Philosophy of Family Ministry

For some the concept that springs to mind when they think about Family Ministry is a church that has parenting classes, youth group, and family friendly social events for all ages. For others the mere idea of a church focus around family ministry implies that you must have children in order to be a part. What is often missing in a consideration is the ultimate purpose or end goal that a church might have for their Family Ministry. Often we simply search for something that will entertain portions of the family and call it a day. Even looking at the structure of Family Ministry at SOTH might leave you wondering just why we do what we do. We have Sunday School, VBS, kids clubs for two age groups, confirmation, high school youth group, parenting classes for parents of young kids, classes for parents with teens, we even are launching classes to teach parents how spiritual guide and bless their children. Yet the question remains, why do we do all these things?

There tend to be two distinct schools of thought best understood by the direction that ministry flows. In the first and more traditional model, members of the church look to the congregation and the professionals in the congregation to provide classes that will teach their kids all about the faith, while little else takes place in the home to either affirm or deny what is taught. Parents might attend classes themselves for tricks of the trade in parenting, but the home is not the target of transformation. Content is taught, but behaviors are not addressed. Notice in the illustration the all activities is focused on the church. This naturally limits the impact that the church as the body of Christ can have in that its members are so focused on the institution that they miss opportunities to extend ministry within their own communities.

In the second model, the home is seen as the focal point for spiritual growth and the congregation as the source for equipping to support that growth. Parents are taught how to lead their children to grow in the faith. The staff and volunteers are not seen as the doers of all things, but as the equippers of the doers which are the many families within the congregation. Notice that the focus of ministry is outward in the illustration. The church as an institution is focused on the ministry of the church as the body of Christ, not on its own institutional survival. Ironically, a church whose family ministry focuses outward in this manner has a better chance of institutional growth not merely survival than the congregation focused solely on its own preservation.

So what does this look like at SOTH? Well for starters, the take home sheets at Sunday School should be given more emphasis than they are. When most parents don’t know that there are hand outs that their kids are to be bringing home, we have failed to equip the body. When confirmation is merely a place to drop kids off for a couple years so that they can graduate from church learning, we grossly fair to equip the body. When we fail to teach children how to pray, how to worship, and how to grow as a Christian within their own families, we fail to equip the body.

Now before you think that I am being overly hard or critical of the ministry that has been and is taking place at SOTH, just know that this is a transformation for myself as well. There are times in life when core questions need to be asked and the answers seriously applied. It is all too easy to do what has been done since, after all, it worked before. Yet, if we are to be faithful to God we need to gain perspective through a broader vision of what our ultimate goal is for Family Ministry. The question can be looked a as defining what a win looks like. In other words if we succeed, how do we know that we did.

In the coming months and in fact years, more and more of the Family Ministry at SOTH will be reshaped in order to fit with in this Philosophy of Family Ministry and in fact this philosophy itself will be refined and sharpened. i welcome each of you to be active participants in this process, because it is your families that we are talking about.

May God richly bless all that we say and do in His name!