More Important Than Influencing Kids

Is it important to directly influence kids?  Yes.  But if you want to really influence kids, then you've got to influence the people who influence kids the most. 

And who is that? 

Parents. 

Parents have the most influence in their child's life...hands down. If that's the case, then we should have a clear influence strategy for parents.  

Children's ministries that only try to influence children are making a big miss. 

You see...here is what I believe. 

When you influence a child, you change a life.  But when you influence parents, you change the entire family.

The mentality in many churches says the adult ministry should be the only one that takes care of reaching and discipling parents.  Children's ministry take care of influencing children.  Adult ministry will take care of influencing parents.

But we must remember, as children's ministry leaders, we have a prime opportunity to influence parents. When you take care of and love on and pray with the parents of the kids in your ministry, you will see kids begin to grow spiritually at a new level as well.

Let's look at some ways we can influence parents so they in turn will influence their children. 

Influence parents through milestone experiences. Milestones are key spiritual events in families' lives that you can use to teach and influence parents big-time.  These are times when parents will welcome you with open arms to speak into their life.