How the Building Blocks of Faith Can Support Church Leaders

This article is part of The Building Blocks of Faith Toolkit—a collection of resources for strengthening faith formation in your congregation and at home, brought to you by Faith Formation Ministries.

The Building Blocks of Faith describe four spiritual needs that everyone has—needs that are met in Christ.

Ministry leaders throughout your congregation can use the Building Blocks of Faith to both assess ministry strengths and weaknesses and create new ministry initiatives that are holistic in scope and in faith formation engagement. 

GENERAL

• Assessment: Use the Building Blocks to assess how each of your church’s ministries is forming faith.

• Building a faith formation framework: The Building Blocks can form the foundation of an intentional, cohesive framework for all your congregation’s programs and ministries. Water Street CRC in Guelph, Ontario, successfully integrated the Building Blocks of Faith into their faith formation efforts. You can read their story here. 

• Conversation and faith storytelling: Use our Questions and Conversation Starters with the leaders of your congregation—elders, deacons, youth groups, Gems, Cadets, Sunday school, etc.

• Volunteer support: Check out Volunteer Care That Supports Faith Formation and Discipleship.

• Elder visits: The Building Blocks of Faith are a great tool to shape elder visits at your church. Click here to access a list of questions for elders to ask individuals and families about how your church is helping with their faith formation. 

• Profession of faith: Check out Mentoring a Child’s Faith for tips on how to use the Building Blocks in conversation with children who desire to publicly profess their faith. And see how Georgetown CRC in Georgetown, Ontario, uses the Building Blocks to support Journey with Jesus, a year-long mentoring program that prepares people of all ages for profession of faith.

• Check out our Tools and Resources page for examples of how different congregations have used the Building Blocks.

IDEAS TO SPARK CREATIVITY 

Belonging

• Is your congregation friendly but not hospitable? In the article Belonging, Chris Schoon asks how people know that they belong to a congregation.

• In The Life-Changing Impact of Belonging, Karen De Boer states that "shaping a culture in which all ages belong is about creating a community in which relationships are formed as faith is nurtured." The Intergenerational Church Toolkit is a great resource for more ideas.

Knowing and Understanding

• Giving people of any age a special Bible to mark a faith milestone can be a meaningful way to encourage engagement with God’s Word.

• Start a small group or class with the main purpose of reading through the Bible, like the class described in this article by Doug Porter on ReformedWorship.org. For an intergenerational experience, invite your youth group to participate as well. (This interesting chart shows about how long it takes to read through each book of the Bible.)

• Find other ideas in the Faith Practices Project resources on engaging Scripture.

Having Hope

• Make sure you read the comments for the blog post What Bible Verse Gives You Hope for 2017? Consider asking your congregation a similar question and sharing the responses.

Calling and Equipping

• Learn how some churches are creating a culture of calling in a project sponsored by Vibrant Faith.

Want to know more? We’ve gathered a wealth of resources in our free Building Blocks of Faith toolkit.