• Commitment to one another and a sense of connectedness with one another;
• Adequate time together, which is spent effectively in meeting family needs, working together, and in recreation;
• Effective communication and conflict management;
• Sufficient expression of appreciation and encouragement;
• Agreement on and competence in the fulfillment of the roles and responsibilities of family life;
• Shared spiritual life that gives meaning and purpose;
• Involvement in, support from, and contribution to their community and larger world;
• Positive family identity and shared life story; and
• Ability to cope with crises and developmental changes (Garland 1999).

1. Nurturing Families toward Healthy Relationships
2. Nurturing Families through Life Transitions
3. Helping Families Share Their Faith Together
4. Helping Families Respond in Service

For each new morning with its light
For rest and shelter of the night
For health and food, for love and friends
For everything your goodness sends. Thank you!

From Ralph Waldo Emerson (adapted), sung to the Old 100th.

 

Loving Spirit be our guest,
Dine with us, share our bread,
That our table might be blessed,
And our souls be fed.

Attributed to Gary Kowalski, sung to "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

This resource is designed to assist churches in planning their ministries with the families of their congregation and community. Six sections are included to aid congregations in evaluating, visioning, planning, defining, and redefining these important ministries. Also included are stories of PC(USA) congregations, studies of biblical families, and helpful resource pages such as a planning grid, resource list, and commissioning service. The book has suggestions for congregations involved with or exploring family ministry: Congregation Exploring the Possibilities of Ministries with Families, Congregation Actively Involved in Ministries with Families but Refining the Mission, Congregation Exploring New Ministries with Families, Congregation Studying Various Forms of Biblical Families, and Congregation Evaluating Existing Program and Establishing Vision for Future.

• Abraham and household of multiple generations (Genesis)--patriarchal extended family
• Baby Moses, Pharaoh's daughter, and Pharaoh (Exodus 2)--cross-cultural adoptive family
• Naomi and Ruth (Ruth)--partnership, extended family
• Widow and her two sons (2 Kings 4:1-7)--single parent with children
• Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)--single adult
• Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42) related single adults living together
• Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18)--dual-career marriage with equal partnership

A good resource for UUs regarding diverse family forms is the Families All Matter Book Project and Curriculum Guide from aMaze.

We also did one of the exercises from section A, Establishing Support: Family Influences. First we answered these two questions in small groups:

• In what important ways did the church influence your family life as a child?
• In what important ways do your own faith and your present church involvement influence your personal or family life?

• What can [congregations] do to enhance the family's capacity to help itself and others?
• What effect does (or will) this policy (or proposed program) have for families? Will it help or hurt, strengthen or weaken family life?

I also talked about the UU version of Baylor University's Church Census. (Please e-mail me if you're interested in more information about the UU version.)

Then we looked at ways we might answer the question Bill Sinkford asked at this year's GA, "How are the Children?"

There's looking at developmental assets, found especially in two books: Embracing Parents and Nurturing Children and Youth (I reviewed both for Faithworks). The Search Institute in Minneapolis has plenty of resources on this. Take a look at their Introduction to Asset Building in Congregations pdf flyer for a good example.

I mentioned the Hardwired to Connect report, (see my February 7, 2006 post for more information) as well as Gather Around the Children: A Response to “Hardwired to Connect” [pdf] by the Mothers' Council Task Force On the Needs of Children.

