Parents/caregivers are the single greatest influence on their children and the home is the primary place of faith formation.
Study after study reveals to us this truth. Parents and caregivers help shape the worldview of their children more than anything or anyone else including church, school, peers and sports. In fact, the second greatest influence are grandparents so that places all of those other influences in a distant third (Want to read more about this, click here).
And that begs a question: If parents/caregivers have the greatest influence on their children, who has the greatest influence on them?
Who is influencing the influencers?
It’s an important question to ask, because whoever is influencing the parents/caregivers is indirectly influencing the children. Wherever the parents are going to get advice, to find support, to resource information and to understand society is the place that wields tremendous influence over children.
It’s because of this that I struggle with the message we often share that says church gets 40 hours a year, schools get 1,200 and parents get 3,000 and therefore parents have the responsibility to disciple their kids.
They do, but they are not meant to do it alone. We, the church, often say that the church is not a building, it’s a community. But when we consistently and often exclusively share messages like the one above, we reinforce that idea that church is a place we go 40 times a year for an hour at a time.
We can’t have it both ways.
If church is a community of faith committed to doing life together, then church should be in the schools, the homes, the playgrounds, the neighborhoods, the restaurants, the grocery stores, the soccer fields, etc. Parents/caregivers are the greatest influence; every study, secular or religious, shows us this. But limiting the church’s influence to only 40 hours a year says that church is nothing more than a building we go to once a week and the faith community is just the pastoral staff and volunteers that interact with our kids on that day.
What if the church was the greatest influence on parents/caregivers?
The influence of an involved and present faith community that prays for each other, interacts with each other, and disciples and mentors each other far beyond set meeting times of “church” can’t be measured by hours. And the support that the parents would feel from knowing they have this spiritual community surrounding them and joining them in the job of raising the next generation would be palpable.
So, who is influencing parents?
According to Pew Research, parents use social media heavily to find the advice, support, resources and understanding mentioned above. 74% of parents use social media to get support from their friends there. Social media is broadly viewed as a source of useful information and as a parenting tool, with mothers using it as a parenting resource slightly more often than fathers. 59% of those surveyed said they had gotten parenting advice off of social media in the last 30 days. And you know what is really interesting about this? Of their friends on Facebook, parents only qualified 50 of them as “actual” friends.
That’s a lot of influence for people not even considered actual friends.
I truly believe the church can fill that gap. In fact, I think the church is supposed to fill that gap. I think church can be more. I think God meant it to be more. And I think as children and family ministers we have the awesome job of bringing that vision to the forefront in our church
Some good questions we can ask: How is our church doing this? How is the faith community coming together in ways that reach beyond Sunday morning and Wednesday nights and connecting church and home all week long? How are the parents/caregivers encouraged, supported, resourced. and restored through their interactions with their church? How do their kids see their parents/caregivers interacting throughout the week with their church family? And how is this influencing faith, not just of the children, but the parents/caregivers as they raise their kids?
We are called together, not apart.
We are called in community, not separately.
We are called to be the body of Christ, joined and fitted together. Discipleship of the youngest generations is our job, collectively and individually. Let’s BE the church…together!
Free Family Discipleship Resource For Summer
If you are looking for a way to help families connect with one another and with God, we’d like to offer our Journey with Paul Family Activity Packet FREE to you and your church!
As the family explores the journeys of Paul, they will learn about the gospel in a new and different way. Rather than simply re-telling many of the same stories that many Sunday School and church curriculums focus on, the activities in the packet will invite the family to engage with the people, places and teachings of Paul.
During the journey, they will: Complete a Family Photo Scavenger Hunt, play a round of Family Olympic, have an epic Water Balloon Battle, plant a Family Garden and enjoy a Picnic in the Park
ReFocus Roundtable: Connecting Generations at Your Church
Join ReFocus Ministry on May 29 at 1 pm EDT (12 pm CT, 11 am MT, 10 am PT) for a free webinar that will give you the basic building blocks of intergenerational ministry as well as offer practical next steps and resources to identifying and connecting the generations present in your church today.
Email us at christina@refocusministry.org to save your seat at the table.
About the Author
Christina Embree is the founder and director of ReFocus Ministry. She holds a masters in ministry focused on Children, Youth, and Family Ministry and a doctorate in spiritual formation with a focus on age segregation and intergenerational ministry. In addition to coaching churches of multiple denominations and traditions all around the globe, Christina serves as the Minister of Generational Discipleship for the Great Lakes Conference of the Brethren in Christ and as a pastor at Plowshares Brethren in Christ in Lexington, Kentucky. She is widely recognized as a speaker and author in the areas of generational discipleship, intergenerational ministry, and family ministry. As the mother of three children, she is familiar with the challenges of faith at home and pastoral ministry. She along with her husband Luke share a love for the church, their community, and the global work of peace and restoration through Jesus.
