Celebrating the Milestones of Faith helps individuals and churches identify faith milestones in the lives of children, youth, and adults and celebrate them together.
Families at the Center of Faith Formation (available as a free PDF by author John Roberto) provides congregations with a plan for how they can engage and equip families toward the goals of deeper faith and discipleship.
Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church shows ministry leaders how to position their churches to reach younger generations in a way that breathes life into the whole church.
Helping Our Children Grow in Faith describes how to nurture the spiritual development of children. Written for the church volunteer, it includes many stories and practical examples of how faith grows and changes as a child ages. You’ll be folding pages and highlighting lines in this one.
Will Our Children Have Faith? by John Westerhoff. According to Westerhoff, instead of guiding faith formation within the family, the church, and the school, we relegate religious education to Sunday-morning classes. There, children learn the facts about religion, but how will they learn or experience faith? How can we nourish and nurture the faith of children, instead of only teaching facts?
For Parents
At Your Baptism features simple, clear text adapted from the French Reformed Church liturgy and paired with vibrant illustrations and straightforward explanations on every page. Wondering how to explain baptism to a child? #problemsolved
Dear Parent uses the framework of four "Building Blocks of Faith" to encourage parents as they help their children find their place in God's family, know God's story, live in hope, and discover their calling. Each chapter ends with discussion or thought questions, ideas for living the chapter topic out, and a short resource list.
Everyday Family Faith helps families build strong faith habits together and make time for God in everyday life. For each day of the week, this pocket-sized resource provides creative ideas for exploring Bible verses, talking about faith in daily life, and praying together, as well as fun activities to do. Use Everyday Family Faith in your church's family ministry, as a baptism gift, or as a welcome gift for new families.
Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home offers ways to discover and develop new spiritual practices as a family, whether you're a new seeker or a lifelong follower. Faithful Families is brimming with easy, do-it-yourself ideas for transforming everyday moments into sacred moments.
God Loves Me is a series of 52 Bible story books designed for children ages 2-3. Each book includes a prayer and suggestions for learning-through-play activities. (Can be ordered as a full set or individually.) #babyshower #birthdaypresent #baptismgift
God's Big Story Cards provides families with a fun way to learn about God’s story together. Select a card, read the day’s Bible story, then roll the color-coded die to choose one of six ways to explore the story together. Super Fun Fact: Churches can introduce God’s Big Story cards to the families at their church with a FREE Family Event.
Home Grown Handbook for Christian Parenting provides parents with real-world advice about how to help their kids know and love God--and how to build a home where their family can grow in faith together. Fun Fact: churches are always looking for small group studies for busy families and this book has one! The Home Grown Study Guide invites authentic, informal conversation between parents.
I Wonder: Engaging a Child's Curiosity about the Bible is a resource for adults who want to explore ways to help children read, engage, wrestle, and grow into deeper understanding of the Bible. Fun Fact (and another reason we love this book): the author recommends our own God’s Big Story cards on page 123.
Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship describes the close relationship between faith formation and worship and includes practical ideas for helping kids participate during worship in meaningful ways. A very readable book for busy parents.
The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family: Over 100 Practical and Tested Ideas to Build Lasting Faith. There are four reasons to point parents to this book: it’s grounded in research, it takes a positive and empowering approach, it’s practical (can you say “100 ideas to try at home?”), and its “guidebook” format makes it an accessible read for busy parents.
Teach Us to Pray is a daily prayer book that guides families in both listening to and speaking to God through songs, Scripture readings, guided action, and quiet contemplation.
You're Invited is a five-day devotional that will help parents explain what the Lord’s Supper is all about and prepare their kids to participate. Designed to be used again and again, this devotional also includes an information section for grown-ups. Fun Fact: Now in its fourth printing, Faith Alive has distributed almost 7,000 copies of this book.