Parents, every week we come to church, attend the service, go to Connections, and then head home. During this time, we have heard a lot and have several ideas and Bible passages to process. Do you take time to personally reflect on what you have heard and do you talk with your children about what they are hearing and learning in the service and their Connection class? Does Sunday make it to Monday?

Weekly Resources

Do you talk with your children during the week about what they heard and on Sunday or were the events of Sunday just a passing activity that happened? Each week your children will spend more time with you than their Connection teacher and small group leaders so it is important for you to invest in their lives during the week.

In an effort to help you connect Sunday to Monday, the Children’s Ministry sends an email out each week to parents with a recap of the lesson topic as well as memory verses to look over. Included with this is a parent resource sheet that gives more information about the lesson. Please take the opportunity to look over this material and then talk with your kids about it.

How We Use Them

To help you see just one way this could be used, let me share what Courtney and I try to do at home. Right now we have our family worship time after dinner. Amongst many elements one activity we do is going over the memory verses for the week with each of our kids. During this time, we also review what they talked about in Connections that past Sunday. We seek to help reinforce what they are learning, answer questions, and help them apply it to their life. And what do we use? We use the email and parent resource pages sent out each week from their teachers. It is such a blessing to have this communication from the class to us.

Also in helping you connect Sunday to Monday, we as a Children’s Ministry provide a Just for Kids worksheet each Sunday morning for younger kids to use during the service. On this sheet is a coloring picture associated to the mornings sermon or service element (i.e. This past week’s picture was the Lord’s Supper). There are also a variety of elements on the back of the page to further give kids an opportunity to learn more about the sermon passage or other service elements. This sheet is another tool available to you to use in helping talk with your kids.

Teachable Moments

There is such great value to having the kids in the service with us. Let us then be proactive in cultivating their participation in Sunday mornings by talking about it with them afterwards. Think about it. Talking with them about the sermon gives you as the parent a great insight into what they are picking up and it provides you with an opportunity to instruct them, encourage them, and help them better understand God and His ways. For example, this past Sunday at lunch Courtney and I asked the kids to share with us what they heard during the sermon. Our 5-year-old son said that he heard about the people doing sacrifices over and over and over but they didn’t work. As a result of this conversation we were able to encourage him for paying attention and to reaffirm to him of the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice as his hope for being reconciled to God.

Every week Sunday comes and goes and right after it is Monday. This week prayerfully consider how you can invest in the lives of your children helping Sunday connect to Monday. This will help your children see that God, His words and ways, impact everyday of our lives and not just when we are at church.