Develop a Discipleship System
It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent Teaching Series Available Now!
By Kevin Johnson
Discipleship Ministries is excited to announce the return of our popular online course for local church leaders: It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent: 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, two live Zoom webinars will be offered with Kevin. At the conclusion of the six sessions, both Rachel and Kevin will continue discussions with participants in another live Zoom webinar.
Note: Registration for this course is now closed.
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.
Dive Deeper:
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. You may also complete the course without CEU credit for a cost of $10. 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.
Rev. Kevin Johnson is the Director, Children’s Ministries for Congregational Vitality & 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. Kevin, an ordained elder of the Kentucky Annual Conference, has over fifteen years of ministry experience in which he has thought of the children first. Prior to ministry, Kevin worked with children in the hospital setting and in group homes for emotionally and physically abused children.
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