Home Discipleship Resources: Equipping parents to disciple their kids

A variety of helpful resources to encourage families to disciple their children at home

What is your family discipleship plan for 2021?

As families and church leaders head into the new year, now is a perfect time to plan for how you will partner together to strengthen the discipleship of children, by their families, in their homes.

Effective home discipleship is intentional, immersive and incremental. There are a wealth of resources that can help each household in your church to fulfill their role as the primary place of disciple making for their children. The balance for church ministry leaders is to provide enough support so that parents and guardians feel equipped to read the Bible and pray with their children, while not feeling overwhelmed with curriculums and expectations. We do not want parents to feel that they need a theological degree and an eighth day of the week in order to disciple the children in their homes effectively.

That being said, below are some of the resources that I have been made aware of over the last 12-18 months that can provide some shape to the regular rhythm of home discipleship for families in your church.

Helpful Youthworks Resources

Youthworks has a published a number of free resources to equip families at home:

•  The 555 Challenge is a resource that encourages families to spend five minutes a day reading the Bible together, five days a week, for five weeks. The hope is that this may help start regular rhythms of Bible reading for families in the home. Families can sign up for the material by themselves. Alternatively, you may wish to sign up your church and distribute the resource out to families as part of your family ministry strategy for the year.

• Kids Pray is a series of printable cards that families can use to focus their prayer time together. Each card focuses on a particular attribute of God and how we can respond to God in light on this truth. It is ideal for partnering with any reading plan, or you can use them independently at the breakfast table, in the car, or while tucking into bed to direct the mind and heart of families.

• Kids Read is another set of printable cards that families can use at home. The cards contain a set of questions, pitched at each age group, that can be partnered with any Bible passage. It is ideal for partnering with another reading plan, or simply reading through of a book of the Bible together whilst using the Kids Read cards to stimulate your knowledge, love and obedience to Jesus because of what you’ve read.

Resources from other Providers

• Quiz Worx are well known for their live shows, especially in public school SRE assemblies. With COVID restrictions in schools and churches disrupting their 2020 plans, the Quiz Worx team chose to express their gifts through the creation of Quiz Worx Home Delivery. This is a series of videos that can be watched by families in the comfort of their own home. 
  Many churches did a fantastic job of creating church-at-home resources for their children and families during 2020. And while we are thankful in Australia to be back to some kind of “COVID normal”, face to face ministry, these videos can continue to be used by families once a week to further encourage you to sit together under God’s word and be encouraged by the playful and joy-filled presentations by the Quiz Worx team.

• Anna Ware is a personal friend of mine, but much more importantly, she is a faithful wife and mother who is passionate about the discipleship of children in the church and in the home. Anna has created a podcast called The Word On The Street, a series of around 10 minute episodes designed for children to listen to with their parents and caregivers. It is ideal for listening to over a meal at home, or in the car during school drop off or between afternoon extracurriculars.

• Faith in Kids is a UK based family ministry organisation. Their Faith in Kids website is filled with plenty [IP1]  of resources for families and churches. The particular resource that my kids and I have found encouraging is the Faith in Kids 4 Kids podcast. Similar to The Word on the Street, this podcast is designed for families to listen to together. Though episodes are typically around 20 minutes long, there are a mixture of Bible readings, questions, prayer, and skits.

Further Reading

The above resources are all free and could be suitable for a number of families, whether they are starting home discipleship for the first time, or already in a regular rhythm.

If there are parents or families that want to dig deeper into home discipleship, here are a few suggestions for further reading that can encourage parents and caregivers in their discipleship role:

• GrowingFaith.com.au is a Youthworks owned site specifically focused on helping parents engage in home discipleship. There are all sorts of short articles on all aspects of parents and family life as well as book and movie reviews. These articles will help parents navigate the culture their children are consuming. This site is a great resource to help parents have discipleship moments throughout all of life.
  growingfaith.com.au

• The Storm-Tossed Family by Russell Moore explores both the joys and struggles of families. Deeply grounded in the gospel, Moore encourages families to live in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. This aims to both affirm but also deeply challenge different aspects of Christian family life.
  Amazon | Koorong

• Family Discipleship by Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin promises to help families develop sustainable rhythms of discipleship in the home. Consider this a pre-review recommendation, as it is the next one on my personal reading list, though written by two trusted preacher-pastors from The Village Church, Texas.
  Amazon | Koorong