1. Education in Families: Family, as a crucial locus for learning, enters the imagination for educational ministry. A shift occurs away from an over-reliance upon the Sunday School for Christian (religious) education. Families themselves, particularly parents, are seen as crucial to their own children’s Christian education (faith development).
2. Formative Power of Home: Attention is given to what happens in homes and between family members. This includes such issues as family piety and religious education in and through family life, but also includes basic needs such as having safe housing and enough to eat. It is as if a congregation’s ritual of meeting in a designated place, while eating, learning, and worshiping there, all lend theological impetus for such practices to take place in homes as well.
3. Families and Congregations Working Together: Both congregations and families have many strengths and resources. Churches can most effectively address challenges in family and community life by building ministries upon their strengths and on the strengths of congregational families. At the same time, family ministry often intensifies awareness of [painful] family [experiences] [which some traditions refer to as] brokenness. Therefore, congregations are served by the constructive power of families even while they rely upon this vitality to care for those who have been hurt by or are experiencing family crisis.
4. Inter-generational Concern: A family perspective in a congregation often leads to a deeper appreciation for inter-generational activities in the life of the congregation. Traditional activities such as worship and education can be restructured so that adults and children alike can participate meaningfully. In a culture increasingly segregated by ages, stages, generations, or developmental tasks, religious gatherings may be one of the few opportunities for the generations to be with and learn from one another.
5. The Bonds of Relationships: Family concern leads to an appreciation of the power of relationships generally. From families and friendships to places and attachments–-all are valued more deeply and given theological significance.
6. Community Values: Family relationships demand commitment, service, cooperation, tolerance, and stability to do well; such values are seen as crucial to society also. Family ministry undergirds alternatives to this culture’s overemphasis upon choice, consumption, hyper-autonomy, and developmental segregation--all plaguing congregations as well.
7. Community Involvement: As congregations pay attention to families, vision expands beyond the walls of the church. To consider families immediately focuses concern upon such things as households, neighborhoods, public life, and the culture itself. Concern for families appears actually to intensify concern for the larger societal context of families, especially as the society affects children and youth.

Learn French in your sleep! I remember seeing that headline on an ad years ago. It sounded too good to be true, and it probably was. But recent research shows that your child can learn his or her faith, if not while asleep, at least while getting ready for bed. And while eating breakfast, talking around the kitchen table, and enjoying Christmas, to boot.

 

Princeton Sociologist Robert Wuthnow discovered that the prime source of faith for self-described "religious" people was the way faith permeated the daily life of their family. Time and again they pointed to variations on six common family activities. Wuthnow says his study showed that religious formation happens when "specific, deliberate religious activities . . . are firmly intertwined with the daily habits of family routines." He adds, "Compared with these practices, the formal teachings of religious leaders often pale in significance. Yet when such practices are present, formal teachings also become more important."

So, parents, pay attention to these six at-home opportunities as they’re practiced (religiously or not) in your home. Think of ways to enhance them in your home.

• eating: Time and time again I come across data showing the extreme value of the family meal. When you sit down to eat together regularly, say grace before meals, and share information about your lives, you provide your children with one of the most potent ways of forming their faith.
• sleeping: Bedtime rituals are a great opportunity to introduce prayer naturally to your children. Spend time talking at bedtime and you’ll hear questions they never would have asked in daylight. It’s easy then to introduce your belief in God’s providence and care, which can accompany them through the night. Invite them to pray about the joys and worries of the day.
• having conversations: Think about the quality of conversations you have with your kids. Decades ago, children spent hours a day in conversation with adult family members. Now it maybe reduced to a few minutes of information exchange, order giving, or reprimands. A friend rues the day she got an automatic dishwasher because it ended the practice of standing at the sink gabbing with one or another of her children every night. You don’t have to go out of your way to lace your conversation with talk of values, character, and holiness. Your values and character and everyday brand of holiness will come through if you talk (and listen) long enough.
• adorning your living spaces: Good religious art is becoming easier to find (call Religious Resources International at 800-648-8350 for their catalog). Is there a Bible within easy reach in your home? A crucifix on the wall? Art that reflects your values? Catholic magazines or newspapers? Any indications at all that people of faith live in your home?
• celebrating the holidays: The religious roots of most of our holidays provide their true significance. But those religious underpinnings get lost amidst the secular celebrations. Remedy that by going back to family traditions from your past or by researching religious holiday practices and adopting them as your own. The good news is that with kids, if they like the practice and if you do it twice in a row, it becomes the "way we’ve always done it."
• being part of a community: Kids take much of their identity from the groups they belong to, e.g., Bulls fans, kids who love N’Sync, kids who hate N’Sync, kids who talk endlessly about Star Wars, or the goof-offs who go up and down my alley every Saturday night knocking down garbage cans. These groups are generally harmless. But we can do better than that for our kids. Initiate your children into a community of faith by making your parish your community, too. Sign up at the rectory. Talk to people you meet at church. Participate in ways that appeal to you. Doing so will round out your child’s identity as more than a child of a consumeristic age.

