Interview via email with Mark Holmen about D6 tour

Mark Holmen will be coming to Countryside Christian Church in Wichita, KS as part of the D6 Tour on Oct. 1-2.  Hesston MB Church will be attending this seminar.  Here are some questions that I asked Mark Holmen via email.

What was key thing/event that led you to Faith @ Home?

Ultimately it was a change God made in my life through a survey that showed that parents, and what happens in the home when it comes to faith formation, is 2-3 times more influential than any church program.  When that sank in, I realized I needed to be a more faith@home focused leader where I spent as much of my time energy and resources focusing on helping people live out their faith@home as I was doing on getting them to church events and programs. 

Holmen has written a resource called Take It Home.  I asked Mark, how did you pick specific skills?

We were looking for skills/behaviors that enhance your relationship with God.  For example, I believe you grow deeper in your relationship with God through prayer, Bible reading, worship, devotions and service just to name a few.  I don't want people simply doing stuff, I want them growing in their personal relationship with Christ which I believe happens when we live and connect with God 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not just at church on Sunday.

If a church can only implement a few at a time, which ones would you suggest? 

Helping people establish a relationship with God through prayer, Bible reading and service seem to be great first steps.  With younger children, the ritual of blessing them every day/night is also a very good first step.  

In preparation for the Wichita Event on Saturday & Sunday, I asked Holmen these two questions:

Why should church leaders attend on Saturday?

I think we all recognize that something isn't working as well as it should be when it comes to the way we "do" church today.  But as I discovered, it wasn't what we were doing at church that was necessarily the problem.  What's happening in homes today is where the real battleground and struggle is taking place.  People today don't need a better worship service or more programs, they need help living their life in a more Godly manner at home and when the church begins doing this it will bring new life to the way we "do" church and it will help us reach new people that are not interested in organized religion today.  As hundreds of church leaders have told me, "Faith @ Home was a missing piece in our overall strategy as a church."

How will you equip parents on Sunday?

We will simply go crazy providing as many practical ideas and suggestions as we can to showcase how we can bring a more Godly lifestyle into our homes through family mission statements, prayer, Bible reading, faith talk, service as well as boundaries and discipline.  Most families need help today and they also believe that being a little more "Godly" at home would help but the problem is that they simply don't know how to do this.  By the end of the Extreme Family Makeover they will now know how!

Holmen shared at the D6 conference about some new resources from his ministry.  I asked him to tell me more about one of them which is faith @ home partner churches.

We want to help churches, and their families, sustain a faith @ home focus and that's why we created the Faith @ Home Church Partner program.  Through this churches will receive an online Faith @ Home network that will provide digital content in the form of articles, blogs, webinars and pod casts to help moms, dads, parents of teenagers, Sr. pastors, youth leaders and children's ministry leaders establish and sustain a Faith @ Home focus.  In addition to this, Faith @ Home Partner Churches will receive resource kits from Randall House, Focus On The Family, Gospel Light and others providing additional great resources to help you sustain your faith @ home focus.  For more information, or to register to be a Partner Church simply go to www.faithathome.com and click on the Church Partner tab.