“Faith is learned as it is woven seamlessly into the fabric of daily life,” says Traci Smith in Faithful Families (p. 1).
As ministry leaders, we’re called to help our congregation encourage and equip families as they nurture faith at home. Each resource in this section has been chosen for its ability to be seamlessly woven into the life of a family, as opposed to being yet another thing for busy families to add to their “to do” lists. (We call that our Family Do-Ability Test.)
Some ideas for equipping families with these tools:
- Link to them from your church website.
- Post a “Tool of the Week” in your bulletin or online.
- Purchase the items for your church library.
- Set up a Family Faith Formation display and lend families the tools they’d like to use.
- Purchase items in bulk and make them available for families to purchase at a discount or by donation.
- Develop a faith formation plan in which your church blesses families with particular tools as part of a milestone celebration (for example, a God Loves Me book and/or the Home Grown Handbook for Christian Parenting as a baptism gift, a copy of Parenting in the Pew when a child enters preschool, a set of God’s Big Story cards or The Jesus Storybook Bible when a child begins school).
- Provide families with a “Welcome to God’s Family” basket of resources when they have their first child.
If there’s a tool you need for families but don’t see here, we’ll try to find it. Contact us at [email protected].
