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A Note to Families

The Children’s Ministry of Golden Hills Community Church exists to “Glorify God by helping families develop age-appropriate disciples who impact their world for Christ”.

In order to accomplish this task, we at GHCC have attempted to describe a discipleship process, which includes these three elements:

Worship
Grow
Serve

We believe that children, as followers of Christ, can also participate in the discipleship process. We have further identified twelve specific spiritual growth issues within these three elements of discipleship.

It is our desire in Children’s Ministry, to create a balanced program, which addresses all of these spiritual growth issues, helping to produce a healthy, age-appropriate disciple.

However, statistics tell us that the national average for children attending Sunday school is 26 hours each year (that’s only half of the time). And our church is no exception to this. Our average Sunday attendance is roughly half of our total registration. What does this mean? Well, we could have the best programming, the best teachers and staff (which, by the way, I think we do) and we would still have a very hard time in accomplishing the goal God has set before us. But there is a way.

The way in which we can realize the goal of making age-appropriate disciples is stated in our purpose: “…by helping families develop age-appropriate disciples…” In fact, the best approach to aiding your child’s faith development is not in the formal setting of the church, but in the informal, everyday life of your home. God’s Word clearly reminds us of this in Deuteronomy 6:4-7:

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the lord is one. Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. The commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress (teach) them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down at night and when you get up.”

We encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity to “impress upon your children” spiritual truth. Use dinner conversation, driving in the car, bedtime routines and getting ready each morning as times to reflect and teach about God and his faithfulness.

To help you in these discussions, we have developed a series of tools for you to use. These tools are series of booklets (The Family Toolbox Series), each addressing the spiritual growth issues. In them you will find information, discussion questions and activity suggestions to help you guide your children on their spiritual journeys. These booklets are available in the Children’s Ministry Office.