For two long the church has been in the wrong business. I’m not particularly sure when this happened, but the church has stepped into the role of primary spiritual leader in the life of children and students. Search the scriptures and you’ll find no support for the role the church has been playing. So why do we wonder why such a huge majority of kids walk away from their faith as they enter adulthood? The church must reactivate the family.
Reactivate the family means to help parents actively participate in the spiritual formation of their children. We have to see ourselves as the catalyst to help parents to do their job better. If we don’t, then we’ll continue to loose the youngest generation to apathy, cynicism and resentment. This is going to take a lot of undoing. So many children’s pastors are hypocrites when it comes to parental involvement. We complain the parents aren’t involved or doing their job yet we don’t offer any opportunities for parents to step up in the home. Many parents don’t take the reigns simply because they don’t know how to do what we know so well.
We have to believe in parents. Our attitude toward parents will determine our entire approach toward ministry to the family. If you believe in the potential of parents, it will cause you to change the way you program.
Why does this have to happen? Remember the “refine the message” element? On the best case scenario we know we only have 40 weekends a year with a child. In most of our churches, that’s a little more than 40 hours. Parents on the other hand have over 3000 hours a year to invest in their kids. Do the math. Who has the most influence? Wouldn’t it serve the mission and strategy of our church to leverage this great influence in the lives of our kids? What if only 10% of our parents truly wanted to know how to lead their kids spiritually? Our impact would increase at an exponential rate. So doesn’t it makes sense for us to invest more people, time and resources toward equipping the greatest influence in the lives of the kids?
Man, what a great post. I think that to some degree the church stepped in where many parents stepped out. But, I think that may have been the easy way out. I am brand new in children’s minsitry and this post could very well change the way I do children’s ministry. Thank you so much for this post.
I appreciate that you mention reactivating the family in the sense of getting parents to minister to their kids at home. Many of the other posts today are addressing how to get the family involved at church, which is not bad but only addresses the 0 hours that they are there in a year. Many critics have said that parents will not do this at home so it is a waste of my time to promote it, but if only 2 of 10 families do it, the results are still awesome.
Thanks for addressing the real solution to reactivating the family.
Thanks Brandon. You said the critics say that parents won’t do it at home, so it’s a waste to promote it. Then I say, find another way to promote it. This isn’t something we try and if it doesn’t work, try something else. The Bible is very clear. Parents must lead their kids. Period. We’re not done until we figure it out. There isn’t another tactic. I think though that we have to not beat ourselves up if we don’t see the results we want to see. What if this next year I can get 5-10 families who truly do this? Can I be okay with this?
Good stuff to think about though.
Here is my post for Orange Week: Reactivating the family.
http://samluce.com/?p=2563
Brandon, Great comment (and great response Kenny)!
I also zeroed in on your words “Many critics have said that parents will not do this at home so it is a waste of my time to promote it.” My immediate response is “If parents are not going to do this at home, than what exactly is discipleship?” (rhetorical question). If the parents are not passing down their relationship with Christ, than why would a child follow in their parents footsteps? What you guys are talking about is the mission of the church: equipping parents to inspire the generations to follow after Jesus Christ.
Great stuff guys!