The Nurturing Faith Collective is a collaboration between Bethel Seminary and Entre Ninos to better understand the needs of ministry leaders and a child’s faith influencers. The survey data collected from over 900 ministry leaders and parents around the world is laid out in Partnering Church and Home: Discipleship for the Next Generation (2024) offering helpful focus to ministry leaders to better understand those they serve.

I learned about this book from Brittany Nelson of Deeper Kidmin, a wonderful one-stop online resource for those in the trenches of faith formation for littles and their bigs. Brittany is the founding developer for a Teachers Pay Teachers website for family and kidmin leaders. I ordered it on the spot and was not disappointed.

The book is laid out in three sections with short chapters (1) The Current Reality in Faith Development, (2) What We Need From One Another, and (3) How to Partner. Each chapter offers a beautiful, clear graphic of the data collected comparing any differences between ministry leaders and faith influencers. Each short chapter lays out responses by the overall church AND data collected by Latino ministry leaders and Latino parents. Each chapter ends with “How Can We Respond” section for Ministry Leaders and a separate section of best responses for Parents.

Faith influencers are broadly labeled Parents to include two-parent families, blended families, stepparents, single parents, adoptive parents, foster parents. Faith influencers also include grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other family members, faith friends, neighbors, mentors, and any other adults who influence the spiritual formation of children acknowledging that everyone has a dog in this hunt of informal education, aka socialized learning ‘as a Christian family goes about life’, nonformal education, and formal education.

“Parents are waking up to the important role they play in their children’s spiritual formation.” (p.17)

Three big takeaways for me as I plan programming, resources, and budget for the next school year:

1. Intentionally plan for experiences families can attend together and special events for families of children of similar ages to connect. (p.23)
   MY RESPONSE: Intentional Faith Milestones shared by littles and the bigs who love them and monthly faith formation events as all-skates. programming
2. The number one barrier to developing faith in their children was ‘too many demands on my time as a Parent. (p.29)
   MY RESPONSE: Provide take-out resources, aka Family Faith Kits, to resource families to use easily, promptly, and on their own time schedule. Think Blue Apron meal kits, but for faith formation. budget
3. Break down the silos between adult discipleship and child discipleship, knowing we cannot have child discipleship without adult discipleship. Work together toward a continuum of discipleship that spans all ages and stages. (p.34) calendaring
   MY RESPONSE: Partner and calendar with adult discipleship leaders in my local church to support the whole family of faith with learning and teaching in small group, community discipleship.

I’ve got my marching orders for this next season. 

“The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.” Deuteronomy 6:24-25