For Parents

Family Ministry purpose statement graphic

There is no Family Ministry without the parents (and grandparents) who have the greatest effect and understanding of their children and serve as the primary role models to their children. As a church family, we commit to walk the path of parenthood with our parents each day, each week, and each year of their children’s lives, etching our stories together with God’s story toward an authentic and lasting faith in Christ.

There are two primary ways we strive to do this:

  1. Every week we offer tips, techniques, ideas, discussion prompts, or activities to help weave the Bible stories and theology we discovered on Sunday at home for Monday to Sunday.
  1. We regularly bring in professionals to discuss and educate us on the five areas of conversations we want to normalize and integrate into our families’ faith lives.
    • Technological Responsibility
    • Sexual Integrity
    • Healthy Habits
    • Authentic Faith
    • Financial Freedom

Family Ministry Purpose and Values

The Family Ministry’s purpose statement and values guide the dreaming, planning, doing, and praying over all aspects of the ministry. They align with the larger congregational values but are distinct to the ministry to the children and their families entrusted to our care.

Family Ministry Purpose Statement

Celebrating and navigating Mondays through Sundays from week one through week 936 toward an authentic and lasting faith in Christ.

Family Ministry Values

  • Safety
  • Excellence
  • Intentionality
  • Creativity
  • Right People in the Right Places

Week in and week out, we evaluate how we have lived up to these guiding principles and assess all new endeavors within this framework as well. We celebrate the milestones of childhood—from a rose for the blessing of new babies to the honoring and recognition of high school graduation. We covenant to walk the path of parenthood and stand side by side with parents as they navigate their way from week 1 to week 936 (18 years). And we know that an authentic and lasting faith in Christ requires a Monday-through-Sunday discipleship strategy that reaches far beyond the walls of South Main—into homes at dinner and cars in pick up lines, to service in Collique, Peru, and the other end of Main Street.

Parent and young child

We hope that our values are self-evident in all that we do. Creativity and intentionality push us to do not only the easy things or stick to how things have always been done. We make an important distinction between excellence and perfection in our values. Seeking perfection does not allow for creativity, which could lead to failure; whereas, transparency in mistakes or missteps can lead to modeled grace. Excellence drives us. Perfection does not. And at the heart of all of our values is “right people – right places.” In checkers, all pieces can be used in the exact same way. There is no distinction between pieces and moves. In chess, however, you must consider what a particular playing piece does and how to use it in the best possible way. We are “chess” minded and know that when the right people are serving in the right places in ministry, the Holy Spirit moves in amazing ways.

South Main’s Child Protection Policy

The Child Protection Policy (CPP) of South Main Baptist Church is a critically important, living document that guides our actions and decisions each week. Annually, all paid staff and volunteers read the CPP. A different portion of the CPP is highlighted each week in regular communications to staff and volunteers. Our goal is that this document is constantly in circulation and being discussed.

Family Ministry Curriculum

In 2021, the Family Ministry team decided it was the right time to start designing and developing a curriculum unique to South Main Baptist Church. Objectives of the curriculum included:

  • Accounting for attendance trends
  • A strong Monday through Sunday family connection
  • Biblically centered
  • Synergy from 2-year-olds through high school students

We are building a curriculum that summarizes and repeats information weekly and is focused on a set of South Main Essential Experiences, Knowledge, and Skills (SMEEKS) as the targeted content. It is tailored to our church’s faith traditions and values and leans into the strives to meet the needs of our congregation’s kids and their families.

Each lesson includes Monday through Saturday opportunities. The Bible teaching is the starting point and center of all lessons. We open our Bibles every week and work toward core knowledge and skills at each level:

Nursery & PreschoolHear Bible stories, handle a Bible, and know there are two parts
MainKidsLocate any text in the Bible without using the Table of Contents and remember Bible stories
The 527 TribeApply context to biblical stories for understanding and sequence biblical events
YouthArticulate how God is revealed thematically across multiple Bible stories and personalize that revelation to their own lives

Finally, we use a spiral curriculum approach in our design and development. The same topic is taught over time, but with increasing complexity. The main advantage of using a spiral-based, problem-based learning curriculum is that it continues to expose the children to a wide variety of disciplines, topics/concepts until they master it by reviewing it repeatedly. When learners reengage with a concept over and over again, they recall prior knowledge in their memory and build on to it. The spiral curriculum approach leads to long-term learning for the students and demonstrates that learning never ends and is a lifelong process—exactly how we want everyone to approach the Bible.