What does partnering effectively with parents look like?
By finding ways to partner with parents through children’s ministry you can work together to disciple young Christians.
What does it look like for a church to partner well with parents? Personally, I’ve considered this from many angles: I’ve asked this question as a children’s minister amidst the weekly pressure to ensure the moving parts of the children’s programs keep happening. I am a parent and remember the challenge of gently extracting myself from the grip of tiny hands to go back to church. I was once a child, going to Sunday school thanks to regular invites from my best friend’s mum. And now as I work with churches across the western region, I see that there are no quick or easy answers.
The NCLS data continues to show us that 78% of adults in our churches came to Christ under the age of 20 [1]. Youth and children’s ministry matters. We also know that young people are leaving our congregations in significant numbers during their teenage and young adult years [2]. This is not a new phenomenon and there has been much soul-searching as leaders ask why and what can be done? [3]
Various answers have emerged. One significant proposal is the swing away from a strictly ‘silo’ approach to ministry that can draw young people away from their families into specially designed programs at the expense of multigenerational expressions of ministry [4]. There is also the growth of family ministry resources that help churches to better partner with parents (such as Youthworks’ resources).
It’s certainly good to question the ministry structures that we have inherited. Over 200 years ago in Britain, Robert Raikes started what became the Sunday School movement to address a social issue. Now, Sunday Schools and Kids Church programs happen regularly in churches across our city for what have become vastly different purposes. It may be in the belief that parents’ hand over the discipleship of their children to the ‘experts’ who may be able to ‘do a better job’ at discipling children than the parents can [5]. In other places, the children’s program may exist simply to give the whole congregation a break, and allow the adults to gather without the disruption of children.
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It is also not new to suggest that children’s ministry has been influenced over the last hundred years by developmental theory, educational trends and other social forces more than we realised [6]. For example, our Sunday schools are now similar to primary schools in style and educational theory [7]. But do these influences fit with what we want to be doing with our children in church? Have we even asked the question?
I am convicted that children are valuable members of Christ’s church who both give and receive as part of the body [8]. I believe parents do have a particular responsibility to disciple their children [9]. How this translates into best practice in the church context will look different in every congregation but we do need to keep asking questions and wrestling to find biblical answers.
Here’s one idea: What if we saw our children’s ministries as a way to equip parents in raising their children for Christ? For many, it is just not possible to offer another training program for parents alongside the established kids programs, nor start ‘something new’ that attempts to partner with parents. But if we change our perspective and look at Kids Church as a way in which the congregation together raises the children, then new possibilities come into view.
Imagine a children’s ministry where parents are equipped to disciple not only their own children but others too [10]. And not only parents but those who might one day be parents, those who have parented in earlier years or are now grandparents, and those that can take the role of spiritual parents in the church family. As a parent, I have a deep and heartfelt respect for those wonderful people who care and invest in my children’s spiritual growth, whether in a formal role or not. As a child who came into church by tagging along with a friend, I will always be thankful for those who became spiritual parents.
Parents (and I am now using that term very broadly) might train and practice and grow together. It doesn’t mean everyone needs to be involved in the same way all the time. But if we approach both supporting parents and discipling children as not separate but inextricably united activities, this can lead to more effective ways of doing both.
This might look like shared training with current children’s ministry leaders and parents involved. It might mean you have a section of your program that parents run (or grandparents), with a focus on taking it home or sharing faith stories. Perhaps it is a young adult in your congregation who might have a talent or passion for thinking this through. Perhaps your children’s ministry leaders could plan to visit families and talk with parents about how their children are going and how there can be greater collaboration and partnership in discipling children effectively. The aim of this challenge is not to separate parenting from the children’s ministry that happens at church but to find ways to do it together.
We are all different, and at different stages of life, but we need each other [11]. This is true in children’s ministry just as it is elsewhere. I think everyone is richer when parents are involved in children’s ministry regularly and in more than a token capacity. I believe that as we love each other in the enormously important task of being parents, supporting parents and discipling children and youth, the community around us might see that we are truly Jesus’ disciples. This will look different in every church, what might it look like in yours?
[1] Sydney Anglicans 2019, ‘78% of people turn to faith before eighteen’, Sydney Anglicans, viewed 5 February 2020, https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/78-of-people-turn-to-faith-before-eighteen/48960
[2] Kinnaman, D & Hawkins, A 2011, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith, Baker Books, US.
[3] Clark, C 2016, Adoptive Youth Ministry (Youth, Family, and Culture): Integrating Emerging Generations Into the Family of Faith, Baker Books, US; Fuller Youth Institute 2020, Fuller Youth Institute, viewed 4 February 2020, www.fulleryouthinstitute.org
[4] Stanton, G 2010, ‘Mickey Mouse youth ministry,’ Sydney Anglicans, newsletter, viewed 4 February 2020, https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/mickey_mouse_youth_ministry/32272
[5] King, S 2013, ‘Youth & Children’s Ministry Research Paper’, Effective Ministry, viewed 4 February 2020, http://www.effectiveministry.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Yth-and-Chns-Paper-revised-ed.pdf
[6] Posterski, B, Stonehouse, C, Cannell, L, & May, S 2005, Children Matter: Celebrating their place in church, family and community, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, US.
[7] Yes, we might try not to be ‘like school, but’ I am referring to the ideas that influence these on a larger scale..
[8] Luke 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 12, Acts 2:39, 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-15.
[9] Paul directs parents specifically in Ephesians 6. Also see 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-15 as an example.
[10] I am intentionally using the word ‘disciple’ rather than ‘teach’. We need to be doing more than teaching head knowledge in children’s programs. I am also using the word ‘equip’ following Ephesians 4:11-12.
[11] 1 Corinthians 12:4-5, 7, 27
