Last week, I shared what we did in 2024 through Shine Everywhere. This week, I’ll share comments we received from those who are leaders in our Shine Everywhere partner congregations. These nine congregations received a free monthly resource from Shine and distributed it to families in their congregations with children in preschool through grade five. The Shine Everywhere contact person in the congregation identified one or two goals to work toward, and I meet with them to help find practical ways to achieve their goals.
One Shine Everywhere Partner’s goal is that parents feel supported by relationships in the congregation. She says of her experience, “Families are getting to know each other, and I see some supporting each other more now. I see families babysitting other children from the church when needed.”
Another partner shared, “Shine Everywhere has provided space for our congregation to explore doing faith formation differently. As a result, we have begun to meet regularly with parents to help nurture their faith and encourage faith formation at home through the resources piloted by Shine. As a pastor, it allows me to meet with other faith formation leaders asking similar questions about building a lifelong faith in children.”
Yet another partner wrote, “Shine Everywhere has been the gentle push I needed as a leader to experiment with equipping caregivers to try faith practices at home. It inspired our ministry team to begin looking for venues to gather parents together for intentional conversation and connection. We realized that parents would be dropping off their kids for a Christmas pageant rehearsal, and we could invite them to stay for donuts, coffee, and a half-hour conversation about the new Shine Everywhere resource. We asked three questions: (1) In one word, how is parenting going? (2) God is already at work in your kids and your home. Share about a time when faith entered into your daily life at home–what happened? and (3) What could be a way to try this new Shine Everywhere resource? It was a sweet time of connection and sharing. Parents did not feel so isolated and alone and were able to draw on the collective wisdom of each other’s experiences. I was pleasantly surprised how many people had already experimented with the new resource and even shared additional resources they were trying at home. It made me excited to see the intentional ways caregivers are eager to practice faith at home, and how their kids were often leading the way with desire and curiosity to connect with God.”
Another partner reported, “We are providing the monthly Shine Everywhere resources to our 27 families with children in our Primary Sunday School Department (two years old through fifth grade). Our hope, as leaders working alongside our children and families, is to encourage and support parents in their role as the primary source for faith formation in their homes. The resources we receive as Shine Everywhere Partners have started to provide language and easy activities for families to feel confident about building a family faith culture at home. One of our experiments is to provide more opportunities to connect parents together to encourage each other as we navigate faith formation in our families. We recently had our first family gathering where we provided a pizza dinner and lots of activities for the children to do. Parents had time to connect and hear ideas from what other families are doing at home. We received so much positive feedback from families, and we plan to create more opportunities like this! We are very thankful to be a Shine Everywhere Partner and look forward to continuing to build strong faith connections at our church, with leaders, parents, and especially children!”
Does this feedback sound good to you? We plan to invite applications for more Shine Everywhere Partner congregations this summer! Watch our newsletters and blog for application information or contact me, Shana, at shanapb@mennomedia.org. We look forward to continuing the Shine Everywhere Partner program in the 2025-26 school year with new test products for families.
Shana Peachey Boshart