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Getting started with Family Huddles
Faith Five Family Huddles are a simple, proven plan for helping to bring your family closer together and closer to God. They can be used in any configuration of family and with people of all ages. They free up a family to consider matters of their own life that important to them. Faith Five Family Huddles are discussions about life that include listening to God's word.
Click to download a  'Getting Started with Faith Five Family Huddles' booklet (338kb).
Faith Family
Faith Family is an exciting venture of cooperation among Uniting, Anglican and Lutheran churches to help parents nurture their children's faith.
The people who prepare Faith Family believe that 'faith is formed by the power of the Holy Spirit through trusted personal relationships - most often in the home' and that children tend to grow in faith best when congregations and parents work in partnership to nurture their faith.
Faith Family is a colourful, quarterly 4-page leaflet that encourages parents and gives them lots of ideas for living out their faith in their homes and helping their children grow in faith.
Congregations and schools are providing Faith Family as a gift to parents (or grandparents, or other carers) of children up to age twelve
Faith Family is a way a congregation or school can be proactive in developing that partnership. By putting this resource into the hands of parents, they
- affirm and encourage parents in their role as the primary nurturers of their child's faith
- give them some simple tools to use in their homes.
Faith Family Online
The Faith Family issues are now on-line
Congregations and schools of the UCA in South Australia can subscribe to Faith Family by contacting the Children & Family Ministry Team P: 8236 4281, E:
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Faith Family Resources
If you would like to see the list of fantastic Faith Family Resources please click on this link:  Family resources (47.5 kB)
What is Family Ministry?
'Family ministry' is a term used in both social service contexts and faith nurturing contexts. Both are vitally important and the two are inter-related.
In the faith nurturing context, family ministry sees 'church' as a partnership between congregation (faith community) and household for worship, teaching/learning, fellowship, outreach and service.
Family ministry recognises the household (family) as the primary social unit in which, through which, and to which Christian ministry happens.
Family ministry is not 'a program', but an approach to ministry and programming. It incorporates a range of assumptions about the nature of 'church'. Among these assumptions are:
- Christian faith involves living out beliefs and values in every relationship, arena and calling of life, with the family and household being chief among these.
- Christian faith is caught more than it is taught. It is formed by the power of the Holy Spirit through trusted personal relationships - often in our homes.
- If we want committed Christian children/youth, we need committed Christian adults/parents.
- Faith is most effectively nourished, communicated and passed on to children in their own home; therefore congregations have a duty to equip and encourage parents.
- A faith community is called to work for the welfare of the individuals and families in the wider community, particularly for children and people with special needs.
- The Christian congregation is an extended family.
Family ministry relates to people's actual 'closest relationships' rather to any specific definition of what constitutes a family.
Supporting Parents and Families
This is a simple resource outlining easy ways in which churches can support parents and families.
Encouraging Parents and families (40.5 kB)
Floods and Fires
The lives of Australian children have been changed by the natural disasters we have experienced in the past few weeks. Some of our children have experienced direct, physical loss. All of our children have seen graphic pictures of what has been happening in the not-so-far-off Queensland and other places.
As caring Christian leaders launch children's ministry programs for the new year, we need to deal with the children's fears and questions. Below is a reprint of the March, 2009, issue of Faith Family. The short articles on 'Shared tears', 'Disaster's questions and Easter's answer', 'Difficult times' and 'Dealing with tragedy' can be helpful for both parents and ministry leaders.
You are welcome to download, reprint and use any of this material. Please identify its source.
Faith Family Issue 18 (2.32 MB)
Teaching Values in Families
Values are shaped in families, in churches, in schools, in the wider community and through the media.Values are generally caught more than they are taught. However, given our current social climate, it is not enough to assume that our children will simply catch our values.
As parents we need to equip our children with an understanding of why certain things are important to us - whether or not these things are important in the wider community. We need to help our children understand that what we do is shaped by what we consider to be important. And we need to give them the language to express the values we are attempting to live out in our families.
For all these reasons it is important that we talk about values with our children. Follow this link to find out more about teaching values in families.
The Faith Family issues are now on-line via http://ctm.uca.edu.au/page/faith-family-resource.
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Children's Ministry 
