Posted on November 10, 2009 - by rfrank

9 trends in CM leadership – part 8

Trend #8: Every-other week is the new every week

More and more kids of divorce are saying good-bye and transitioning between parents. As much as we don’t like this, kids are living divided lives between two homes. In The Switching Hour (Cokesbury Press), I read that 18 to 20 million children live with one parent, with 1 million children each year affected by divorce. Those are staggering numbers.

This has a huge impact on the way the church ministers to kids. In January 2009, I was team-teaching a seminar with children’s ministry champion Jim Wideman. He was talking about every-other week being the new every week in children’s ministry. He said, “If you have something that’s going to take four weeks to teach, you had better plan on eight weeks.”

On a side note, children’s ministry leaders must also ask if they are ministering to the needs of kids of divorce. Church-based programs for divorced adults seem to be flourishing, but churches with programs focusing on the needs of children of divorce are rare. It’s easy to give adults the attention they need, because they are bigger, louder, and speak in a language that other adults understand. Ministries like DivorceCare for Kids (www.dc4k.org) will help your church minister to kids who are transitioning between parents week after week.