New Family Resource

One of our main goals as a church and a Kidway ministry is to partner with families in training and equipping the next generation in connecting to Jesus Christ. At best, our Kidway team sees kids for 1 hour a week, which means only 52 hours a year - and that’s only if someone is never sick, never goes on vacation, never has a weekend soccer game or never decides to sit with mom and dad in “big church” instead of going to their Kidway class. Studies show that a more realistic estimate is actually 40 hours for church leaders to invest in teaching kids each year.  40 hours a year just isn’t enough time to instill deep within kids’ hearts and minds an accurate understanding of the Gospel. This teaching and training has to happen on a consistent, daily basis and become part of the normal rhythm of life for Christian families. Over and over the Bible talks about the responsibility parents and families have to train and equip their children to be lifelong followers of Jesus, but often parents can feel stuck or unsure of where to start. This is why we are excited to be launching a new “Take It Home” resource in January. We want to give you a sneak peak at this resource before it launches so you know what’s in it and how you can best use it with your family.

Each week, the front of the pamphlet will give you a recap of what your child learned in Kidway that day. Because all of our kids from preschool - middle school are always in the same portion of Scripture each week, this front page can help you initiate conversations with all of your kids about what they learned and how that lesson ultimately points us to Jesus.

One thing we love about this new resource is the opportunity it gives parents to “take the lead” on introducing kids to the Bible lesson for the upcoming weekend. Instead of always reviewing what was taught at church the week before, how great would it be for the weekend Kidway service to be a review of what kids have already been talking about with mom and dad all week? This section of the resource introduces the Bible story, gives some suggested discussion questions, family activities and even splits the Bible reading up into 5 smaller “bites” so you can read and talk  little bit each day.

Finally, on the back page you will find a daily prayer guide to help direct your family prayer time.

We hope this new resource will be helpful to families in creating a routine of family worship time each day. No matter which campus you attend, plan to pick up your first edition the weekend of January 6-7 and start the year off right digging into God’s Word together as a family! There will be a new edition each weekend, so just get in the habit of picking one up each week or check it out on our Gateway app. (Note: There are not separate preschool and elementary versions, so each family will just need to pick up one resource per week.)