6 Trends Shaping Children's & Family Ministry

Children's and family ministry is changing. It is changing because childhood is changing and family dynamics are changing. 

There are influential trends at play in this. These trends cannot be ignored if you want to see your children's and family ministry remain relevant and effective. 

Let's look at 6 of the trends that are shaping children's and family ministry. 

Church attendance patterns. 

In a recent article, I talk about this.

Families used to attend church 3-4 times a month.  Over time, it has dropped to 1-2 times a month or even less.

This means the average child is only getting 25-50% of the lessons.  Take a look down the road and we will see kids who grew up "attending church" being Biblically shallow.  The truth is many of them will drop out of church completely when they become young adults.  If this trend continues many of them will even walk away from the faith. 

What can we do about this?  That's a great question that has many of us searching for answers.  How can we reverse this trend?  How can we help parents see the importance of more consistent church attendance? 

In my book "Fertile Soil...see kids' faith grow and flourish for a lifetime," I talk about this trend and how we can see it changed.

If you haven't read this yet, it is available at this link. 

Sunday only ministry.

Less and less churches are offering mid-week ministry for kids. I'm not personally saying yeah or nay about mid-week ministry.  I have served in several churches that did not offer mid-week ministry for kids. We spent all of our time preparing for the weekend services. 

There is the "less is more" factor involved in this. Do you focus on just the weekend when you have the opportunity to reach and disciple the most kids?  Do you focus exclusively on building your weekend volunteer team instead of trying to recruit volunteers for mid-week programming?  Do you go away from mid-week programming since families are so busy? 

On the flip side, there are great benefits of having a mid-week program. 

You can disciple children at a deeper level.  You can invest more time into building relationships with kids.  You can help kids know their Bible better.  

This is something each ministry obviously has to decide for themselves.  It will be interesting to see how this trend plays out in local churches over the next few years. 

Gaming & Social Media 

Gen Alpha loves their video games.  It is their preferred entertainment choice. 74% of Gen Alpha kids play video games on a regular basis.

An important thing to understand is that advertising is shifting away from regular TV and moving towards selling products directly to gamers. Since 2023, advertising on gaming and social media platforms has increased.  General advertising in video games has gone up 20%. Advertising and selling on TikTok is up 14% and up 10% on Instagram. 

Will the church keep up with this trend?  How can we engage kids and families through gaming and social media?  I have to be honest.  Attempts at creating "Christian video games" has failed in the past.  Very few if any kids engaged with these well intended games. So I'm not sure trying to create Christian video games is the answer.  But I do believe that we can use targeted "advertising" and "messaging" on gaming and social media platforms.  I would call it "digital outreach." 

The bottom line is this - if we are going to reach today's kids and families, we have to go to them.  They are immersed in video games and social media.  We have to find ways to get there and be in front of them.

A.I. 

38% of kids worldwide are excited about the potential that A.I. has to enhance their lives. 

An example is voice assistants like "Siri" and "Alexa."  When kids have Bible questions they can turn to these apps. I just asked Siri how many books were in the New Testament and the A.I. voice said "27."

I do believe A.I. has the potential to enhance kids' learning experience at church.

Look what Daniel Schwartz, Dean of Graduate School of Education says. 

“Technology offers the prospect of universal access to increase fundamentally new ways of teaching. I want to emphasize that a lot of AI is also going to automate really bad ways of teaching. So we need to think about it as a way of creating new types of teaching.”

I think the church will begin to use A.I. more in the years ahead as it becomes even more practical and user-friendly.

On the flip side, I believe nothing can take the place of caring volunteers who build relationships with kids and families. A.I. can't replace human connections.

Children's and family ministries that begin to use A.I. more will need to balance between the two. 

YouTube

When a child needs help building a volcano for a science fair project, his or her parents point them to YouTube.

When a child wants to take online music lessons, his or her parents point them to YouTube.

When a child needs help with a math subject, his or her parents point them to YouTube. 

Predictions point toward YouTube becoming a classroom companion for the next generation.  43% of U.S. parents already say YouTube helps their child aged 11 or younger learn new things.  This trend shows that the next generation actively uses YouTube to help them develop new skills.

Many children's and family ministries are doing a great job of putting content on YouTube. Ministries that want to impact the next generation should really think about doing the same.

I will say this - the content needs to be engaging. The content needs to be relevant.  The content needs to be interactive.  The content needs to be solid Biblical teaching on a child's level.   

If we want to impact the next generation, then we need to go where they are.  One of the biggest opportunities and mission fields we have is YouTube. 

Family Arrangements 

The American family continues to go through significant changes.  There is no longer one predominant family form.

In 1970, 67% of Americans ages 25 to 49 were living with their spouse and one or more children younger than 18.  Over the past five decades, that share has dropped to 37%.

With the drop in the share of adults living with a spouse and children, there has been an increase in other types of family living arrangements like unmarried adults raising children and same sex parents. 

The number of people heading to the marriage alter is also declining. People are seeking alternative relationships to the legal bonding in matrimony.  As I just mentioned, most often there is a trend for couples to enter a common-law relationship with no plans for marriage.  As marriage rates decline and divorce rates remain the same, research has found that common law relationships have skyrocketed to equate for four times more than marriage rates.

The relationship between marriage and parenthood has also shifted, as more women are having children without being married.  

People are also getting married later in life.  The average age of marriage has increased, where females marry around age 26 and men around age 28.

The desire to have many children is declining. As the cost of living is at its highest, married couples have few, if any, children. 

All of these changes help explain why married couples raising children together is no longer the norm.

Ministries must be aware of these changes in family structures and prepare themselves to minister not only to traditional families with a husband, wife and children, but to also minister to the families who fall under the umbrella of these changing family structures.

6 trends. 6 great opportunities to make a difference in the lives of children and parents.  

What other trends are you seeing?  Share in the comment section below.