A Change in Perspective for Family Ministry: Part I

As a family minister and a parent to a young child, I’ve been thinking about how our church can better serve families in our community. But revitalizing a children’s ministry is a big task, and something that I don’t have all the solutions for. Believe it or not, pastors don’t have all the answers to life's big questions.

So, I’ve been looking for educational opportunities to deepen my knowledge on this subject. In my pursuit of learning, I recently attended a conference where I participated in several workshops on children’s ministry. One of these workshops was particularly interesting.

The facilitator of this workshop is a seminary professor who, with the help of a financial grant, has worked with churches to offer families in the congregation a free weekend retreat. At the end of the weekend, parents and children filled out surveys about what they liked and didn’t like about the retreat. When the leaders compiled the results, they found that regardless of a church's denomination, political leaning, or worship style, in every congregation, kids’ favorite time of the weekend was the time when they were with their parents.

The workshop facilitator then asked us the underlying question. “If our findings show that children prefer time together with their parents, why do most of our family ministries separate children from their parents?” I had never thought of ministry in this way, but it made me seriously wonder, "What would it look like to offer opportunities for families to stay together during their time in the church building?" It’s a new concept for sure, but something we should seriously consider to address this change in preference of families because, whether we like it or not, times have changed.

Take my own story, for example. My mom stopped working when my younger brother was born, and didn’t go back to work until we were in high school. I went to preschool two or three days a week for half a day, which meant the rest of my time was spent with my mom. While this wasn’t the case for all families, it was more common than it is today. Many kids had a lot of time with their parents, so Sunday mornings apart didn’t feel like a sacrifice. As a result, we were at the church all of the time.

Fast forward to today, and the world has undergone significant changes. More families, mine included, consist of two working parents with no extended family close by, meaning children spend more time away from their parents and families during the week. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that parents’ priorities on weekends may be different from what they used to be.

I was recently speaking to a mom of a preschooler at our Ruby Cashion Preschool. We began discussing parenting and the challenges that come with bringing a young child to church. When talking about Sunday opportunities for families, she said, “If I’m being honest, I feel bad putting my son in childcare for two to three hours on a Sunday morning when he already spends the majority of his week away from me at daycare. In an ideal world, his dad or I could stay home with him during the week, but the reality is that for my family, we both have to work, so I value our time together on the weekends. Coming to church and being apart just doesn’t feel right to me. I know a lot of churches do welcome kids in worship, so we could theoretically stay together, but if there isn’t something specific for him to do or a specific space for him to be, then he easily gets bored, and I end up not being able to focus on the service because I’m so focused on him.”

So, I’ve begun to ask the question, “How might we create opportunities that are life-giving to both parents and children that allow them to spend more time together while participating in the ministries of Central?" I don’t have specific answers yet, but I invite you to brainstorm with me as we consider how to create ministries where both children and parents feel their time is well spent.

We can spend our time and energy trying to figure out how and why culture has changed and point fingers at various parties and entities to blame for this culture shift. We can make all kinds of excuses for why parents should bring their kids anyway, or bemoan the ways that adults parent their children differently in today’s world. We can stick our heads in the sand and act as if the world hasn't changed, continuing to do things the same way they've always been done, hoping our culture will return to the way it was, but the reality is that none of that helps us serve families or creates opportunities for them to belong.

Our calling is to serve families, and if we want to do so, then we have to do it on their terms in today's world, which demands us to change the ways things have always been done. This can be challenging work, I won't lie. But I take hope that while methods, language, and images may change, we still convey the same message that we have always strived to communicate: God loves you, and we do too.