I have been talking to several churches the past few weeks who are at various stages of transitioning from a more traditional silo ministry model, where they have the various ministries of the church divided so that their ministry elements rarely come in contact with each other, to a family equipping model, where the various ministries of the church function together under the common goal and purpose of multi-generational discipleship and missions and ultimately generational faithfulness. A main common denominator in many of these churches is the struggle they have communicating what the transition means and what it should look like to the leadership and the congregation. One of the main reasons why this seems so difficult to communicate is that most churches see themselves as family friendly places. They promote family values and preach and teach a basically biblical view of the family, and many even have a family ministry silo.
It is a challenge to communicate how our false equation between activity and spiritual growth causes stress on the already overloaded schedules of families, and how we inadvertently divide families up in the church parking lot—never to see each other again until they get in the car to return home. In many of these same churches, there is an unspoken generational arrogance that actually pits senior adults against young adults and parents against children. They can not see the difference between having disconnected ministries for children, youth, young adults, adults and senior adults, and having a vision for ministry that connects those various ministry emphases with the idea of passing down a spiritual heritage from one generation to the next through personal and family discipleship, worship and missions.
That is why the work that we are doing with these churches is so important. Legacy is able to help leaders communicate the values and vision that under-gird a true family ministry discipleship model. We are able to help communicate to parents their biblical role as primary spiritual leaders in the lives of their children and the practical elements and benefits of fulfilling that role. We are able to help them restructure their ministries under one consistent vision for reaching generations for Christ, and to reorient the various ministry elements within the various specialized ministries in order to facilitate a real partnership between the church and the home for the spiritual well-being of the families that make up the church family.
Thank you for being a part of this work with us for the glory of God.
