Family ministry advocates within Conservative Protestant circles commonly assert that Christian parents are abdicating their responsibility as the primary disciplers of their children, that youth ministries and other age-specific ministry models are to blame for this parental neglect, and that these factors account for an increasing number of young adults leaving the church. The solution to these problems, they say, is to restructure church life to reflect a family ministry strategy designed to equip parents for their discipling role. In light of recent research on religious parenting, family ministry proponents need to revise both their understanding of the challenges they face and at least some of their proposed solutions. This new research shows that Christian parents see themselves, not their congregations, as primarily responsible for passing on the faith to their children. They neither expect nor seek much help from their congregations. These same parents hold firmly to a nearly universal set of American cultural beliefs about intergenerational faith transmission. Unfortunately, some of these convictions are likely to hinder the process of forming life-long disciples of Jesus in partnership with the church. These foundational beliefs about parenting are created and sustained by significant long-term changes in the place of religion in American life and in modern western conceptions of the self. Thus, congregational leaders who wish to equip parents for uniquely Christian parenting will need to address not just how parents think about their task but also the underlying cultural and structural factors sustaining those beliefs. Family ministry must be reframed in light of how Christian parents really think about their task and why they think that way.

Creator

• Bergler, Thomas E.

Keyword

• Church work with families

Date created

• October 2021

Resource type

• Article

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/