Divorce in Families
Linda Jacobs, who is also a member of cmconnect posted this on another forum and I believe it is worthwhile for us to explore how divorce is affecting children's ministry and the future of the church. Take a look at these statistics:
"The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released the newest statistics for
children in America. (Sorry South Africa, Canada, Australia and beyond.)
These numbers can be found in the "Kids Count Data" section of the AECF web
site. (www.aecf.org)
The national percentage of kids living in single parent families in 2008 was
almost 34% or 22,659,000. Let me spell that out for you, twenty two million,
six hundred and fifty nine thousand children.
The percentages range from the low of 18% in Ut to a high of 45% in MS.
States that have more than 1 in 3 children living in single parent familes
are:
AL - 36%
AZ - 35%
AR - 36%
FL - 36%
GA - 36%
LA - 43%
NM - 40%
SC - 39%
TN - 35%
You want to know numbers?
CA - 2,807,000 (that's right almost 3 million kids or 32%)
FL - 1,368,000 (36%)
NY - 1,433,000 (34%)
TX - 2,094,000 (33%)
Even the 18% state of Utah has 147,000.
How about cities?
Atlanta, GA - 48,000
Balitmore, MD - 84,000
Chicago, IL - 299,000
Detroit, MI - 136,000
New York, NY - 775,000
Ok City, OK - 45,000
Here are the numbers, now what are you going to do with them?
There are children in every city in the world that are hurting because their
parents are divorcing.
DC4K can be the bridge between the world and the
church. Don't the thousands of kids in every city deserve a chance to cross
that bridge to enter the kingdom?"
Are we truly prepared to minister to children of divorce?? Not just as a recovery ministry like DC4K, but is your Children's Ministry accommodating single parent children? If so, how are you doing it?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Wayne Stocks on -
I believe this is a huge issue in Children's Ministry today. Divorce has become so commonplace, even in Christian circles, that I think we easily lose sight of how tragic it is for everyone concerned - especially the children. How do we help kids understand that God loves us and loves them no matter what when their parents gave up? How do we talk about commitment to kids who have seen their parents give up and try to find something better? If a child's view of God is driven primarily by their view of the fathers, how do we convince them that God does not show up once every couple of weeks to take them for the weekend? How do we confront the sin of divorce without undermining the parents spiritual authority in the home? I think divorce raises a plethora of questions for those of us who work with kids!
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Permalink Reply by Bill Gunter, AKA Commander Bill on -
I learned a long time ago that you can't always relate to God as a loving Father, because for so many children, the father figure that they know may have left them alone and so they can't grasp a loving father who is always there for them. So I am very conscious of that as well as trying to work with parents to learn when the child was at the other parents home, etc. This way there may be a reason for the child's behavior (adjusting back to the one parent's rules, etc) and not just a behavior problem.
The one thing I learned is that children never get over their parents' divorce. That has stuck with me since I realized that.
But like in other aspects of children's ministry, the parent has to have trust in us and willing to allow us to partner with them to disciple their child.
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Permalink Reply by Tiffany J. Crawford on -
A first step in ministering to kids of divorce is understanding that children of divorce are grieving children. They are first and foremost grieving the loss of their family--the family that God designed for them. And with that they have lost soooo much more:
a home
friends
family
sometimes school
financial stability
traditions
pets
bedrooms
Their entire world has been earthquaked under them and they are so often left in the shambles to dig themselves out. The parents are normally going through their own grieving and it is often difficult for them to take care of the emotional needs of their kids. Does this make the parent a bad parent?? NO it makes them a human parent! How would you treat that child if they loss a parent to death?? That's exactly how you need to treat that child!!
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