Customer Reviews

Shift: What it Takes to Finally Reach Families Today

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Brian Haynes' new book "Shift: What it takes to finally reach families today" was a book I really wanted to love. After reading it, I found that I loved the premise and the purpose but not so much the practice.

Haynes believes that God's plan for spiritual formation of generations is found in "the shema" (Deuteronomy 6:4-9):

"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. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

I agree! And there's a chorus of voices agreeing as well...George Barna ("Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions"), Ivy Beckwith ("Postmodern Children's Ministry"), Walt Mueller (Center for Parent/Youth Understanding), Mark DeVries ("Family-Based Youth Ministry"), Ben Freudenburg ("The Family Friendly Church"), Mark Holman (Faith@Home Movement), Kara Powell (Fuller Youth Institute), and Gene Roehlkepartain (Search Institute) to name just some. The voices seem to be getting louder and louder saying not just that parents need to teach their children how to love God but that the church must be charged with equipping parents to do so. Haynes puts it this way, "To equip the generations effectively, we [the church] must reach and equip parents." So simple...yet so hard!

The practice that he lays out in "Shift" involves equipping families through seven age-appropriate milestones "that every person growing in his or her relationship with Christ experiences and celebrates." The child or youth (or adult) must learn key truths to progress from one milestone to the next. The church teaches each milestone to the parents and the parents reinforce them through "faith talks" at home and resources that the church provides. There are church events that teach and celebrate each of the milestones and that connect parents with one another.

I see one gaping hole in the plan...the connection to community for the kids. As it should, "Shift" describes a structure of stability for the family and sets up an environment for the parents to learn and grow together. But without a strong system of relationships for the young people--in addition to those with their family--there is a lack of connectedness to the wider body of Christ. Children and youth in the church need plenty of opportunities to build and deepen relationships with one another and with mature Christian adults...in addition to their parents. Intergenerational relationships within the church community are critical for building disciples of Christ.

Kara Powell, executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and a former youth pastor says in an interview in Christianity Today's Leadership Journal that the standard ratio in youth ministry is one adult for every five kids. "My colleague here at Fuller, Chap Clark, says we need to reverse the ratio and strive for having five adults build into one kid...I'm talking about five adults who care enough about a kid that they learn her name, ask her on Sunday how they can be praying for her and then the following Sunday ask her, `How did it go with that science test?' Our study shows that even these baby step connections can make a real difference."

I agree with Haynes that each milestone is critical, each should be taught, each should be celebrated and that the parents should be at the helm. But despite the church-based events proscribed for each milestone, we create individual "silos" around each family when we don't intentionally bring families together to live out experiences of community. He lays out a great plan where the church and family are supported in traveling one common path (and rightly so) but not connecting with one another. Maybe I missed that or it was implied? Where are the children while the parents are in each preparation seminar?

And okay...there's something else that concerns me. As I read about each family's faith talks and the celebrations (simple or grandiose) around the passing of every milestone, I imagine the "perfect" or "good" church families participating. I'm sure there might be stories to prove me wrong but I struggle to see the plan drawing in the adults and/or the children who are troubled or confused about their faith or life in general. I'm all for setting the bar high and creating high expectations to grow the faith but again think the relational context needs to be there in order to help many of our families step into the process. Does this work on those "marginal" families or those "marginal" children within our church families? Does it draw in those from the community--a non-churched population that is growing larger and larger?

Brian Haynes is wise in counseling his reader (the church leader) to rethink how to engage families and change the culture within each church's own context and culture. And I love the question that he encourages each church leader to ask, "How would our ministry paradigm need to shift to integrate church and family for the spiritual formation of the next generation?" It's a critical question that too many avoid. Kudos to him for bringing it to our attention. But let's complete the picture with intergenerational connectedness within the body of Christ.

I recently was privileged to hear Brian Haynes speak at the D6 Conference in Frisco, Texas, and his brief discussion really convinced me to buy his book and discover what worked for him and his church. I shared this with my senior pastor, and we're totally on board with implementing this strategy with our own church. We have been doing a number of the "milestones" already, but we never were very intentional about addressing them in partnership with the parents. SHIFT gave us a great framework to plug our existing programs into, and it has given us ideas on how to deepen what we're already doing as well as add what we haven't been doing. I appreciated his emphasis that the strategy he outlined is what has been tweaked and put together for HIS church. Each of us, in our own respective churches, needs to determine what God is calling us to and how He is calling us to implement it. I'm in Northern Maine, so how we "do" church and the members of our congregation will be unique to those in Texas.

All in all, a very good catalyst to get us well on our way to partnering with parents!

Since I like reading and love learning, why don't I enjoy reading more ministry manuals? Whenever I open one I tend go into full-throttle-analytic-assault mode and start challenging the author's claims. When someone suggests that their strategy or method is the key to success, I'm dubious. I have a strongly held core-belief that ministry is about building loving relationships. I worry that the method and strategy books oversimplify things and risk advocating ministry that is less than authentic and less than loving.

