Changes to KidQuest and FirstLook for Parents and Kids (Part 2 of 6)

NEW ROLE FOR PARENTS

God has given parents the incredible responsibility of impressing a love for God on the hearts of their children (Deuteronomy 6:5–7). These impressions best occur as a natural overflow from the lives of parents who are seeking to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and strength. Our hope is that the KidQuest and FirstLook experiences will be congruent with what is being taught at home in order to create a holistic approach to spiritual formation, uniting what children learn in the home and what they learn at church so that each setting reinforces what was experienced in the other.

The home is an essential place of spiritual formation and we have slightly neglected this fact until now. Sometimes in the past, parents were given small ways to interact with their child about the curriculum taught on the weekend, but it was done in a way that wasn’t stressed. However, we believe that parents are vital to the faith process so we are switching to a curriculum that embeds the importance of parental involvement in their spiritual nurture process both at church and in the home in meaningful and tangible ways. We believe that parents are in the best position to evaluate their child’s spiritual journey, and although it may not be a quantitative evaluation, they will be in proximity to daily life in ways to qualitatively discern growth. This type of spiritual relationship can be nurtured during the young years in a child’s life and last a lifetime.

Therefore, we will give parents the training, tools, and resources to build confidence in order to guide their children through authentic God experiences and Bible learning. In addition, we will work on constructing opportunities to offer parents hands-on opportunities to worship with their children prior to the weekend services, participation in the daily blessing or early parts of the KidQuest and FirstLook services, an overview of the scope and sequence each quarter, guided discussion cards, and through an additional family option, materials giving them creative ideas for starting traditions, prayer, and other family fun on a weekly basis at home.

There will be more information about the specific tools and resources in a later blog, so come back in a few days for those details!