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Category: Next Gen Ministry

Covers topics such as leading across children’s and student ministries, working with parents/families, family ministry, thinking beyond Sunday, strategy and systems, collaboration/non-siloed ministry

Free Family Ministry Resources

Kathie Phillips

For the past several months, our Family Ministry staff team has met to brainstorm and process what Family Ministry could look like at our church.  Two key elements that remain at the center of our discussions are (1) we believe that parents should be the primary influence in their children’s lives and (2) our role as a church is to come alongside families and equip them to be that primary spiritual influence through intentional programming and resources.

Be Kids logo

I recently took a look at materials from Be:Kids, a fairly new organization that provides free family devotions to use throughout the week to encourage parents to be involved in discipleship within the home.  Be:Kids co-founder Meredith Chapuis asked me to take a look at the free resources that they provide for this purpose.

According to their website, Be:Kids’ mission is to partner with the collective church to raise up the future generation of leaders in our community and around the world by cultivating character and confidence in Christ. To teach children to walk in the light of the truth, be rooted deeply in love, encourage each other, embrace their individuality, and to seek God’s will above all else.  Their three goals are:

  • Equip and Empower Parents To Live On Mission;
  • Invade Communities With Love; and
  • Make A Generational Change In Society

There are a few facets to their ministry that I love:

Be: Inspired (Blog)

Their blog encourages parents with scripture, reminders about what’s important and prayers.  They also feature real families who share their stories of discipling their children.

Be: Intentional (Devotions)

Each week, a new family devotional plan is published.  Included are:

  • The week’s ‘focus’
  • A memory verse
  • Lunch box notes
  • Conversation starters
  • An application activity
  • Scripture passages, brief devotional and prayer

What I love is the action plan that comes with the weekly devotional.  Sometimes parents who desire to lead a devotional time with their children don’t always know how to do it.  And the printable lunch box notes look amazing!

#Be Box

BE-BOX-AD

 

Click the #Be Box image above to take a peek at what was included in January’s box.

Check out the resources for yourself & tell them Kathie sent ya!  You can also connect with Be:Kids to stay informed of new resources when they become available.

Website:  http://bekidsmobile.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BEKIDSMOBILE

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BEKIDSMOBILE

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bekidsmobile

3 Reminders About Partnering with Parents

Kathie Phillips 8 Comments
Photo Credit: mattmo.org
Photo Credit: mattmo.org

I love my job.  I really do.  But sometimes, in the busyness of making sure that a million details are covered, I can oftentimes forget that families in my church community walk through our church doors carrying some pretty heavy burdens.  I was reminded of that this past weekend.  One family is facing a health crisis while another family is adjusting to new, temporary living arrangements.

My heart breaks for these two precious families.  I wish I had the ‘right’ words to say, other than, “Tell me how I can pray for you.”  But it dawned on me…praying for these families is one of the greatest gifts I can give to these sweet families and the other families I serve.

“Partnering with parents” is a popular phrase tossed around in the kidmin world.  Google it – you’ll see more than 600,000 results!  You’ll see the phrase on websites, in vision and mission statements, listed in an organization’s core values, just to name a few.  But what does it really mean to partner with parents?

This past weekend, I was reminded that partnering with parents begins with a relationship.  Do you take the time to stop and chat with the families in your ministry during weekend services?  Are you even available to make this happen?  Position yourself in visible places in your children’s areas to get to know your families.  Listen to them – really listen.  What are they saying?  What are they NOT saying?

Partnering with parents means regularly communicating with them.  Has a child or family missed several weeks of church?  Has someone been sick?  Is someone dealing with an extended time of crisis – unemployment, illness, new living situation?  Reach out to them with a phone call, email, note in the mail, or text message.  Meet them for coffee.

Partnering with parents means coming alongside them in prayer.  When you say you’ll pray for someone, mean it – then do it.  Pray for them specifically by name.  Then follow-up with them.  I have begun to add this to our weekly staff meeting agenda.  It’s that serious.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways a kidmin can partner with parents.  But think about it.

Build relationships.

Regularly communicate with them.

Pray with them (and for them).

Keep the conversation going by adding your two cents!  What ways do you effectively partner with parents?

Encourage & Equip Families to Worship Together

Kathie Phillips 2 Comments
Photo Credit: Central Presbyterian Church
Photo Credit: Central Presbyterian Church

This month, our church has encouraged families with elementary, middle, and high school students to worship together in lieu of their regular Sunday morning programming.  It was an idea that surfaced at the end of last summer and again this past April at a staff meeting.  It wasn’t really a hard decision for us to make because of two observations: (1) last summer it was almost impossible to recruit volunteers to serve because of August travel schedules and (2) summer is a good time to try something different.  We had also been asked by several families to promote this type of initiative.

After a number of collaborative brainstorming sessions between Children’s Ministry, Student Ministry, Worship Arts, invested parents and Senior Leadership, we decided to go for it.  But we wanted to be strategic about our approach.

We wanted to give advance notice to our congregation, so we began announcing this change a few weeks out.  Our first announcement fell on our VBS Celebration Sunday (when there were many families – regular attenders and visitors – were in attendance.) Our Family Pastor even gave the children a bit of a teaser by announcing that a special ticket book might show up at their house. *See below for more info about this.

