11 Children’s Ministry Is Family Ministry: A Recipe for Turning Parents into Partners

Children’s Ministry Is Family Ministry

A Recipe for Turning Parents into Partners

It’s hard to see the logo from inside the bottle.

Research in the sociology of religion suggests that the most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents.

It didn’t take long to learn that children’s ministry is about a whole lot more than children. Often, the first members of the family we meet are the parents. Usually, they’re the ones bringing their kids to church, meeting the teachers, and evaluating our program to make sure their kids will be safe and happy during their time with us.

It’s not until after parents have decided our ministries are a good place for their children that kids get asked that all-encompassing question, “Did you have a good time?” The answer to that one question can determine whether this family comes back.

Before we talk about the hows of partnering with parents, we have to acknowledge a challenge most churches face that stretches beyond creating programs and processes to keep parents in the church engaged and supported. First, we have to have the parents.

Here’s what I mean. More and more churches are struggling to get and to keep families with children and youth involved. I often find myself sitting with pastors looking for ways to increase the number of families with children in the church.

Church leaders know that if they can’t reach young families, their church is one generation from extinction. But even more importantly, we know that today’s families, often minutes from our churches, are struggling like never before.

We know we have good news for them. We have a community of care and support for parents trying to hold their families together in a culture accelerating so quickly that much of what was nailed down is flying apart. In the midst of struggling, exhausted families in the blocks surrounding our churches, the most common question we hear is “How do we get them to come to church?”

How Do I Get More Kids?

You’ve probably heard this one before (maybe you’ve even said it): “Kids don’t drive themselves to church.” And it’s true, they don’t. As a result, our partnership with parents begins before those parents are even involved in our church, often before those parents even know our church exists. This is the crucial part of parent ministry that almost every children’s ministry ignores.

If we’re going to engage children who are not currently engaged in our ministries, that work begins by helping parents see the value in what we have to offer their children. Before they step in the door, we have to convince parents that doing so just might be worth the time and effort of getting their children to our program.

Attracting families not yet engaged involves more than providing a good program for those who come. The typical children’s ministry professional spends almost all their time focused on the children and parents who already show up, and almost no energy working to engage more children and families.

In this chapter I will give you a number of recommendations for becoming a more outwardly focused children’s ministry, one that consistently sees new families engage in the life of the church. But here’s a secret: though my ideas might be brilliant, the key is not so much the ideas as it is giving persistent attention to reaching out to new families. Like so many aspects of ministry, the process usually works if we actually work the process.

There’s no hard and fast rule, but I recommend you spend at least 20 percent of the time you allot to children’s ministry in strategizing and reaching out to those not yet involved. A lower investment may produce some results, but you’re not likely to see the sustained involvement of new families without spending a significant percentage of your time on this priority. Spend your 20 percent on these ideas as a starting point, and within six months you’ll come up with ideas much better suited to your community.

1. Invite nearby families to events you’re already doing. If you have events on your children’s ministry calendar that usually draw a crowd, like VBS, an Easter egg hunt, or a fall festival, start there. You already know how to run these events. The piece you’ll add is the connective tissue between your event and a specific focus on new families.

If your team is used to being event focused, don’t be surprised if you get some resistance to inviting families from the neighborhood. We often hear short-sighted leaders—both staff and volunteers—complain that parents drop off their kids for “free babysitting” or who come out of the woodwork for a fun event but never come back. This perspective misses the reality that these children and parents are the pool from which the new families—the ones you’ve been praying for—will come to your church.

An emphasis on engaging families not yet involved will require much more legwork, both on the front end and on the back end of your event, so you’ll need three strong systems in place.

2. Sponsor a program for the community. Another way to reach new families is to offer something of value to your community. Some churches offer a place for kids to come after school to have a snack and get help with homework. Others offer opportunities to play a sport or get some coaching at an incredibly reduced rate or free.

Basketball, martial arts, and even music lessons can draw kids that might not otherwise visit your church. We’ve seen many churches with programs like these—the most common is a preschool or a parents’ day out—but there’s absolutely no connection with or communication between the children’s ministry and the families participating in those programs!

Have your VIP specialist ensure that your children’s ministry captures the contact information for any participating parents or children who aren’t already involved in the life of the church. At that point you can include these families in your deliberate follow-up communications.

3. Pleasant persistence. We never know when a family will be open to visiting our churches. So I am conservative about removing names from our VIP list. Of course, if someone asks to be removed from the list, we honor that request immediately.

