Suggestions for Parents: Building a Family Ministry

I am going to finish up this blog series on Suggestion for Parents by talking about how our ministry (or what was ours) is doing family ministry. The original thoughts on this series came when I was still doing youth ministry, so all the thoughts that follow are based on the ministry at Platte Woods UMC

A church that focuses on the family is a church that is doing ministry right. We often forget that the family is the center of God's plan. The church can sometimes be in a hurry to customize the message to reach individuals that we forget about the overall plan. Churches should focus on building the family and making them strong and that will in term strengthen the church and the world. We need to have ministries that work with children, youth, adults and older adults but all these ministries need to work together. This will include studies, take home material, sermons and more. Events should be designed to include the whole family, to integrate the older adults with the younger children.


What do I think the family ministry of a church should look like?

• Be Mindful: The church should always be thinking about how what they do can affect the family. This would include schedules, times and places. If you have an event for the parents, make sure there is childcare for those with younger kids.
• Equip Them: Recognize that the parents are the ones to reach the family. Do what you can to equip the parents to develop the faith of their own children.
• Support Them: Be there for the family. This could mean having resources for various types of tragedies and struggles, doing events that build up the family, teach on things that help the families or have a fund to help families going through financial struggles
• Reach Them: I visited a church in Florida that had services for adults, youth and children every weekend. These services rain simultaneous with each other and for most of the year, taught the same topics just adjusted for the audience. When the people left, they were handed informationi to take the topic home. The church needs to reach the whole family and I believe this church was doing it well.

I know there are a ton of family ministry ideas out there and I am currently reading Think Orange by Reggie Joiner. I have talked with some church people who believe that there shouldn't be anything call youth ministry and I have talked to those who believe each ministry should be completely separated. I think there needs to be a mixture of the two. Churches need to be more purposeful about reaching the family and helping them grow stronger in their faith.


I pray that those who are reading this or the other blog posts in this series get an better idea of how I feel about the family and how God is using the church to build them up.


1 of 5: Faith starts at the home
2 of 5: Priorities: Where does your family focus their time?
3 of 5: Expectations: What should the church expect from parents?
4 of 5: Expectation 2: What should the parents expect from the church?
5 of 5: Working together, what does our family ministry look like?