In addition, a number of promotional material was prepared.  We contracted a designer to create a Worship Together logo that was used on promotional material through the Sunday bulletin, our weekly e-newsletter, a letter that was mailed home to parents, our website and video.  Our promo videos included a rising 6th grader being ‘interviewed’ by one of our preachers; a skit by members of our Family Ministry team and one by me (gasp)!

We acknowledged that some parents & families might be a little apprehensive about worshiping with their younger elementary-aged children.  We wanted to ease their fears a bit and supplied a “Worship Together Resource” handout for parents to download from our website.  You can take a peek at that here. (I will also place a pdf copy under the “Parent Resources/Downloads” tab on this blog.)

Being very intentional about including children and students in the service is something we also desired.  This included a special blessing that parents could over children and students on Communion Sunday; creatively telling the Bible story through skits (involving children & students); and using examples that kids could relate to.  Our contracted designer also designed a pew card that explained the elements of the service and why we do them.

Supplying children’s worship bags was also a way for us to be intentional about including younger children in the service.  Each bag (a small, bright yellow plastic bag that I had on hand from a previous event) was filled with crayons, a pencil and that week’s specially designed children’s bulletin.  Our children’s bulletin was a one-page bi-fold which included a cover page; a place for older children to take notes (write down the scripture, who was preaching & what they learned); a place for children to circle corresponding pictures every time they sang a song, prayed, gave an offering, took Communion and read their Bible; and 2 activity pages (we varied the activities each week and chose crosswords, coloring pages, decoder puzzles, mazes, etc.)  Remembering that we were catering to children in grades 2-5, we wanted to offer a balance of activities to suit the wide age span.

Earlier I mentioned a special ticket book for families.  We mailed a ticket book to families with elementary-aged children so that the children could redeem tickets each week for a special small treat.  We chose some items that corresponded with the scripture text as well as general items like pencils and bookmarks.

I am hearing pretty good feedback from parents and other adults about how much they’ve enjoyed worshiping together and seeing the children in worship.  Our prayer is that Worship Together would become a regular practice among families at our church.

You may also be interested in reading:

Dear Parents of Young Children in Church by Sharon Harding

What about you?  Does your church encourage families to worship together?

How to Help Your Child Have a Great Year – at Church

Kathie Phillips 7 Comments
Photo Credit: Our Daily Bread of Tennessee
Photo Credit: Our Daily Bread of Tennessee

At this time of year, parents are being inundated with “how to’s” regarding the new school year – how to find the best deal on school clothes, how to pack a healthy lunch, how to set up a well-organized homework area.

That got me thinking:  what “how to’s” can we, as kidmin leaders, give to parents that might help their child have a great year in our ministries?

Here are a few ideas from my KidMin Mom perspective:

Prepare the night before.  Lay out clothes and accessories, bathe the children, set Bibles and offering money near the door, set out non-perishable breakfast items…anything you can do to eliminate as many time-consuming items in the morning will help you get out the door on time.

Go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Being well-rested will ensure that everyone will (1) get up and out the door and (2) help squash grumpy behavior – for parents AND kids.

Don’t forget breakfast.  I mentioned setting out non-perishable breakfast items but don’t forget to eat them (non-sugary options are best).  A full tummy will help kids focus better and again cut down on grumpy behavior.

Play up positives for church other than “fun”.  If you tell your child something to the effect of, “I’ll bet you’ll have lots of fun today!” and they don’t, they will likely resist wanting to go back.  Emphasize that worshiping and attending church is an important start to your week and that when we go to church, we can more about Jesus.

Here are a few additional ideas from my KidMin Leader perspective:

Commit to attending church regularly.  There are so many things that vie for your attention on Sunday mornings (sports, work, custody arrangements, travel, exhaustion, overflowing laundry baskets, empty refrigerators just to name a few.)  But as often as you can, make regular church attendance a priority for your family.

Arrive at church on time.  By doing so, your child is able to get settled in and enjoy getting to know his/her classmates. Many churches allow for more relaxed, unstructured activities at the beginning of the class.  This time is very important for building friendships.

Get to know your child’s teacher.  Your child’s teacher has committed to building a relationship with your child and sharing Jesus with him/her.  This relationship is a very important one to nurture.

If your kidmin provides a calendar of events for the year, plug-in those dates on your calendar.  While you won’t be able to attend every event, try to attend what you can.

Ask the right questions.  Instead of asking, “Did you have fun today?” when you pick up your child, ask more specific questions such as:

  • “Tell me about your day.”
  • What did you do today?”
  • What did you like best?”

Extend learning by taking advantage of provided take-home resources.  Not only will this help your child reinforce what is being taught in class, it will help you as a parent stay connected.  It will also show your child that learning and talking about God doesn’t only happen at church.

Find ways that you can serve together as a family.  Participate in collecting and delivering canned goods, serve as ushers/greeters, or bake cookies for church events.  This will help your child feel ownership and part of a larger community.

Worship together as a family.  Again, this will help your child feel part of a larger community.  Our church is wrapping up a ‘Worship Together’ emphasis in a few weeks.  Tomorrow I’ll share what that looked like for us and how we equipped families to worship together.

What would you add to the list?  Share your ideas with me in the space below!

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