I’m looking forward to you journey, if only for the fact that I may get to learn something! :)

Congrats, dude! I’m looking forward to hearing about your journey as well. I don’t have any advice, because our church doesn’t run our family ministry exactly like that. But what I can say is help those who don’t feel like they have a family to still connect and get involved.

I don’t have an answer for you. I have the very same question. Please keep this dialogue going. What a gift it would be to our teens and parents.

Congratulations Tim! Sounds like a great fit for you and Dana! So glad for you guys!

Congrats. Now…you’re going to tell us more about these bags of items….right?

Tim, I am pumped to hear your news. I have been working on some cool stuff to help connect youth ministers and parents. I would be glad to chat with you. I will send you an email. Many blessings on your journey and I applaud your church for taking a family based focus!!

Enjoy celebrating the launching of this new mission, Tim

I imagine that bringing teens and parents together doesn’t have to be a reinvention of ministry. You can try every single “traditional” youth ministry approach with the intended target being parents and children instead of teens.

Do a retreat with everybody. Have discipleship where you lead it as a demonstration of what parents ought to do in their homes. Even small groups where for a portion of the night kids are interacting with different families and then come back together with their parents to talk about what the interaction was like and discuss the content. Game nights a great way for families to connect together and others.

I guess my approach would be to not just try to bring families together spiritually, but in every way we would want the church to be together. Spiritually, relationally, in prayer, the word and fun.

Excited for you! Look forward to see what God does!

Tim, what a blessing! I am excited for you and your wife and to see where God moves you in this ministry and stage of your life. I have to admit, the timing of your post was perfect. I was awake last night, praying for my own family ministry at our small church ~ wondering what our Sunday school program and youth programs will look like this year with very few volunteers and limited resources. What I realized is that God is in control and there are many ways to integrate children into the life of the church and to disciple them – not just in a traditional setting. I’d love to hear more about your structure at Red Door and to keep abreast of how your ministry unfolds. Keep the posts coming! God bless you.

Hey Tim, good stuff bro. But just to encourage you, you were ALWAYS in church ministry, serving the Body of Christ with your amazing talent and skills to advance His Kingdom. With that be known, I am stoked for you to use those talents and abilities to help parents disciple their own kids. We are seeing so many cool things in our community groups where parents are seeing the importance of husbands nourishing their wives, and then both parents able to nourish their kids in their faith. The conversations, teaching times to discuss, and discipleship meetings over coffee, moms groups, etc have been great. We will be praying for you guys in our Allies group and be encouraged in the battle brother!

Congratulations! Such a cool opportunity.

Here’s one question that could be a good starting point: “If we weren’t allowed to ‘do’ anything at our church that encompasses traditional youth ministry, what would we do?” It doesn’t mean that you throw everything out; it just means that you make all the current options unavailable for the sake of creativity and to be unchained by the inevitable presuppositions we all have. Can’t wait to hear about the journey!

Congrats Tim!!

Congrats Tim! And Happy New Year to you and Dana from Brandy (my wife) and I! I hope to be in a similar situation some day – voluntarily of course! Question: Will the youth service be separate – different room or day? If on a separate day, I would do it the same way the pastor does now – youth service with the family invited!

Good! I’m hoping I’ll learn a lot of things, actually. This will be fun and interesting.

No, I don’t think we’ll ever separate the teens from the family service. That pretty much goes against the values of having a family service, ya know? We won’t have a youth service that invites the parents just as we won’t have a parent service that invites the youth. There’s just one family service every Sunday morning.

Thanks, Nate!

Great question, Benjer! I think that’s exactly what we’re thinking, but like you said, not for the sake of being different, but having a clean slate to work with. So far just in our preliminary discussions it’s already very evident that this will be something that most people may not even consider a “youth ministry” because it doesn’t reflect much of what people think of when they think of typical youth ministry. We’ll see, though.

Thanks, Jeff! That is encouraging. I often got the question, “So Tim, when are you going back into ministry?” It always saddened me to hear that because it indicates how limited and small of a perspective most pastors have of ministry. How can we tell the people in our church, “Your job is also your ministry!” and then turn around and ask someone when they’re going back into ministry? Weird.

In all honesty, my personal ministry over the past few years has seemed more fruitful than it’s ever been before.

Glad this could be encouraging for you! I find it ironic that churches say parents are the primary spiritual influence on their kids and then we recruit all these people who aren’t their parents. I actually think that’s systemic of a deeper issue, but that’s a whole different issue. If you believe every teen has a full-time youth leader who lives with them at home every day, then your perspective on youth ministry and recruiting may change.

Thanks, Josh!

We’ve actually discussed family retreats, game nights, and other ideas like that. Not sure if we’ll eventually land there or not, but we’ll see. Still just brainstorming the whole thing. Good ideas, Jeff. Thanks!

Thanks, Jeremy! Looking forward to your email!

The resource packs that parents get every service? Maybe I’ll shoot a video of it on Sunday. Will that be easier? :)

Thanks, Phil!

I’ll do my best, Danita! Looking forward to what comes of it all.

Great advice, Steve. We totally agree. We do have a few teens who come to Red Door on their own without spiritually engaged parents. They’re definitely a big part of our conversation.

Hey Tim, Thank you so much for this post. Timing is perfect.

My Family started a church plant last year down in Miami, FL. We’re almost 1yr old, and our focus is to unite families. This post has really caught my attention for the way your church is focused on bringing together families. I am very interested on more details of your Sunday meetings.

We are very new and young at this, and have also been looking for ways to bring together the two sides. And also making sure that those who dont have families, dont feel left out, or like they dont have a place in the church.

Really looking forward to learning more.

Really neat to see what God is doing with you guys! Look forward to hearing more of His amazing work with you guys! Super excited about the family ministry focus of your church and would love to hear more about it.

Awesome to hear what you guys are doing! I’ll talk with our pastor and see about shooting a video with him where he talks more about what Sunday mornings look like for us and why. Stay tuned! :)

Thanks, Blake! I’m sure I’ll be sharing a lot more about the family ministry focus at Red Door in the future. Stay tuned!

This is awesome! An interesting church that I look forward to hearing more about. :)

Got it – thanks! I’ve never heard of anything like this before – it’s sounds very effective. Considering the ministry style, It seems one good way to bring teens and families together spiritually would be topic based teaching and dialogue. With a double panel: A variety of parents, single – married – divorced, and teens (various as well!).

That would be great, I was curious about what they were and how they connect to the sermon.

Shot a video of it yesterday. I’ll try to get it posted later this week. Hopefully that will be helpful.

Comgrats Tim. Since no one I know is doing youth ministry this way it is hard to scale long term. I guess I would set up the mile markers to determine what “success” is like. Do parents and teens serve more together away from the church? Do they talk more? What does a healthy family look like? What is my role as a youth worker in spiritual growth issues? New territory for me so I am just spit balling ideas. Keep us posted.

Yeah, that’s the phase we’re kinda in right now. I’m putting together a list of “guiding principles” that will direct the ministry overall. I’ll be sure to share them when they’re finished and approved.

[...] financial freedom outside the church gives me more freedom inside the church. It’s great! Now I get to serve for free at a new church plant because I get paid outside the church. The freedom that brings for me inside the church is amazing! [...]

Congratulations… I look forward to hearing more about this as you move forward.

[...] weeks ago when I shared that I’m going back into church ministry and wrote about Red Door Church‘s approach to family ministry, many of you contacted me [...]

[...] Last month I told you about a new church plant here in Cincinnati called, Red Door Church. My wife and I have settled in this local body of believers and are excited to be serving in several capacities. [...]