Evangelical families are failing to win and keep many of their own children in the Christian faith. How can churches become intentional about spiritual formation at home and how do we move towards integrated strategies? We asked the Strong Families Innovation Alliance to identify ten components that are essential to building a customized strategy for church-driven, family-centered redemption. Think of these as ten “Lego pieces” essential to any such model.
Empower a visionary champion
If everyone owns it, no one does. Make it clear which senior leader is responsible for keeping spiritual formation at home objectives on the team’s radar screen.
Establish new success measures
What gets measured gets done. Introduce simple measures that will keep you focused on family-centered strategies and drive continual improvement.
Build upon existing church vision
Do not compete with or criticize the existing vision. Build upon it to drive family-centered strategies. Don’t call the church to change everything, but to make everything more effective.
Build into the existing church calendar
Include experiences on the church calendar that will move people toward greater intentionality, rather than try to squeeze them in as exceptions or special events. The more “autopilot” your family emphasis game plan, the easier it will be for everyone.
Use “home” lens
As a priority, every area of the church must own the family ministry vision. And, every department and program needs to apply “faith at home” lenses to what they are doing, rather than creating another program competing for attention and resources.
Define success and call families to commitment
Give families a vision of what success at home means and repeatedly call them to commitment and intentionality.
Foster a culture of family intentionality
Find ways to communicate the priority and celebrate the practice of families becoming intentional.
Customization – one size won’t fit all
Every family is unique due to their life-season, ages and number of children, marital health, and special circumstances. Provide tools that make it easy for families to customize.
Invest in tools for families
Just like we invest in curriculum for Sunday school, we need to invest in tools that will make it easier for families to do the right thing.
Two degree strategies
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. It is better to start small and build momentum than try to change everything all at once or achieve complete buy-in from all sectors.
Using these ten “Lego piece” shapes, Alliance churches went on to create a variety of models that fit their unique needs. We encourage other churches to do the same.
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