Church-Home Partnerships through
HillsideKids
One of our core values
of HillsideKids is the Church-Home Partnership or also known as Partnering with
Parents. Let me explain what this means
for you as a parent within HillsideKids, why it is important and why you may
want to explore this partnership more fully.
The core belief behind
Partnering with Parents is that a parent is the primary educator and caregiver
to their child. That in God’s perfect
plan, parents are set up for success in guiding their children physically,
spiritually, intellectually and emotionally.
In light of this core belief, the role of the church becomes more of a
support and equipping system for parents, a resource to enable parents to do
what God has designed them to do. A
support network for encouragement because this is not an easy task. We want to be available for you as much as we
want to be available for your kids.
For those of you who
grew up in a church context, this question is often best understood in the
terms of what the church doesn’t do anymore.
The church isn’t the sole owner of all things Biblical. The days of turning your kids over to a
Sunday School teacher and never having to teach your kids from the Bible
yourself are no longer valid or Biblical.
This is why at Hillside, we do not offer Sunday School for children. Some people feel it is semantics, but there
are some profound differences that are directly related to how kids learn
(brain development) as well as how kids develop social networks. At Hillside, we
offer age appropriate environments with small group leaders that continue the
dialogue with your kids and their peers that you as parents are having at
home. We are supporting you, saying to
your kids the things that good parents say but from an adult friend social position. We don’t have teachers; we have leaders,
people who lead your children through an experience each Sunday morning. Just like us, kids need to reinforce the
message of the weekend throughout the week in order to sustain life change and
increase in our belief and understanding about Jesus Christ.
It is important because
without life change brought about by the learning from scriptures and the Holy
Spirit, church is reduced to an alternate community for you and your kids to
belong and participate. It is seasonal
and not formational. I saw on YouTube a
piece by an organization called “Not a Fan” the other day that made this come
home for me: “Are you a fan or a follower?” You can check out the clip for
yourself: http://youtu.be/_DytnLSoLQc.
Our goal is to help every child in our church become a follower and not just a
tepid fan of Jesus.
TOGETHER is better! It takes both of us working together. It means that you are doing the hard job of
being a Christian Parent with the church equipping you and preparing your child
for the journey of faith formation. The
ReThink Group reports that in the average year in the life of the family and
they have some amazing statistics used to form what is called the 3000/40
Principle. The 3000/40 Principle is that
at best we may have kids who are consistent to 3 Sundays a month a total of 40
hours per year to lead them in a personal relationship with Christ. That same kid might have 400 hours per year playing
video games and studying, so 40 hours is not much time to influence a child for
a lifetime. Then they looked at the
family hours and found that between all the coming and going in a family, time
around breakfast, dinner, bath time, bedtime and time in the car most families
had roughly 3000 hours per year of unstructured time. One of the goals of partnering with parents
is to help parents to maximize those 3000 hours and point their kids toward
sound Biblical teaching and Christian worldview. To have parents lead their children as the
spiritual heads of their home and to help children choose to become
Christ-followers, not just fans.
Every effort is made to
increase a parent’s knowledge and put a few key tools into their hands each
month.
ParentCue Take Home Papers are handed out each month to help facilitate these
faith-based conversations. They are to
empower you as the parent to lead your child though questions and activities
that you can do in a variety of ways throughout each week of the month. In UpStreet & Avenue252, parents also
receive a weekly devotional called GodTime.
It is for use as a daily devotional for the older child or as a
devotional for the entire family.
ParentCue App.
Download to get the lesson taught the previous Sunday plus a few great extras like our weekly Bible
Story video, take home papers, parenting tips and additional ideas of things
you can do with your kids during all those special times (car time, bath time,
meal time, bed time) during your day.
It’s available from the AppStore or the Play Store for a one-time small
download fee of $1.99.
The HillsideKids Blog contains ongoing
content like this article as well as posts about what is happening in the life
of our church for kids. Currently on the
blog is an article about one of our core values: Church-Home Partnerships
through HillsideKids. Click here to subscribe. Or cut and paste the URL
into your browser: http://hillsidefamilyministry.blogspot.com
HillsideKids Facebook Page where photos and snippets of the kids show up
from time to time along with information about upcoming events. It can be a
great way to connect to other parents at Hillside. Please “LIKE” our page by clicking here! Or cut and paste the URL into your
browser: https://www.facebook.com/pages/HillsideKids/264377103602332
The Parenting Course. Boundaries
with Kids is offered once or twice a year at Hillside to allow parents the
opportunity to work intentionally on parenting and develop a few new tools for
their parenting toolbox. Next offering
will be in April/May.
All of these items add
to our Partnering with Parents and are intentional to putting you, the parent,
in the driver’s seat of your kid’s faith development. May our Good Lord and Savior give us all a
heart of courage and boldness, strength and endurance for the race set before
us!
On the parenting journey
with you!
Terri Woodard, Pastor
Kids & Families
Hillside Church of Marin
Photo Courtesy of The ReThink
Group, Inc. Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
