This is both a WPC church update and a blog post about our children’s ministry.

First, the update. God has provided us with our next Pastor of Families and Children. I wish I could tell you his name, but I can’t. I wish I could tell you where he is coming from, but I can’t. He has not yet told his own congregation. So, we need to be patient. This I can tell you. When he joins us, around July 1, Lord willing, he will bring a giftedness for ministry, a heart for children and their families, and a genuineness of character.

And nothing is more spiritually potent in the lives of our children than churches and parents intentionally working in tandem to mature these young saints.

Second, why a pastor for this position? Simple answer: we believe it requires a pastor to fit the philosophy of ministry we have established for our children. Nothing is more important for Christian parents than the spiritual wellbeing of our children. When they thrive, we rejoice; when they don’t, we weep. And nothing is more spiritually potent in the lives of our children than churches and parents intentionally working in tandem to mature these young saints.

The question becomes, then, what might that partnership between the local congregation and parents look like? Answering that question in today’s world, however, is no easy matter. Practices and perspectives have changed over time and vary from congregation to congregation.

After serving several churches, reading a number of books on children’s ministry and then writing a book review of Trained in the Fear of God for the Gospel Coalition (Themelios), I came to the conclusion that God’s church as a whole would benefit significantly by moving to some form of what’s known as “family ministry”—“the process of intentionally and persistently coordinating a congregation’s proclamation and practices so that parents are acknowledged, trained, and held accountable as primary disciple-makers in their children’s lives.” (i)

The particular version of family ministry that holds the most promise for Westminster Presbyterian Church, I believe, is the “family equipping model” in which “every level of ministry is reworked to champion the place of parents as primary disciple-makers in their children’s lives.” The Church continues, of course, to minister directly to the children, and the ministry must come alongside children who do not have Christian parents, but where possible, parents are challenged, taught, equipped, encouraged, and led to disciple their children.

No one is more influential “in children’s spiritual, social, and behavioral development” than parents.

No one is more influential “in children’s spiritual, social, and behavioral development” than parents. That should be obvious to us—the Bible teaches it, common sense confirms it, and research further supports it. But we Christian parents often fall short, sometimes unwittingly, of our God-given responsibility in this area. In part because of what is known as a “deferral culture.”

With the rise of the “efficiency movement” in the early twentieth century, emphasis was placed on specialization, the creation of experts who were considered better equipped to handle certain responsibilities. That has led at times to an over-confidence in the trained staff of the Church such that parents defer responsibilities to the children’s minister or youth minister, responsibilities that are primarily the parents’ and only secondarily the Church’s.

With the family equipping model, however, there is the recognition that trained ministers, who do have expertise, minister directly to the children through relationally-oriented programming and also directly to the parents, in order to help the parents fulfill their God-given role in the life of their children’s spiritual maturity.

In order to get a sense of what this might look like for our congregation, here are four transitions that will help us move in this direction (from The Family Ministry Field Guide):

1. From doing to being: Family-equipping ministry is not so much a program or a curriculum that a church does (though programming and the use of curricula are still important); it is an expression of our identity in Jesus Christ which calls Christian parents to raise children not only as their children but also as potential or actual brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

2. From expecting to equipping: Instead of expecting that parents already know how to disciple their children, family-equipping ministries reshape existing activities to equip parents with the skills they need to become primary disciple-makers in their children’s lives.

3. From assuming to acknowledging: Instead of assuming that parents already know what to do to become primary disciple-makers in their children’s lives, family-equipping ministries intentionally overcommunicate, taking every opportunity to acknowledge parents’ divinely designated role.

4. From segmentation to synchronization: Recognizing that parents are the persons that God has positioned as primary disciple-makers in their children’s lives, family-equipping ministries reshape activities for children until those activities train, involve, or equip families to practice at home what is learned in the larger community of faith. The church, instead of replacing what happens at home, supplements and reinforces the faith training that occurs in Christian households.

It’s hard work to raise our children well, but what can be more important to us than to see our children walking with God? Please pray for our new pastor in this transition.

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(i) Resources: The Family Ministry Field Guide, Perspectives on Family Ministryand Trained in the Fear of God: Family Ministry in Theological, Historical, and Practical Perspective.