You don’t have to make a big production out of these routines. Just emphasize the ways your own faith shines through. After all, children don’t learn their faith from instructors; they learn from witnesses. (Based on ideas from Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith, by Robert Wuthnow, Beacon Press, 1999.) TJM

Caring Conversation (Sue and Karen)

• Family meal as intentional practice
• Prioritizing family gatherings as sharing events
• Set routine for sharing, i.e., bedtime, right after school, family night/family meetings
• Be aware and responsive to cues that might come at inconvenient times
• Teach/show how to read cues, and allow time if needed
• Appreciative inquiry
• Eliminate distractions

Family Devotions (Jennifer and Aimee)

• Use children's services to model devotions
• Create labyrinth with families using paper first, then larger one on floor, give instructions to take home
• Make Rainbow Promises Pendant (different color of rainbow for each principle/promise) in class or workshop to use at home and congregation
• Publicize "grace/prayer of the week" on website, e-mail, order of service, newsletter
• Put grace cards on tables at potlucks
• Encourage families to be conscious of devotional rituals they already have, such as saying "I love you" at end of call/night, etc., and listening at dinner table, etc.
• Give frames and choice of sayings/homilies to hang in home at milestones (i.e., Thich Nhat Hahn washing dishes/present moment)
• Model nature/outdoor devotionals such as meditative hikes, table decorations, altars (signs of spring, etc.)
• Periodically create/decorate personal/family chalices...such as "Flamekeeper Class" (battery-powered light candle)

Rituals and Traditions (Jessica and Naomi)

• Invite families to have a chalice at home
• Invite families to bring their family chalice for use in Sunday morning worship
• Posters for sale at church
• Artists at church develop designs for selling and model ways to incorporate signs into family conversations/rituals
• Create mneMonics for principles/promises such as songs and poems
• Model use of the above and graces/other rituals when families are together (family nights, families invited to Sunday school class)
• Incorporate symbols into craft designs, which can be used traditionally during holidays or other times of rituals
• At bedtime, using UU storybooks
• Parent education
• Rites of passage
• Brochure/book "What Do UU Families Do at Home?"
• Photo album (of intergenerational rituals and traditions) sent electronically to families
• Family life "cookbook" that families can contribute pieces about their rituals to

Service (Liz and Sonya)

• Social justice/other service committees
  invite them to include families (relationship) [children's safety and maturity-level considered]
  organize/do legwork (make convenient)
• Through RE Program
  integrate in model (Way Cool Sunday School, Workshops, etc.)
  giving feedback to family on RE service project
  have child care when needed
• Recognition Wall (Sticking out your neck)
  Newsletter, service, Board of directors
  for families, not just individuals
• Using Youth as resources to engage families
• Sharing, communicating service opportunities (addresses need for knowledge...what, how, when, etc.)
• Training and workshops on safety/prep for volunteers, teachers, committees around common issues faced in particular situations
• Mentoring by experienced individuals and families
• Addressing sustainability of service opportunities and projects
  provide support in relationship (troubleshooting)

So, how does one invest spiritually in one’s community of faith? Once upon a time (the 1950s, to be precise), investing in one’s congregation meant adopting what Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow calls a “dwelling spirituality,” which “emphasizes habitation: God occupies a definite place in the universe and creates a sacred space where humans too can dwell; to inhabit sacred space is to know its territory and to feel secure.” Many of us come out of traditions that embraced this sort of spirituality. For us, it represented a spirituality of authority and conformity, of dogma and creed. We found this sort of spirituality too confining. It’s like the pension plans from the same era. Everyone’s eggs were put in one basket, so if the company you worked for moved away or went bankrupt, so did the future you hoped for. In religious terms, if our belief in the kind of God who dwelled with us in such a congregation became untenable, so did the promise of salvation, of wholeness and security.
 