Otherwise, we never know when a quarterly email or yearly phone call to a neighboring family might come at just the right time. We never know which families are going through a difficult season of grief or struggle. We’ll never know if we never reach out. I know it’s easy to see all this work as marketing, but once you have a divine appointment with just one overwhelmed parent asking for prayer, you’ll never see this follow-up work the same again.

As long as you’re giving something of value when you reach out to families, very few people will be annoyed (and many with thank you for the call). For example, if you are sending a quarterly email to families who attended your Easter egg hunt, attach an article or a link to a TED Talk they might find interesting, or a short tip sheet for parents. Always remember to include information about how they might comfortably connect with the regular life of the church when they are ready.

4. Stay connected with inactive families and children in your church. There is a good chance there are families in your church whose children are not participating in your program. This can be a hard pill to swallow. Often our knee-jerk reaction is to remove them from the children’s ministry roles. But when we do, we miss a huge opportunity.

The good news is that these children and their parents already consider themselves part of your congregation, so you’re halfway there! Sometimes they need the right opportunity to connect. I’ve seen too many of my children’s ministry friends write off inactive children and families instead of working to connect them through a regular rhythm of reentry points.

I’ve thrown a lot of ideas at you. You may be wondering, What kind of results can I expect from these efforts? There’s nothing scientific about my estimates, but my rough guess is that maybe 5 percent of the new and inactive families you reach out to consistently over the course of a year will become involved in your church. This means that for every twenty new and inactive families you’re working these processes with, you can expect that at least one will become regularly involved in the life of your church.

So if your church has a goal of engaging five new families this year, you’ll need a VIP database of one hundred or so. And if you have a system in place you’re working week in and week out, you may be able to do much better than this ratio.

What we know doesn’t work is depending on the small number of visiting families who just show up to grow your children’s ministry. This approach is what comes naturally, and it’s the reason why most children’s ministries are shrinking.

Focusing on consistently reaching out to parents and children who are not involved may require a significant shift for your team, as you invest 20 percent of your time in these initiatives. But if you’ll give yourself at least a year of working these processes, you may just experience the fresh energy of new children and families being added to your church family on a much more regular basis.

A Recipe for Partnering with Parents

Kids who come to our Sunday school, kids’ church, or midweek program are introduced to Jesus, who loves them, and they will be impacted by what they experience. But what happens when those children get home?

For too long children’s ministries have functioned in a vacuum, focusing almost exclusively on the children. But how we relate to parents, grandparents, and other adult family members can make a huge difference on the effect our ministries have on the kids we work with. It has become a widely accepted fact that parents ordinarily have much more influence in the development of their children than the church does, which makes sense.

On Sunday, we can talk about life applications of the lessons we teach, but at home, children are actually practicing their faith (or not). At home they get to apply a lesson about trusting God when things don’t make sense. At home they have the chance to practice love in an environment that might define love in different ways from the Bible. At home parents have the front-row seat in coaching their children (or not) through their wonderment and questions about God.

But not all families are the same, and different strategies we might offer will work with different parents in different ways. When it comes to parent ministry, one size does not fit all.

Not long ago, I recommended a meal-delivery service to my friend Erin. Here’s how it works: the meal-delivery company sends a person a box with colorful recipe cards and perfectly portioned ingredients, allowing the person to prepare a balanced, delicious meal for their family without having to spend the time planning and shopping they normally would.

I love that someone else takes care of all the parts of dinner that I don’t enjoy—especially deciding what we’re going to eat! I have made things I never would have tried before. We have had lots of delicious dinners, and as our family prepares the meal together, we’ve gotten to spend more time working side by side. And so I recommended it to my friend.

Erin received her box of ingredients and instructions in the mail, and I couldn’t wait to hear how much she loved it. When I called her, she said, much to my disappointment, “The food was good, but I really just don’t enjoy cooking.”

Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. But I get it. Some of the recipes take a little time to chop and prepare. It never occurred to me that the very process that relieved me would add stress to someone else who might rather just throw a couple chicken breasts on the grill and make a salad. While we both have the same end goal in mind—a healthy and delicious meal for our families—we came at that process from vastly different points of view. She values simplicity. I value the adventure of preparing something new.

Many books have been written about how parents can best support the faith formation of their children. And I’m afraid that many of them tend to assume that one size fits all families. My experience is just the opposite. A practice that is life giving for one family may be a real snoozer for another.

I wonder how our parents feel when we offer them take-home cards or links to videos to watch and discuss with their children. I wonder if they feel like Erin.

