It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent (2023)
Helping the Church Community Empower Families
Children’s and family ministries look different from just a few years ago. Parents have fast become the most important component of faith formation within their family. Church leaders are wondering how to transform the lives of parents, caregivers, grandparents, and church communities. Parents are on the frontline of faith formation with their children. Throughout this course, church leaders will discover how to journey alongside parents to nurture, equip, empower, and effectively communicate with them.
The course is designed and hosted by the Rev. Dr. Kevin Johnson, Director of Children’s Ministries, in collaboration with Rachel Turner, author of the book It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent, published by Parenting for Faith and Bible Reading Fellowship. Each of the six sessions contains readings from the book, a recorded video conversation between Kevin and Rachel that delves deeper into key points from the reading, and opportunities to interact and ask Rachel questions via an ongoing chat feature. In addition, three live Zoom webinars will be offered throughout the course with Kevin and Rachel.
There is one key belief we need to embrace if we are to position ourselves well to encourage and equip parents: there is no one right way of parenting for faith.
Through six self-paced, asynchronous sessions, participants will benefit from several key insights that will assist church leaders, help parents in overcoming major obstacles that hinder faith formation, and implement practical ways to lay the foundation of a church culture where parenting for faith can flourish. Church leaders will develop a better understanding of the role parents have in faith formation and, by nurturing those relationships, change the overall culture in the church.
The six sessions of this course include:
- The role of parents and what that means for church leaders
- Helping parents hope – giving them vision and truth
- Skills parents need and equipping parents through the church community
- Walking alongside parents individually
- Church culture and creating space, community, and encouragement
- Equipping, empowering, and enabling parents in their roles as primary faith developers, especially those on the fringes of our faith community.
This course is offered in both CEU and non-CEU formats. For those interested in earning CEU credits, there is a version of the course available for $75 that offers 2 CEUs upon completion. Both formats require you to purchase the book, It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent.
NOTE: Registration for this course closes on Friday, October 20, 2023. The course content will no longer be available to participants after Tuesday, November 21, 2023.
Your Instructor
Rev. Dr. Kevin Johnson serves as Director, Children’s Ministries for Congregational Vitality and Intentional Discipleship at Discipleship Ministries. Kevin’s hero Fred Rogers suggests that we, “listen to the children, learn about them, learn from them. Think of the children first.” This quote defines Rev. Kev’s approach to ministry, as well as his passion for intergenerational worship and communication. Kevin, an ordained elder of the Kentucky Annual Conference, has over twenty years of ministry experience. He holds an MDiv (Master of Divinity) from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a DMin. (Doctorate in Ministry) in Homiletical Leadership from Phillips Theological Seminary. Prior to his call into ministry, Kevin worked in the hospital setting with physically disabled patients, and in psychiatric group homes for emotionally and physically abused children and youth. He has been happily married to Jennifer for 29 years, and has three children, Braden (27), JonMarie (22), and Will (16).