Recently, I was invited to read and review "Shift", by Brian Haynes. I didn't know how I'd like it, but I was at least a little bit excited to hear the experiences of a fellow children's minister.

In his new book, Brian Haynes encourages ministry leaders to 'shift' their current strategy to 'family ministry'. Too many parents look to the church (instead of to themselves) to spiritually nurture their children, and too many ministers pour so much energy into church programs that they neglect the spiritual formation of their own kids (a contention which he backs up with personal experience).

The antidote, according to Brian, is having the courage to adjust our lives according to the Old Testament blueprint for Spiritual development. Specifically: encouraging and empowering parents to be primary spiritual influencers in their children's lives. His plan incorporates planned 'faith talks', and impromptu 'God sightings'. He also uses core-competencies to keep track of progress and seven milestones 'that every person growing in his or her relationship with Christ experiences and celebrates.' Each milestone has church and family components, and the church provides a lot of support to parents in the way of events, seminars, and conferences.

Me: "OK you're starting to win me over with your emphasis on family relationships, but isn't this just another strategy? What if your milestones and celebrations aren't as meaningful in my context?"

Brian: (p. 42) "Cookie cutters are for cookies. What I am about to show you is a strategy designed specifically for Kingsland Baptist Church in suburban Houston, Texas. The principles behind this strategy are universal... You're the expert regarding your church and your ministry."

Me: "I get it. I should get ideas from your plan and let this overarching philosophy guide me as I develop a plan for the people in my life."

I admit it, this book disarmed the critical-thinking ninja in me just long enough to get through to my heart. Hey, I think I just enjoyed reading a ministry book!

Books focusing on the proper role of parents in the spiritual formation of their children are growing. There is debate in how much the church plays a role in this. This book adds to the conversation and is helpful. Not the best book out there, but a good read nonetheless.

As a semi-veteran (if there is even such a thing) in Children's ministry, I'm excited that there is a huge push towards family ministry that is sweeping through the churches in America. It hasn't been that long since the church began segregating the families and taking over the spiritual responsibilities and I'm glad that the church of the information age is seeing the error of the church of the industrial age.

That said, I also enjoyed hearing a somewhat new voice on coming on the scene in the form of Shift, by Brian Haynes</a>. Brian is the Associate Pastor overseeing spiritual formation at Kingsland Baptist Church [...] in Katy, TX and has been given a great vision of leading families through the spiritual pathways of life. I stumbled on their Spiritual Milestones [...] website a few months ago and learned a great deal of how their ministry helps families grow in Christ together. It's akin to the idea of Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father's Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood. While Raising a Modern Day Knight focuses on marking points along a boy's journey into manhood in order to help them understand the importance of those milestones, Kingsland does the same for families by marking 7 key points in the journey of a family's spiritual life: Birth/Dedication, Coming to Christ, Preparing for Adolescence, Purity Commitment, Adulthood, Graduation, and Continuing Life in Christ.

As a children's pastor how is moving his church toward a family ministry paradigm, I found the book lacking. I think that Children and Family Pastors are the target audience, but the book does little more than give a brief overview of the ministry model of Kingsland Baptist. The theory and thought behind the milestones are presented in brief toward the end of the book and are valuable to thinking through how you may do something similar in your ministry. (Props to Brain for pointing out that this is a way that works in their context and to make sure you do what God is leading you to do in yours.) Having already looked through their website I didn't think there was much to glean from reading Shift.

However, that is not to say that the book is not valuable - it is, very much so. While I didn't think that the "meat & potatoes" were there, I did think it was a very choice appetizer. I think that passing on this book to your Senior Pastor (or whatever visionary guides your church) would be an excellent way to get them to begin thinking of bringing families together rather than always keeping them apart. I'd even say that going through the book as a church (senior) staff would be a great idea to shift your focus toward equipping parents - I think I may grab a few more copies and suggest that to our staff.

In short: Get it, read it, mark & highlight it, and pass it on to your supervisor along with your ideas of family ministry in your setting. But don't expect to use it as a resource for how to do family ministry or even how to implement Spiritual Milestones in your church.

"Shift", by Dr. Brian Haynes, is Group Publishing's latest offering for family ministry. (Prior offerings include the FaithWeaver Curriculum and the book "The Family Friendly Church"). This is a slim book that offers an alternate, but not contradictory, model to the Orange movement. Instead of offering a curriculum to get all the families in the church to discuss the same Biblical truths each week, or attempting to gather them for monthly inter-generational worship experiences, Shift offers a "mile stone" model.

The idea is that during the course of most families lives there are seven point where they are most interested in being resourced and supported by the church. These milestones are:

* The birth of a baby
* Faith commitment of a child
* Preparing for adolescence
* Commitment to purity
* Passage to adulthood
* High school graduation
* Life in Christ

Haynes suggest that the thrust of family ministry needs to be connecting with families these moments of high interest. Even the busiest parent wants their infant dedicated or baptized; they want their child to make a decision to follow Christ; and they want to know how to keep their child sexually pure. By meeting parents at their greatest points of need, we have the greatest opportunity to remind them of the Biblical mission of parenting. Before each milestone, the church is provides training for parents so they understand the importance and spiritual significance of each milestone. And they equip the families to create their own unique family celebration after the event.