So as I offer a few basic recommendations for how to connect with and support parents, keep in mind that you’ll eventually need a constellation of approaches, not just one. Now let me introduce you to a few of the basic components you’ll want to include in your recipe for partnering with parents.

1. Provide the basics and beyond. The typical children’s ministry partners with parents in two ways: take-home sheets and a periodic parent workshop. These two strategies are not a bad start, but they are just that—a start.

In addition to a wide variety of general parenting workshop options—both live and on video—you might want to consider offering a workshop or a six-week Sunday morning class just for first-time parents and those soon to be first-time parents. Our experience is that this group is receptive to changing the patterns of their home life and is motivated to do so. I have included a list of great parenting class resources in appendix E.

For many parents, though, the workshops we offer never seem to happen at a good time, and the take-home sheets never seem to make it out of the back seat of the car. And too often the families needing the most support are least likely to access these standard methods.

In the wild world of parenting—juggling jobs, kids, doctor’s appointments, housekeeping, carpooling, and bill paying—are we delivering a box of ingredients they have no interest in preparing? I wonder how many families feel that what we are offering is arbitrary and disconnected.

Sure. Let’s keep sending communications home with kids, and let’s do an annual parenting workshop. But we just can’t stop there.

Too many children’s ministries assume most parents are just not that interested in the spiritual growth of their children. I don’t believe it for a second.

Just because Erin didn’t enjoy preparing a meal from a box, that doesn’t mean she isn’t interested or invested in the nutrition and health of her children. Knowing that countless families start coming to church when their kids are old enough to begin learning about God, we know there is a huge opportunity before us if we’re willing to get a little creative in how we connect with parents. Based on what I see in the trash cans and in the parking lot, it may be time to bag the take-home sheets altogether!

2. Start a parent-connection plan. The best way I know to effectively support and partner with parents is to create the space (in our schedules and programming) to get to know each of the parents, grandparents, and others filling the parenting role for our kids.

Parents don’t start influencing the faith of their kids because we give them a great discussion topic. Children are looking at their parents every day and learning how to be human in every way, including when it comes to faith. Parents are already partners with us in the faith formation of their children, and so there are few things more important to our children’s ministries than building relationships with parents.

I know Sunday mornings are not the ideal time for you to have serious relationship-building time with parents. But your presence and availability to them during that time is key. If you are scrambling around looking for cotton balls, trying to get technology working, or teaching one of the kids classes yourself, you may miss your most important opportunity of the week—connecting with the people who have the most spiritual influence on the kids in your program.

While you don’t have the capacity to immediately dive deep into relationship with twenty families, you can start with two. Maybe it’s a phone call or a coffee date. Each week, you can connect with one new family in this way. When your parent connection plate is full, you might ask other parents to replicate what you have done with them. Before long, you’ve woven a web of relationships between a variety of parents in the church.

We have plans for almost everything else we do in ministry: curriculum plans, VBS plans, volunteer training plans, closet cleanout plans. Shouldn’t we have a plan for something as important as building relationships with parents? You may feel like this is unnecessary or even arbitrary, but without a clearly defined plan you are destined to connect with a limited number of parents you already know well and are already engaged in your ministry. The ones who really need your time have yet to engage in the children’s ministry. And, honestly, making this kind of plan can be pretty simple.

If you have two or three questions for them, there’s a good chance they will do the rest of the work for you. You could start with questions such as:

Remember, given the complexities of your schedule and parents’ schedules, it may take three or four attempts to actually connect with a parent. Don’t give up. Just build in calls to more families each week than you really expect to talk with.

After each call, make a few notes and include a date that you’d like to make the next contact. I’ve put together a sample Parent Contact Tracking Sheet, which can be found in the online resources document (see ivpress.com/sustainable-children-s-ministry.com).

Whether or not the parent gives any evidence they are interested in the spiritual development of their children, you get the chance to plant the seed in your conversation. The cultivation of the seed in the meantime is up to the Holy Spirit.

3. Find the good and celebrate it. When you see the parent of a child in your ministry, and you have recently noticed any positive attribute in that child, make sure you tell the parent. Encourage your volunteers to find one good thing each week to tell parents about their child.

Even kids who struggle will give you something to brag about if you’re looking for it. Things like singing, participating, laughing, being friendly, sharing, or engaging in the lesson are all expressions of something deeper being formed. And when children overhear us telling their parents encouraging stories, those children are much more likely to want to give us more of the same to talk about the next week.