Wuthnow describes another kind of spirituality in his book After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s. He calls it “seeking spirituality.” Rather than the old-time religion of dwelling-oriented spirituality, seeking-oriented spirituality is New Age. People search for experiences of the transcendent in a diverse spiritual market place, handling “a hundred items and put[ting] them down,” like the spiritual window-shoppers in Rumi’s poem. Attending a community of faith may still be an option for these seekers, but they rarely, if ever, are cradle-to-grave members of a single congregation or even a single tradition. Ultimately, they see their congregation not as a home, but as “a supplier of spiritual goods and services.” The problem with this kind of spirituality is that we may be spending so much of our capital seeking spiritual fulfillment now that we’re missing the chance to truly invest in something that can produce dividends for life.
 
Fortunately, Wuthnow offers a third alternative, a spirituality that combines the best of both dwelling and seeking, a spirituality that can offer both a spiritual home and a spiritual journey. He calls it “practice-oriented spirituality,” and as I said earlier, I think that liberal religious communities of faith such as those found in the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations are some of the best places to engage in this sort of spirituality. Wuthnow defines practice as “engaging intentionally in activities that deepen [one’s] relationship to the sacred.” Wuthnow says that such practice is intentional, disciplined, and long term; that it involves self-reflection and discernment; it is interlaced with daily life; it has a social dimension; it is guided by rules; it leads to a life of service; and it is rewarding.

Child
Spouse
Parent
Sibling
Niece/Nephew
Cousin
Aunt/Uncle
Grandchild
Grandparent

Family is the set of relationships that endures over a lifetime despite life’s separations. Through families, persons attempt to (a) meet their needs for belonging and attachment, (b) meet those needs in others, and (c) share life purposes, help, and resources (Garland 1999).

Empathy
Responsibility
Fairness
Equality
Opportunity
Trust
Cooperation
Community-building
Sustainability
Protection
Freedom
Liberty
Democracy
Individual rights
Service
Compassion
Community
Fulfillment
Honesty

Open communication

The natural family—part of the created order, imprinted on our natures, the source of bountiful joy, the fountain of new life, the bulwark of ordered liberty—stands reviled and threatened in the early 21st century. Foes have mounted attacks on all aspects of the natural family, from the bond of marriage to the birth of children to the true democracy of free homes. Ever more families show weaknesses and disorders. We see growing numbers of young adults rejecting the fullness and joy of marriage, choosing instead cheap substitutes or standing alone, where they are easy prey for the total state. Too many children are born outside of wedlock, ending as wards of that same state. Too few children are born inside married-couple homes, portending depopulation . . .

And so, we advance here a new vision and a fresh statement of principles and goals appropriate for the 21st century and the third millennium.

We see a world restored in line with the intent of its Creator. We envision a culture—found both locally and universally—that upholds the marriage of a woman to a man, and a man to a woman, as the central aspiration for the young. This culture affirms marriage as the best path to health, security, fulfillment, and joy. It casts the home built on marriage as the source of true political sovereignty, the fountain of democracy. It also holds the household framed by marriage to be the primal economic unit, a place marked by rich activity, material abundance, and broad self-reliance. This culture treasures private property in family hands as the rampart of independence and liberty. It celebrates the marital sexual union as the unique source of new human life. We see these homes as open to a full quiver of children, the source of family continuity and social growth. We envision young women growing into wives, homemakers, and mothers; and we see young men growing into husbands, homebuilders, and fathers.

We see true happiness as the product of persons enmeshed in vital bonds with spouses, children, parents, and kin. We look to a landscape of family homes, lawns, and gardens busy with useful tasks and ringing with the laughter of many children. We envision parents as the first educators of their children. We see homes that also embrace extended family members who need special care due to age or infirmity. We view neighborhoods, villages, and townships as the second locus of political sovereignty. We envision a freedom of commerce that respects and serves family integrity. And we look to nation-states that hold the protection of the natural family to be their first responsibility.