Haynes lays out this strategy and the foundational Bible passages within the first 50 pages. The rest of his book is outlines each milestone and a brief description of how it looks at his church. We see who the milestone champion is, a description of the milestone event, and the suggested post-milestone celebration. The reader has a basic understanding of how to replicate the event in his or her own church.

"Shift" offers a sustainable model for family ministry, but there were some missing elements in the book:

* I was disappointed that there was no discussion on how to achieve alignment across departments. Most mid-sized churches and larger are departmentalized into children, youth, and adult ministries and are managed by an executive pastor. "Shift" lacks help on how to bring those departments into alignment so the strategy can occur. Any family ministry model needs pulpit support as well. A blue print for achieving this alignment is one of the strengths of Reggie Joiner's "Think Orange." I recommend grabbing this book as a companion to "Shift." Yes, "Think Orange" prescribes a different model of family ministry, but the leadership wisdom transfers.
* "Shift" is a book begging for followup resources. I hope the good folk at Group are cooking up resource kits for each milestone. Milestone champions would benefit from having scripts for each milestone, promotional resources, and event production time lines. "Shift" is stronger as an introductory book than it is a stand alone volume.

Even with these limitations, "Shift" is a commendable book. It belongs in the family ministry conversation. As I noted above, I hope that is just the first in a long line of resources to support the model.

You can click here to take a peek inside the book.

In Shift, Brian Haynes shares the family ministry strategy of Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, TX where he is an associate pastor overseeing spiritual formation. The strategy is focused on helping families progress through seven different milestones that are common to many families. The milestones are:
Baby Dedication
Salvation
Preparing for Adolescence
Commitment to Purity
Passage to Adulthood
High School Graduation
Life in Christ
Brian describes the what each stage signifies, who should be the "milestone champion," and what these milestones look like at his church. In addition to that, Brian begins the book with his journey to a realization that families need to be primary when it comes to spiritual formation. He uses the ever-popular Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as the "blueprint" for true family-centered spiritual formation.

While Brian does outline what is done at his church in helping families progress through the milestones by hosting biannual parenting conferences which have classes to prepare parents for the milestones as well as the support material they offer, Brian does tell the reader to take the principles and apply them to their own church. Brian readily admits that what works in his church probably won't work in other churches.

I appreciated the approach Brian took to family ministry by using the milestones as guide markers for families to use along the way. I definitely could see adapting that idea to give families at my church some sort of structure to how they are approaching spiritual formation within their families. It is also a great way for the entire church to understand how it can be involved along the way in supporting families as they grow their children.

There were a couple of things that I felt were lacking in the book, though. While Brian kept inferring to the involvement of the church community in child spiritual formation, I got the feeling that the Legacy Milestones approach portrayed in the book was very nuclear family-centric. There was little about the role of the entire church community in the lives of children along the way. They may do a better job of integrating that at Kingsland than is portrayed in the book, but I think church community is crucial to the spiritual development of children and deserves more attention in family ministry resources.

Another issue I had with the approach in the book was referring to Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as some sort of Biblical blueprint for family spiritual formation. I know that I am probably stepping out on my own here, but I think the children's and family ministry worlds have put too much emphasis on this one passage. This passage is about an entire community/village passing on faith to it's children organically. I don't think it speaks specifically to parents as much as it does to entire generations.

All in all, though, I do think Shift is a great resource for those dealing with children and families. It provides yet another approach to helping families positively affect the spiritual formation of their children intentionally.

Brian Haynes does a wonderful job of looking at the landscape of the church & the home as it is today, and then drawing a rich, biblical picture of what could be. It isn't another "model for ministry", but a challenging read that promotes examination in 2 key areas, prompting the questions: "How am I doing in impressing God's truth upon my family at home?" & "How is my church doing in training & equipping parents to do the same?" I highly recommend this to leaders in the church, who are serious about improving the focus on family ministry in a culture where families are falling apart.

The talk/comments about this book imply that "Faith Milestones" is a new idea from Brian Haynes. In fact, it is an idea/concept that has been alive and well in the Lutheran and other denominations for some time. The Youth and Family institue has been honing both the theology and practical ideas/application for several years. For many resources about this go to [...]
If you like the concept that Haynes puts forth but feel more comfortable with a more Lutheran/Presbyterian/Methodist theology you may find the Vibrant Faith resources more in line with your church's needs.
Nancy Parker
Director of Children's Ministry
King of Glory Lutheran Church
Dallas TX

Heard about Brian's church at Children's Pastors Conference. Sent a team to his church to learn more about their milestone program. They are doing amazing work for God!! Thanks for the inspiration.