In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted an area of challenge for most churches. Many children’s and family ministry leaders are tasked to create in-church activities for the families, part of a church-centric design. They are often not equipped to focus on the home environment as part of their jobs. Also, while parents understand they have a responsibility to nurture their children’s faith, many do not know how.
In Deuteronomy 6, we see how God designed faith to be formed in the everyday activities of life, as parents and children interact: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road when you lie down, and when you get up.” In their comprehensive research on religious parenting, Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk realized the importance of the home and parental interaction: “Parents are by far the most important factor influencing their children’s religion, not only as youth but also when they leave home.”1 While youth groups and children’s ministries are still an important way to partner with parents in faith formation, they are not the only or even the most effective way to nurture faith. The family and the family’s life within the home are central to a person’s spiritual formation.
This is why the Educational Ministries department created Spiritual Formation in the Family, a course focusing specifically on the importance of the family environment as a fertile place of formation. While we do offer classes that highlight how churches can enhance congregational life for both families and children, this important addition stands out as we equip students to cultivate a vision for spiritually vibrant households and to implement this vision in both their personal spiritual lives and the local church.
Students in this course explore the family environment as a place of faith formation for all ages, not just children. They study contemporary family structures, reflect on a biblical vision for family faith formation, reimagine the strategic partnership between church and home, and analyze and test various methods and approaches for family faith formation. The goal of this course is not just to grow spiritually vibrant churches but to nurture spiritually vibrant homes within our churches.
As with other courses here in the Educational Ministries department, it is our desire that students are being equipped both personally and professionally. After participating in the course, MDiv student Ben Halliburton said: “This was a theologically rigorous, spiritually deep, and a practical ministry course… It not only challenged me to reassess how we engage families in our church but also how I personally engage spiritual formation in my own home and family. This is more important than anything else I do.”
I love hearing comments like Ben’s because the Educational Ministries program is all about theologically rich, transformational learning that affects students in the classroom and equips them to make a difference in their unique ministry context. If you care about helping people of all ages learn, grow, and change and are interested in a course like this, I encourage you to apply to our Master’s of Educational Ministries program.
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1 Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 69.
