Ep 221 - Equipping Parents To Be The Primary Disciple-Makers with Jeff Borton and Lauren Brown

The host resumes the RETHINK framework for disciple-making in kids and student ministries, briefly reviewing its five shifts: transformation-focused ministries, home-empowered ministry, interconnected ministries, nurtured partnerships with parents, and kid-centric learning. The goal is to have a clear picture of the disciple a church wants to develop from birth through age 18, then align ministry practices and measures of success with that picture. The episode focuses first on interconnected ministries. The host introduces Jeff Borton of Long Hollow and Lauren Brown of Brookwood Baptist in Shreveport. He notes that although Long Hollow has an unusually large staff, Jeff’s lessons apply to churches with only two staff members as well as churches with 200. The key issue is not staff size but whether kids and student ministries share a mission, vocabulary, and strategy. The host also previews the episode’s second theme, kid-centric learning, and later connects both ideas to the development of a ministry roadmap.

Jeff explains that Long Hollow previously had separate kids and student ministries that were functioning well but were effectively siloed. The departments were not fighting, but each tended to prioritize its own interests, and the teams did not share an agreed definition of what a disciple should look like. They could agree on broad ideas such as loving Jesus, but those generalities did not provide a unified direction. The staff reorganization began by establishing that everyone was one team working for the same goal: the family. Every staff job profile now includes responsibility for connecting with and developing parents, not merely serving children or students. The team began doing and celebrating things together, with family ministry as the shared focus. Long Hollow eventually defined its desired disciple through “MARKS”: Missional, Accountable, Reproducible, Communal, and Scriptural. Jeff stresses that the church is developing disciples rather than “creating” them, and that the same disciple-making focus applies to a two-year-old and an 18-year-old, even though the methods must change according to age and how each group learns. The host says he has watched kids and student leaders collaborate more intentionally over the past five years. Student ministry leaders now lean into kids ministry, kids leaders understand student ministry better, and both teams think more holistically about the entire journey.

Lauren says the most serious consequence of disconnected kids and student ministries is that churches can lose children and entire families during transitions between ministries. Shared vocabulary matters, but she argues that leaders also need genuine community with one another. When children’s, student, young adult, and adult ministry leaders meet, celebrate one another, and participate in each other’s events, it becomes easier to understand and support the work happening in other departments. She gives examples from her own experience: when a student or young adult minister participates in a children’s event, they often realize that the children’s team is doing more than they had understood. Lauren has also led a group of 11th- and 12th-graders during a student ministry Challenge Week, which gave her a different perspective on what God was doing in student ministry. The host recalls Long Hollow’s former problem with the transition from fifth grade into student ministry. The handoff had functioned like a gap in football coverage: each ministry assumed the other was responsible. Once the teams worked together, the transition became an intentional emphasis rather than an unclaimed space. He offers a practical diagnostic: look at how many church emails one family receives each week. When ministries are not coordinated, kids, student, and adult ministries may all send separate messages and create an overwhelming schedule. Jeff jokes that Long Hollow does not have a 100-percent email open rate, though the student email reaches about 78 percent.

Lauren says adults leading ministry can easily design teaching around how adults learn while forgetting that children and students have different developmental needs. Kid-centric learning requires leaders to step back and ask what stage of development a child is in, how that child learns, and what environment will help them follow Jesus. That begins with knowing the children and families being served. She applies the principle to classroom design, including special-needs ministry. Churches should consider whether they need sensory rooms or sensory areas and should account for learning through movement, touch, smell, and other experiences rather than relying only on verbal instruction. Leaders are encouraged to create at least one “wow moment” each month. Lauren describes a preschool lesson about Jonah in which children crawled through a tunnel containing tuna so they could smell the fish. Although parents may not love the tuna, the children were eager to tell their families about the experience afterward. Jeff gives a middle-school example. Because middle schoolers sit in class all day, it can be difficult for them to sit through a long service on Wednesday night. Long Hollow varies the format, sometimes using breakout sessions, and sometimes limiting the speaking portion to about 20 minutes before using another 10 to 15 minutes for an emcee to take questions from the group. The aim is to let students learn conversationally and from one another instead of forcing every age group into the same teaching format.

