc. The senior pastor usually gives us a direction that he feels we should go and then each of the pastoral team takes a portion and runs with it. We meet on Monday mornings and go over what everyone is doing and make any changes at that time. The hardest part it seems to me is that since everyone has a part you have to remeber that, it is just a part. Sometimes the urge is to take that part and make it the main thing. Each part ends up being more of a sermonette. For a talker and prop master like myself that can be difficult at times. I am not the only pastor with this urge on our team.

I am looking into creating a sunday school hour that will be for whole families to attend every week together. I don't want it to be like our service that happens each month.

We also run Take T.I.M.E. family reports. This is a time that the parents will meet with me and their kids and we go over the last 6 months of that child's spiritual development in church and out of church.

We have events that also for the family. One new one I am looking into starting is a family Putt-Putt tournament. More details after I have run this a few times successfully.

Posted: 14 July 2005 at 4:02pm | IP Logged

Pastor Karl, I will have my secretary send you our Take T.I.M.E stuff when they get back from their cruise.

Basically it stands for: Train, Inspire, Mentor, Encouarge. I have set up what I am looking for each child to be able to have accomplished by the time they leave every grade. I have come to this decision through my own goals, and having a sit down conference with the parents to have their own goals added in. This is how we customize it a little for each child.

I have set up how each child can get this accomplished through different ministries that we offer in the cm. Kids get to do some different things by what standard goals they have reached, not parental goals seeing that these change from parent to parent.

I have found that every 6 months works for us. It keeps it new enough for the kids and parents, and helps them know and see all the improvements their kids are making. Sometimes being with their own kids so much they can forget where the child was 6 months ago and they can think that their child is not growing, and so can the child.

We also in this Take T.I.M.E. not only set goals with kids but for the whole family unit. Examples for the family: family devotions, prayer, outings etc. Some examples for the kids: water baptism, involvement on at least one ministry team etc.

Hope this helps for now. I think you can get the idea.

Posted: 18 July 2005 at 10:23am | IP Logged

Karl,

I love what you've done with it so far!!  I think it's awesome that God has dropped this into so many of our spirits at the same time.  I've been throwing around this idea for quite some time, but I was clueless as to how to start something like this!!  Karl, your ideas here have just been a springboard!!!

I would love to see your VIP materials and resources/ideas on Kidology.  I think it would help some of us all walk this out together.  Then, others could post their ideas and materials, too, so that we can all see how this is working.

Rachel

Posted: 19 July 2005 at 4:07pm | IP Logged

Karl,

Great subject.  We incorporate parents through volunteerism.  Wait, maybe I'm dreaming.  our body is struggling with adult small groups and discipleship and we are trying to make some changes in that area.  We don't really incorporate the parents with the kids at all.  We've even struggled trying to promote "family ministry" because of non committal families(parents).  We try to promote marriage conferences and family events but our response is poor.  Right now my focus is to better equip  the children so they might have an impact on their peers as well as their parents.  Thanks for the forum it is awesome.   PKenny in Hot and Humid Indiana.

Posted: 21 July 2005 at 7:34pm | IP Logged

Karl, I loved the video clip! It hit home for me.

It is my greats passion and desire that parents are equipped and empowered to spiritually raise their children. It is the most effective way for us to make a difference in children's lives. Our time with children is very limited. According to Reggie Joiner, we have about 40 hours per year. Whereas, parents have 3000 hours per year! We need to tap into those hours by partnering with parents.

I have a lot of thoughts concerning this issue, but I'll start with one question. What do you think of when you hear "partnering with parents"? What does it mean to you to "partner with parents"? It can mean different things to different people.