Our Mission
Our Mission is to help parents and caregivers engage in Christian practices to pass on their faith to their children in their home.
Implementing Faith in the Lives of Families
The Center for Faith & Family began in 2023 at ONU with grants from Lilly Endowment Inc. for the planning and implementation of a Christian parenting program.
Grant funds will be used over a five-year period to support the development of training and family resources. ONU is one of only 18 organizations to receive grants from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative in its invitational phase.
The Center is an ongoing collaborative project of ONU’s School of Theology and Christian Ministry, School of Education and Department of Behavioral Sciences. Together, they are responsible for conducting research, working with and training church leaders, and providing curriculum and other resources for the equipping of parents so they might pass their faith to their children.
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on 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.”
Deuteronomy 6:6−7
Our Focus
The Center for Faith & Family (CFF) is working to help parents create a partnership between church and home for their children’s spiritual development. This begins with preparing parents for this important part of parenting.
To prepare parents well, churches need to provide them with resources and training. To help churches do this, the CFF is taking on the responsibility of training church leaders in how to train parents, and of developing curriculum and other resources to support and encourage parents. At each level of this project, our children are the primary focus. We must all work together to make sure they are grounded in faith as they begin to face the realities of today’s world.
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Determine the best faith practices parents can pass to their children.
Determine the methods and strategies used to teach parents the best practices.
Develop a training to teach the best practices.
Provide an online curriculum for church leaders.
Church leaders provide training to parents and caregivers in their local churches.
Survey the parents and children at the conclusion of the training.
Collect and analyze data.
Revise curriculum and materials.
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Today’s Christian parents, grandparents and caregivers recognize that they are responsible for their children’s spiritual development. In the United States, we live in a culture where we hire people to do everything for our children. Then we become the transportation providers. We trust that the experts in sports, music, dance, church will deliver what our children need. Families are becoming more fragmented and divided. Faith is becoming more compartmentalized.
What if we switch that focus? What if parents and their support systems take primary responsibility for their children’s spiritual development? What if families implement faith into their daily lives?
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The Center’s first step in this multi-level effort was to survey 1,006 Nazarene churches in the 11 districts that regionally support ONU in early 2023. Results of those surveys are already providing direction and inspiration for curriculum development and planning.
During the Church of the Nazarene’s General Assembly in June 2023, church leaders and members from countries around the world had the opportunity to hear about and give input for the Center’s work.
The next research step will be to recruit 100 families by the end of 2023 to take a three-year journey in implementing the training for families in their family. The development team will then make adjustments, based on their feedback, to meet families’ needs.
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The Center’s team has worked together to identify the Top 10 Best Faith Practices (in no particular order) that families need to learn and implement together.
Service to others
Communal worship, including praying and singing
Encountering the God of the Bible, including biblical and personal storytelling, reading and discussing the Bible together, and memorizing Bible verses
Faith lived out at home, including praying together; eating together; healthy parents modeling their faith; listening to and learning from children; life-giving attitudes toward body, sexuality and marriage
Faith-focused adults, other than parents, present
Bedtime rituals, including Bible story reading, praying together, sharing life stories
Connecting intergenerationally
Discovering God in everyday life
Celebrating seasonal events
Forming faith through milestones