Cross+Generation Faith Formation
and Faith Five
The Four Keys (Devotion, Caring Conversation, service and ritual) are wonderful ways to think about how we structure our daily faith journey. Vibrant Faith has put many years of hard work and research into this model and it is a rich blessing for our households. Faith Five does not replace or take away from that model but actually enhances it and make it accessible to families/households/individuals at any point on their faith journey. It requires very little to no preparation or direct input from church leadership. The Four Keys model is the why, Faith Five is the how.
So what are the Faith Five? Share, Read, Talk, Pray, and Bless:
The FAITH 5 connects church to home, faith to life, and parents to kids in a powerful way. The five steps of the FAITH 5 are:
Step One: Share highs and lows. Name
something good and bad you experienced today. Can't think of a personal one?
Check out the headlines from the news and teach empathy and compassion for the
broader world.
Step Two: Read a verse from your
Bible. (Each Faith Inkubators curriculum includes suggested verses that kick
off at church and go home for families to explore every night.
Step Three: Talk about how the verse
relates to highs and lows. Unpack the verse a bit. What does it mean in your
own words? How might it relate to where you are today in your highs and lows?
Step Four: Pray for one another's
highs and lows, for your family, and for the world. Simply talk to God, thank
Jesus for the good, and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in specific problems.
Step Five: Bless one another. Trace
the sign of the cross on one another's forehead or palm as a reminder that you
belong to God and to one another.
Faith Five is a
way to equip families to daily live out their faith in a way that is
meaningful. Faith Five is easily modeled in worship, small groups, Bible
studies, etc. and can then be encouraged to be done around the dinner table or
before bed each evening.
How does this connect to worship? What if worship
was the seed bed for what happened in the home Monday through Saturday? What if
worship became a place where the five generations that are gathered on any
given Sunday morning explored the Bible story for the week together (instead of
age segregated classrooms) through music, prayer, art, drama, silence, dance,
etc? In cross + generational worship all of the five generations connect and
all of the five senses are engaged and the sanctuary becomes a classroom where
we rehearse our faith together in order to take it out to our homes, schools,
neighborhoods and world. The child’s questions, honesty and presence bless the
elder and the elder’s questions, honesty, and presence bless the child. This is
the community that God created us for!
Why now? As leadership in the Church, we all can
attest that our current model of faith formation (Sunday School, confirmation)
isn’t working and we are not witnessing young people professing a relationship
with God in their daily lives. Many a teenager (including my own!) has asked me
why does this matter? What if the
home+church+world connections become so seamless and loop back on themselves
for the purpose of connecting us deeper into relationship with our God who
loves us unconditionally and eternally and each other-God’s people that we all
at every age, every night in every home can experience for ourselves and for
others that God does matter?
Pastor Steve Pannkukk from Spokane, WA thinks of the Faith Five in this way: “It’s really about a new spirituality. A new way to think about our relationship with God and one another.”
There is no
“magic bullet” to ensure that we are passing on the faith to the next
generation and everyone around us, but what if it is as simple as intentional
time together? Five minutes to transform a heart, a mind, a family, a church
and a world in the love of Jesus Christ? Who’s in?
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