We parents sometimes have trouble seeing the Spirit at work in our kids’ lives, and we need a little help every now and then. I remember a conversation with Mark after my middle school son had come home from his first mission trip. I remarked that my son was a little disappointed that the mission trip wasn’t more spiritual.

Mark and I talked a bit about how quirky and amazing middle school kids are, how sometimes they are like little children, and sometimes they behave more maturely than adults. I mentioned that after the summer mission trip, my son had begun doing his own laundry. I hadn’t asked him to do it, he just saw that something needed to be done and had started taking care of it.

I didn’t think too much of it. I just chalked it up to middle school weirdness. Mark said, “It’s funny what we think spiritual is, isn’t it? Drew didn’t think the trip was all that spiritual, but it changed his behavior at home. Sounds pretty spiritual to me.”

Mark was right. Something had changed. It might have looked like laundry to me, but something had shifted inside my boy. And I totally missed it!

We can help parents begin to see the messy, transforming work of the Spirit in their children’s lives simply by pointing out the glimpses of growth. We can help parents broaden their view of what is “spiritual” by pointing out what we see in the everyday behavior of their children.

When you see a child helping another child, be sure to mention it to the parents. Even if you don’t have a chance to talk to them that day, you can send a quick email before you even leave the room. (I hear cell phones can do that these days!)

If you don’t have direct interaction with most of the kids, make it a point to ask your volunteers what they see in the children they lead, and remind them to share those observations with parents. We all need good news every now and then, especially about our kids. You can make your church a place—sometimes the only place—where parents count on hearing something good about their kids.

4. Provide shared experiences. One thing that can get families talking faster than anything else is a shared experience. Think family game nights or family vacations that produce stories for years to come.

We can provide these kinds of experiences for our families through a wide variety of intergenerational family events. Some churches start by hosting family worship experiences. While this can be tricky to plan so everyone is participating, you can mix music that is comfortable for adults with a few songs that the kids already know.

Other churches do a great job with prayer stations during their family worship, which allow families to go through the stations together and having a different family member lead a prayer at each station. For most of us, praying in front of other people brings on a new level of anxiety. A well-designed debrief after everyone has experienced the same thing can provide a powerful point of connection.

Service projects provide another great way to bring families together. While it can be challenging to find appropriate work for the little ones, with a little creativity you should be able to find tasks appropriate for each age group.

If you’re struggling to organize something for a larger group, you can always put together less complex service events involving three or four families. It will be easier for you to manage, and might just feel more comfortable for the ten to fifteen folks who participate.

A final idea is to take a program you’ve already got in place and simply add an intergenerational component to it. For example, some churches use the closing service of VBS as a great opportunity to bring in parents to be with their children. You may already give Bibles to third graders. How about adding in a reception with parents and kids following the presentation? If you’ve got a graduation or some other rite of passage from the children’s ministry into the youth ministry, make sure you build in a chance for parents to be an integral part of that occasion.

Remember, you don’t need to provide these kinds of experiences every week or even every month. A few times a year will be a great start to making “families together” just a natural part of the DNA of your ministry.

5. Take it home. So far I have talked about things we can do to support families and bring them together. The one piece I haven’t mentioned is how parents can be more intentional at home about the faith formation of their children. Eventually, we would hope to see faith formation practices in the home becoming normal in the homes of children in your ministry. Here are a few ways you can encourage and strengthen these practices at home.

Of course, the best time to start these practices is when children are little so they grow up with these practices as a normal part of their developmental landscape. As a result, first-time parents often have the greatest receptivity to these practices.

6. Pray. Pray for your families. As a leader in the children’s ministry, you’ll see and be sensitive to things that others may never see. Knowing how easy it is to underestimate the importance of prayer in our ministries, we can create a plan for praying for our families each day. Maybe you put each family’s members’ names on a 3 x 5 card and leave the stack of cards on a table, praying throughout any given day for the family whose card is on the top of the pile. Before long, you’ll be praying for all your families in a regular rotation, without having to carve out a big block of time to do it.

We have the chance to turn parents into ministry partners by building relationships with them, meeting their needs, and exceeding their expectations. Perhaps like never before, busy, often-overwhelmed parents need the kind of support, encouragement, and good news that your church has to offer.

As you begin to build relationships with parents and families, be patient. With parents, we’re playing the long game. The impact may not be felt in a week, a month, or maybe even a year. But as you work these processes over and over again, you and the families you serve will feel the impact.

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