Connecting The Church and Home

Henry Zonio

http://www.elementalcm.com

Churches are becoming more aware that the family is where children's faith is influenced the most. For the fourth general session at Cosnpire 2009, Mark Holmen and David Teixeira from Missionary Church in Ventura, CA shared their passion for helping families build faith in their children.

Mark Holmen is the author of Faith Begins At Home and Building Faith At Home as well as serving as the senior pastor of Missionary Church since 2002. Dave Teixeira has been ministering to families through the local church for over eleven years and is currently serving at the Children, Youth & Family Pastor at Missionary Church.

Mark began the session by sharing his experience of growing up in the camping ministry. He saw churches come and get fired up. Then, when he and his family would visit these churches throughout the year, he'd notice that they lost their passion. When he entered ministry, he thought the best way to keep that passion was to make church like camping ministry and take the responsibility of the spiritual development of kids. He had a wake-up call when he was part of a survey of what were the greatest faith influences in the life of kids. The survey results came back to show that mom and dad were THE greatest influences in the faith development of children.

Mark went on to describe two approaches to ministry: a church with segmented departments that oversee different age groups and are "silo-ed" and a church where the different silos each work towards common goals together. Mark advocated the second approach when it come to helping families be the primary faith influence in their children. Each department needs to be focused on how they are helping parents take faith home.

Mark compared this to the small groups movement. Churches with successful small group ministries went from being a church WITH small groups to being a church OF small groups. Churches that will be successful at helping families, Mark says, need to become churches that are "Faith @ Home" churches.

What does this look like?

In the nursery ministry, child dedication becomes more than just a church event. It becomes the beginning of a partnership with parents and church. Dedication becomes a commitment between parents and the church community to raise their children to know Christ and the church community with parents to support them. Families at Mark's church are given a chest of resources to help them as they begin their faith journey as a family.

For what this looks like in children's ministry, Dave Teixeira came up to share. Each year, their children's ministry helps families incoroporate ONE faith practice like prayer or blessing or worship or service. They do it by doing what they call "Take It Home" events. These events happen once a year during Sunday School where parents are required to attend with their children.

There are 4 components to these Take It Home events.

1. Motivate
We need to remind parents of the impact they have on their children. We need to remind them that kids with faith are less likely to engage in risky behaviors and are more likely to be "successful" in life.

2. Model

We need to show families EXACTLY what we're asking them to do. There are many families that didn't do any of the things we are asking them to do like prayer and devotions and blessing... even those who did grow up in church.

3. Practice

Let families practice these things immediately after you teach them. The first time is always intimidating. By allowing parents to practice, it makes it easier for them to continue doing what we are asking them to do at home.

4. Provide

We need to provide take home resources for families that they can use at home. When we do that, we show that what we are teaching is important. It also shows parents that we have an expectation of them to continue doing these things with their families at home.

Mark concluded by addressing communicating this vision with senior pastors. He said that most senior pastors would love to see this happen but don't know what it looks like or how it would work.

Mark suggests that we show senior pastors that this approach doesn't just work with Faith @ Home. It also works with Evangelism, with becoming more rooted in church commitment and reaching out to the world around us. All departments can work towards a set of common goals... one of them being Faith @ Home.

Some of the resources that Mark and Dave have put together are Take It Home (CD resources of their take it home events), Building Faith at Home, and Faith Begins at Home.

As you think about partnering with parents, what are you doing right at your church? What are you doing that needs work?

What do you think of this approach to ministry? What do you think about a church becoming or being known as a Faith @ Home church?

How is your church set up? Is it as separate silos? Do your silos work together? What are some things you can do to work together towards the same goals?

How do you connect with parents in a way  that encourages them? How do you connect with your senior pastor to inspire the entire church to help guild families?

 

Comments

[Lynette Snyder]

I found everything you two shared so true and applicable to my church and my life. I can't wait to share your information with my church leadership. I am also anxious to read the books you have put together. It would be helpful if I could get the survey source for the statistics concerning why youth have faith? Thank you and may God continue to richly bless your ministries.

[Sherry]

This session set a fire in me. I am ready to go back to my (currently small) church home and see how we can incorporate what I learned from David & Mark. Their discussion was helpful and encouraging. Thank you!