Familying the Faith Vibrant Faith

Hello Friends! 



Welcome to Episode 8 of Vibrant Faith’s Podcast, Familying the Faith. Our purpose is to connect with ministry leaders who are ready to dig into engaging parents, the primary faith-forming agents in our world. Are you ready to help them grow in their capacity and confidence as they share a vibrant faith in Jesus with the next generation?   



This episode explores a vital and interesting facet of what we mean by “Familying the Faith.”  Join Rick Lawrence (Vibrant Faith’s Executive Director), Jim LaDoux
(Director of Coaching Services), and Nancy Going (Director of Research and Resource Development) as we spotlight the transformational impact of “people who are like parents.” 



Who are they? What do they do? Why are they so important in the faith lives of young people?  And how can churches cultivate these kinds of significant relationships that last over time? 

 

Join us as we explore what it means to help churches deepen their relationships—for the sake of the next generation of believers.   

 

And then join us as we help you take that next faithful step!   

Hello Friends!  



Welcome to episode 7 of Vibrant Faith’s Podcast, Familying the Faith. Our purpose is to connect with ministry leaders who are ready to dig into engaging and uplifting parents, the primary faith-forming agents in our world, grow in their capacity and confidence as they share a vibrant faith in Jesus with the next generation.   



This episode is a such a good one! Wow, what a great conversation. Meet James Cabalu, Gill Acevedo and Hillary Gaines from the student and community ministry staff at Midtown Church in Sacramento, CA.  Midtown is one of our Lilly Sponsored 4th Soil Parenting Project churches, and they have a LOT to say about what church supported homes look like.  



Join us as James and Hillary and Gil each reflect on their experiences with Familying the Faith at a busy, culturally diverse urban church. 



We asked the three of them to share their perspectives on: 


How Midtown Church actually goes about engaging parents
How they are developing a culture that promotes the faith of parents and the messages they convey to reinforce that
How they connect with people’s cultural backgrounds when ministering to parents and families   

This was such just an amazing conversation—you’re going to love it!   



Here are a couple of things that we were able to take away from the time we spent with them:   


A church wrapping itself around families.
The idea of helping parents become part of tribe.  
And the reality that the move to home-centered ministry is NOT about institutional structure, but about focusing on deepening faith. Wow!

 Join us as we help you take that next faithful step!

Hello Friends!  

Welcome to episode 6 of Vibrant Faith’s Podcast, Familying the Faith. Our purpose is to connect with ministry leaders who are ready to dig into engaging and uplifting parents, the primary faith-forming agents in our world, grow in their
capacity and confidence as they share a vibrant faith in Jesus with the next generation.   

This episode is an exciting one for Rick and Nancy as they
had the opportunity to re-connect with a ministry colleague and friend that each of them worked with over two decades ago!     

Join us as Ben Freudenburg reflects on his years and years of experience with Familying the Faith in churches. Most recently, Ben served as the Director of the Concordia Center for the Family and Director of Family Life Studies at Concordia University in Ann Arbor, Michigan. From the early 1970’s he was a Director of Christian Education serving children, youth, and families in Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Arizona. He and Rick are the co-authors of The Family-Friendly Church—Ben used the message and strategy of this book to launch the Family-Friendly Partners Network (FFPN) in 2005. Since then, FFPN has trained many churches to adopt a home-centered, church-supported strategy throughout the U.S. and Internationally.     

We asked Ben about his perspective on: 


Why Familying the Faith matters so
much. 
What has worked, what hasn’t, over the 25+ years he’s been pursuing this passion. 
Why it’s so hard for churches in the U.S. to make the shift to “home-centered, church supported” discipling. 
And how do you connect with homes?    



This was such a great conversation—you’re going to love it! Some of our takeaways include:   


Familying the Faith is about helping the next generation grow to know and love Jesus—it’s not merely about nurturing happy families or happy marriages. 
This is a foundational faith-formation approach, not a program. The primary thing that parents NEED to do pass on their faith is to claim their role as the faith-formers.  
One way to begin is to help kids to see their parents’ faith lived out in everyday circumstances.   

Join us as we help you take that next faithful step!   

In this episode, Rick and Nancy sit down with an amazing couple: Bryan and Bekah Pogue. Bryan and Bekah live outside of Nashville and are deeply engaged in raising two boys as followers of Jesus. We asked them to join us for a conversation about how your church can come alongside parents in this pursuit. Bryan and Bekah bring a unique perspective to that question since they both have certifications in Spiritual Direction and regularly lead faith-growth groups and spiritual retreats. Critical for this conversation, Bryan also spent years as a youth minister in large churches in Southern California. As we begin to move from a church-centered focus to one that takes the home and parents seriously, you’ll be so encouraged to take your next steps after hearing from Bryan and Bekah.  

The conversation's takeaways include:    


The world is distracting and loud. We need to approach life with our kids with that in mind.     
Being with Jesus is the primary spiritual experience that we want kids to have. Doing that at home and with the people we love is more important than in any other setting.  
Kids need to see their parents' faith as a deeply congruent aspect of their everyday life.  
Churches that hope to implement big changes, like nurturing the discipling abilities of parents, need to LISTEN to parents instead of TALKING AT THEM.   

You can connect with Bekah and Bryan at Pastureexperience.com  They are taking directees and retreatants who are serious about the slow, formative way of following Jesus. 

Hello Friends! Welcome to episode four of Vibrant Faith’s podcast, Familying the Faith. Our goal is to partner with ministry leaders to help parents grow in their capacity and confidence as they guide their kids into a Jesus-centered life.   

In this episode, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes peek into the kinds of conversations that break out all the time in our Vibrant Faith team meetings. Jim LaDoux, Vibrant Faith’s Director of Coaching Services, and Dr. Nancy Going, our Director of Research and Resource Development, explore the foundations of thriving in a church, and how a ministry focus that encourages faith life in the home ACTUALLY fuels that thriving. What does it mean for churches and people to THRIVE, and how is thriving fed by relationships (surprise, surprise)? The conversation's takeaways include:    


Churches that are THRIVING are always consciously working on deepening relationships. 
Churches need to pay far more attention to people’s spiritual lives first and foremost—which primarily means how people are living out their faith outside the walls and programs of the church, in their daily lives.    
Churches who THRIVE are willing to experiment to change their culture. Culture change is relationally driven, not event- or program-driven.  

Join us as we help you take that next faithful step!

Hello Friends! Welcome to the episode three of Vibrant Faith’s New Podcast, Familying the Faith. Our goal is to connect with ministry leaders who are ready to dig into helping parents, the primary faith-forming agents in our world, grow in their capacity and confidence as they share a vibrant faith in Jesus with the next generation.  

In this episode, Rick and Nancy invite one of our favorite people, Denise Utter, to join us for a conversation about how a church BEGINS to move from a church-centered focus to one that takes the home and parents seriously. Denise shares her experiences from years of leadership in a Catholic parish as the church's team made these moves. You’ll be encouraged to take the next step after hearing from Denise. The conversation's takeaways include:   


The spiritual experiences that we have at home with the people we love are more important than we think—because they stay in our memories.
Churches who hope to implement big changes like this need to LISTEN to parents, instead of TALKING AT THEM. This posture drives the magic of building relationships with them.
More than that, we need to tap into their wisdom as parents, and see them as partners in a spiritual process.   

Join us as we help you take that next faithful step!