Why Church and Home Must Be Connected

Before I ever started reading Dr. Tim Kimmel’s latest book, Connecting Church and Home, I made sure I had a pen in my hand. Like all of his books, this one causes mad underlining throughout. (It might be easier if it came pre-underlined!)

If you’re familiar with the author, you know Dr. Kimmel is an authority on parenting. He’s been around a long time, and he knows his stuff. His take on parenting is that we human parents must make our efforts as closely aligned to our Heavenly Father’s as possible—and to do that, we must be firmly grounded on a foundation of grace. That’s not as easy as it sounds. One thing you’ll love about Kimmel, however, is how very practical he is, teaching the finer points of grace-based parenting with wit, wisdom, and an easy-to-read style.

Fortunately, Kimmel has written lots of practical parenting books that show you what that looks like, including Grace-Based Parenting, Raising Kids for True Greatness, and Why Christian Kids Rebel. In Connecting Church and Home, he studies the role the church plays within the family. He’s asking some hard questions—of both church and parents.

Why Parents need to read this book: Sometimes it seems easier to let the church take care of our children spiritually–especially during those various seasons when parenting is particularly taxing. After all, they are professionals with all the resources and the right attitude to deal with the kids while we go grab some spiritual nourishment of our own. However, as Kimmel notes, a parent’s job is “to do the work of the ministry throughout the week in their children’s lives and then make sure they bring their family to church on full rather than empty when Sunday comes around.”

Why Church Leaders need to read this book: I think sometimes it’s easy for church leaders to assume the role of spiritual developers, rather than making the effort to work with the families surrounding the children at the same time that they are working with the children/teens themselves. Kimmel reminds us that it’s all about relationships. Church leaders can get caught up in their work and forget that the most important part of their ministry is relational. It’s not about building a ministry, per se, it’s about building relationships. At the same time, I recognize the fact that when parents leave “ministry” in the hands of the “ministers,” they don’t open themselves up to relationships. Here’s how Kimmel puts it:

“Families and churches, busy with the issues of the Christian’s agenda, can easily forget that without genuine loving relationships, it doesn’t matter how good , accurate, or urgent our message is. Jesus didn’t separate His love for people from His message to the people. We can’t either.” ~Dr. Tim Kimmel

This is a great read–vitally important for both parents and Family and Children’s Ministry leaders.

Learn more about Connecting Church and Home HERE on Amazon.