Involving parents in key spiritual moments
My friend smiled. ‘Look!’ she said as she showed me her phone. ‘Lola’s childminder just sent over this video of her first steps. She can walk!’ She turned to me, tears in her eyes. ‘I missed her first steps. I should have been there.’
Just like those first steps, there are significant moments in a child or teen’s spiritual journey. These might be the obvious ones, like a child giving their life to Jesus, or more personal ones, maybe catching an answer from God for the first time or thinking through a big topic.
These often take place in children and youth groups, and that’s OK. But there are lots of reasons why we should include parents and carers in them as much as we can:
- We are only a tiny part of kids’ discipleship journey. This moment is just that: a moment. Their parents have been journeying with them beforehand, and will be continuing the journey when they go home.
- The parents are the expert in their child and can guide and support them better than we can.
- By engaging the parent in the moment, we empower them and build their confidence in their ability to parent their child for faith.
As Rachel Turner says in ‘It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent’, ‘There are so many significant spiritual things we do in children’s ministry without considering that parents might want to be a part of them. Let’s not steal those moments from parents’.
It takes only a little shift in how we do things for us to empower parents and allow them to engage more fully with those moments. The following may help you think this through in your context.
Communicate well in advance if you know something is coming up that may trigger a key moment.
This might be if you know that you’ll be inviting children to give their lives to Jesus as part of the curriculum one week, or if there’s a potentially controversial topic. That gives the parents time to talk to their children in advance, to choose to be present that week or to decide their child isn’t ready for that topic yet.
Allow parents in.
Depending on your context you might have an open door policy. Or can parents come in for a session if they want to? Do you want to invite them in regularly, say once a term? Might you issue an invitation if you know the topic is one they might like to learn about alongside their kids?
Rethink how you do courses.
Churches often offer things like Youth Alpha or baptism preparation classes. I know I used to take the kids away for three sessions, then bring them back in and present them to their parents as now ready to be baptised. But how about if instead of taking the children away to teach them, we rejigged the material so the parents come along too? Then the children can be alongside their parent, hearing their stories and learning from them, and they do this key moment together?
Redirect kids back to their parents.
Even with the best preparation and communication, there will always be times when a child or young person experiences a significant spiritual moment in your group. But there are ways you can still involve their parent. For example, a child makes a decision in your Sunday morning group that they want to become a Christian. Rather than taking them through a prayer of commitment, you can say: ‘That’s amazing news! I can’t wait for you to tell your parents so they can help you. We’ll go and find them straight after the group finishes!’ Or encourage the child to go back and share what’s happened to them: ‘Let’s make sure mum knows about how you felt when you were praying. I know she’s been so excited about the way you and God connect.’
You might also be interested in: