Parents and kids talk about what it means to believe in and follow Jesus
“We’re talking and growing,” says Carol Leber, Director of Education at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Plano, Texas. “New ways of thinking about our faith and what we believe are helping parents and confirmation-age youth communicate with one another. It’s exciting!”
The Crossways International course, An Apostles’ Creed for the New Millennium, is one of their church’s Wednesday Education Night offerings for adults—a mid-week program that includes dinner, children’s choir practice, confirmation classes, youth and adult classes, and music rehearsals.
“We especially targeted the parents of confirmands and of fourth graders who were studying the Apostles’ Creed in their own classes. We sent letters to these target groups, and included information about the classes in both the confirmation orientation packets as well as the adult education brochure. We also put announcements in the church’s monthly newsletter and the Sunday bulletin,” says Ms. Leber.
The goal of the simultaneous parent-child study of the Apostles’ Creed, which ran for nine weeks in 45-minute sessions each week, was to provide faith-enrichment for adults, and to offer parents help with engaging in faith discussion with their children.
Ms. Leber adds, “To help parents broach the topic of faith with their kids, I broadened the scope of the class to challenge parents to ‘think outside the box’ of the orthodox creed. I warned them that, if it hasn’t happened already, their kids would soon confront them with doubts—even rejection—of statements in the Creed, and they needed to be able to work through these, sharing their own doubts and faith struggles.”
Objectives for the class were:
- To examine the meaning of the Apostles’ Creed in its orthodox form, and then compare it with Dr. Wendt’s An Apostles’ Creed for the New Millennium.
- To look at the 5th century worldview underlying the original Creed and find ways to express these faith statements in 21st century language.
- To provide parents with support for initiating and sustaining meaningful conversations about faith in the home, and so foster genuine Christian discipleship in their kids—a huge responsibility for parents.
