family lifestyle portraitA few weeks ago I just finished Barna’s book, Revolutionary Parenting. I bought 10 copies to distribute among church staff and leaders (not just kids staff). I just can’t stop thinking about what this book talked about. I think the premise of the book hits the nail on the head. What we in children’s ministry would truly see as success is a child who enters adulthood with a solid biblical worldview. Yet that’s not what we currently track to measure ministry success, is it?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 4-5 years, you’ve seen “family ministry” become the big buzz word among children’s pastors. Incredible new resources have been developed and powerful ideas have been presented. I love what’s happening in the world of family driven ministry. However, I can’t shake the sinking feeling in my gut that a lot of these “solutions” aren’t going to work in the long run.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m anything but a pessimist and I do love what is being developed… but I just don’t think I’ve seen that silver bullet yet. Maybe the silver bullet doesn’t exist, but I haven’t seen the thing that I can really wrap my arm around and say, “Holy Cow! This is it! Let’s throw all our eggs in this basket.” Maybe I’m being unrealistic to think that something like that exists, but maybe we’ve not discovered that “ah ha” idea yet. I think too many of us have gotten caught up in the family ministry resources like family productions, take home papers, family curriculum guides and aligned services and somehow we think that’s going to be enough to develop kids who will walk into adulthood with biblical worldviews. Yeah, I think they’ll help, but it’s not the answer.

Gateway’s a church that’s been raised out of the culture… and Austin is a very lost culture. I understand that in Barna’s research, a significant number of parents with biblical worldviews are letting their kids become adults without passing along the worldview piece. However, what do you do when MOST of your parents don’t have a biblical worldview? What does your family strategy look like to keep parents literally one or two steps ahead of their kids?

So, sorry for my wandering thoughts, just processing out loud. Any thoughts?