We are excited about partnering with you in the discipleship journey of your family – and whether you are a brand-new parent hitting the ground for the first time or a seasoned veteran about to launch a senior into the world – we have all kinds of great resources for you and your family. Our Forerunner Family Pathway can help guide you along the way. Our desire here at Rush Creek is to help disciple every kid in stereo – with aligned encouragement, instruction, and support both at home and at church – trusting the Lord to lead down the path of discipleship together. To help you in whatever stage you currently find yourself in – we’ve put together a list of great resources to help meet your needs along the way. Keep checking back as we will continually be adding more throughout the year.
Parent Role: Protector/Nurturer
Infants and toddlers associate spaces, places, and experiences with feelings. This gives parents and church leaders the opportunity to help our kids associate faith moments and environments with positive feelings of love, joy, safety, curiosity, and playfulness.
Kid Resources
Parent Resources
Parent Role: Provider/Director
As 3-5 year olds continue in their physical and spiritual development, they are internalizing all kinds of new information at an incredibly rapid pace. To coincide with their growing curiosity and ability to engage broader concepts, we want to begin introducing foundational faith elements in a myriad of different ways. Faith talks, prayer, scripture, and community experiences should be introduced and normalized both at home and at church.
Kids Resources
Parent Resources
Media
Parent Role: Teacher/Corrector
In the heart of their elementary years, kids need opportunities to deepen their understanding of faith in both intellectual and experiential mediums. Broader concepts of “Jesus loves you” move into deeper conversations of salvation, sin, serving, and worship. Parents and church leaders can help facilitate opportunities to teach AND expose our kids to deeper levels of familiar concepts.
Kids Resources
Parent Resources
Parent Role: Guide/Accountability
Our pre-teens and middle schoolers need to understand that faith is not just about what we believe, but what we do. With a firm grasp on concepts, we want to push them into environments that will bring these tenets of faith to life. Giving our kids opportunities to serve, worship with adults, share their faith, and take the Lord’s Supper are just a few examples of living what they’ve been learning!
Kid/Student Resources
Parent Resources
Parent Role: Model/Motivator
At this stage, we need to motivate our teenagers to begin embracing their faith as their own. We must encourage spiritual disciplines, Biblical community, personal evangelism, and a willingness to wrestle with the harder realities of living out their faith in a culture of disbelief. However, information is no longer enough. Inspiration and modeling play a huge role. Our teenagers can spot inauthentic and disconnected believers from a mile away – both at home and in the church. Exposure to relationships with authentic, growing, and transparent believers is critical.
Student Resources
Parent Resources
Parent Role: Coach/Resource
As students near the end of their high school journeys, their natural desire for independence will leave them open to influence, but resistant to control. During these final years in the home, parents and church leaders have the opportunity to equip their students with necessary tools for living out their faith after they leave the home.