Your role is important in the development of kids who seek the Lord, but its not designed to be the only spiritual leadership that kids get. In conversations at camp this summer, a lot of kids ministry leaders expressed the feeling that parents just expect them to handle the spiritual training of kids. Here are 5 tips to help parents lead kids spiritually.
- Challenge parents to have a plan for reading the Bible with their kids. This can be a planned devotion book on a subject or it could simply be reading a chapter in the Bible each night. Sometimes in our home, we re-visit the Sunday lesson by reading it again in the Bible or re-reading it in another format like the Jesus Storybook Bible.
- Use curriculum apps in the classroom to equip parents to follow-up on the lesson from church. Encourage parents to use an app to re-watch video from Sunday’s lesson or do an activity. This will help parents ask something other than “did you have fun” after church and it will also get kids back in context of the lesson so their memory is jogged to answer questions about the lesson.
- Share articles or podcasts that you encounter. Sometimes it may benefit all parents in your group to read about a topic, or other times you may can provide a specific article to a family with a particular question. Here are some good episodes to share with families from 3 of my favorite sources:
- Kids Ministry 101 blog
- Lifeway Kids Podcast
- CentriKid.com
- Provide milestone experiences for kids and parents. Getting parents involved as leaders, helpers, or supporters at VBS, kids camp, retreats, and other service opportunities will have an impact that lasts long past the event. Find intentional ways for parents and kids to be together and then provide catalysts for conversation … you don’t always have to create the special moment, just provide a situation where it can happen.
- Invest quality time with parents in your ministry. Do coffee, have lunch, or just check-in with parents. Your investment and your personal attention may be the spark that helps a parent re-ignite their fire to lead their kids spiritually in the home. Pray with a parent for their kids. You will learn of prayer needs and issues you never could have known about if you hadn’t asked. Your support will mean a ton. Probably more than you will ever know.
Use your platform to influence parents and kids in your ministry so families grow together and spend time at home talking about the things of God. This causes deeper learning and can help move Bible lessons from single stories they hear at church to transformational encounters with God’s Word in their homes with their parents.