Jeff explains that Long Hollow formerly called its roadmap a “taxonomy,” a term he admits was not very exciting. The roadmap is an intentional strategy from birth through 12th grade, organized around developmental stages. It starts with the church’s picture of a dream disciple, then identifies how that picture should be developed at each phase, combining developmental milestones with teaching from Scripture. The roadmap recognizes that younger children tend to think more concretely, while older students can engage more philosophical ideas. This allows the church to teach according to development rather than merely repeating the same content in the same way. It also gives parents a clear answer when they ask whether the church has a plan for their child: the church can show how it intends to help a child grow in a relationship with God at every stage. Lauren identifies intentionality and accountability as two major benefits. Once Brookwood put its plan on paper and gave it to parents, ministry leaders had publicly committed themselves to walking alongside families in specific ways. Jeff adds that the roadmap ensures staff know where they are going. Long Hollow is currently considering how to continue its age-based reading plan when it ends in 2027, using the roadmap to determine what should come next. The host says the visible plan also gives visiting families confidence that the church has thought seriously about their children’s safety, care, and spiritual growth.

Jeff describes Long Hollow’s roadmap as a set of age-based phases with a core question and a corresponding answer or concept for each stage. For birth through age two, the core question is “Am I safe?” and the central concept is trust. For grades 11 and 12, the question becomes “How can I make a difference?” and the answer centers on becoming a servant leader. Each phase connects the developmental question to Scripture and to the MARKS traits: Missional, Accountable, Reproducible, Communal, and Scriptural. The roadmap also includes milestone celebrations that bring families and the church together. Jeff gives child dedication as an example: parents are prayed over and challenged to raise their child to know and love Jesus, while the church commits to supporting them. He says milestones prevent the church from being silent during major moments in family life and create natural opportunities to connect with parents. Lauren says Brookwood calls its version the “Brookwood Blueprint.” The entire ministry team—including children’s, student, and young adult leaders—developed it with input from parents, grandparents, and even newly married adults who did not yet have children. The blueprint lays out workshops for different stages, identifies when those workshops will be offered, and operates on a three-year rotation. It also includes milestone celebrations and parent practices connected to traits of a healthy disciple. Families receive the blueprint in visitor gift bags and again at milestones such as family dedication and receiving a first-grade Bible.

When asked where an overwhelmed church should begin, Lauren recommends taking time rather than treating the roadmap as a quick project. Brookwood’s pastor initially asked whether the plan could be finished in two months, but Lauren pushed for a year. That year allowed the team to meet with parents and grandparents, ask what families actually wanted, and map out a plan carefully. Her advice is to ask the right questions, involve the right people, and resist the urge to launch immediately just because the idea is exciting. Jeff agrees that the roadmap is not a “microwave project.” He says the conversations with families are both necessary and eye-opening, and he warns that even a plan the team initially loves will require adjustments. Long Hollow is still refining how it equips parents. Lauren also encourages churches to research what other congregations are doing, contact ministry leaders, and adapt ideas rather than copying another church’s model. What works at Long Hollow may not fit Brookwood. For churches that cannot yet unite their kids and student teams, Lauren suggests creating a mini-roadmap within one ministry. Leaders can still identify the ages and stages they serve, determine how children develop and learn, and decide how to partner with parents. Jeff adds that unity does not depend on staff titles: churches can involve key volunteers from each age group and begin building cooperation with the people already available.

The host closes by encouraging listeners to take one practical step toward unity, such as asking how one ministry can better support another ministry’s transitions. He points to the fifth-grade handoff as an example: rather than blaming the other department, each team can ask how it can help the family and the next ministry succeed. The episode mentions several resources. The hosts plan to provide examples of the Brookwood Blueprint and Long Hollow roadmap in the leader notes, along with a RETHINK family assessment. Jeff and Lauren lead huddles for ministry leaders, and churches can receive coaching or participate in one-day sessions designed to help a whole next-generation team develop its own roadmap. A separate promotional segment invites church leaders to book a one-day Movement Ready Church workshop. The host says he or a navigator from the Replicate team can visit a church, provide training in disciple-making and leadership development, assess its disciple-making culture, and help create a one-year focus and first step. The episode ends by describing the long-term vision: students who leave for college knowing what it means to be a disciple-maker, able to read the Bible and practice spiritual disciplines, and prepared to disciple others. The next episode will focus on a “Family Circle” course designed to help parents create a discipleship plan for the home.