125: A Creative Approach To Midweek Discipleship | with Stephanie Carlson

In this episode, guest Stephanie Carlson shares how their church’s midweek programming went from age-segregated to all-age-inclusive. 

Stephanie wondered if there was a better model of discipleship than the typical big-church strategy of separating ages. She kept coming back to these four questions:

1. Why are we separating families?
2. We say we’re “equipping,” but are we? 
3. Parents don’t feel like they know enough; how do we change that?
4. How do we create a stickier web of influence around our kids?

After considering those questions, Stephanie evolved their midweek programming into a new model that fits their church culture and is having incredible results. Listen in to hear how.

Connect with Stephanie Carlson:
www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry
www.facebook.com/carlson.stephanie
www.instagram.com/slcarlson227
www.fccwillmar.org

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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker. Welcome to the small church ministry podcast a welcome back to another amazing episode of the small church ministry podcast. And I feel like I can say it's another amazing episode because I have another amazing guest on with us. So one of the joys in small church ministry and this organization, this business, this ministry that we've been just building over the last couple years, one of my biggest joys is meeting truly amazing people just all over the world, in the the interest most interesting places because our guest today is in this little little town in Minnesota. And she was sharing what she did on a Wednesday night. And Stephanie, it wasn't the wasn't in the Facebook group where you shared it.

Stephanie Carlson: 0:51

Well, no, it was you and I had a one on one. Oh,

Laurie Acker: 0:55

that's right. And I'm like, your start telling me what you're doing. I'm like, Okay, that is a podcast episode. So this is Stephanie Carlson. She is joining us from Willmar, Minnesota. I'm very excited to have her share what's what's been happening on Wednesday nights at her church. But before we do that, Stephanie, tell them about you. So whatever is important. You know, your background, your your history, whatever it is, if you had to introduce yourself to somebody, like let's say we're stuck in an elevator, right? And you got this this time, we're just stuck. And somebody said, Tell me about you. How would you introduce yourself? Yeah,

Stephanie Carlson: 1:30

I would say I'm Stephanie Carlson. And I am a homeschool mom to twin daughters. They're eight years old. I'm Andrew's wife. And he is in the agriculture business. And I am the children and family ministry director at a Covenant Church in Willmar, Minnesota. And Wilmer also happens to be the town in which I was born and raised. I left for about 10 years, I went off to college, I went to pursue studies in education, and then special education. And then life just brought us back to Wilmer. And never in my wildest dreams. Did I ever think I'd find myself serving in this type of a position.

Laurie Acker: 2:10

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. That's cool to know. Okay, keep going.

Stephanie Carlson: 2:15

But I often will say that God is very funny. He has quite a sense of humor. And when we make plans, he tends to have greater ones. And so and that's, that's where I'm at today. Okay,

Laurie Acker: 2:27

that's so cool. So tell us about your your experience with small or smaller churches, like did you grow up in church? You know, have you been a big churches? Now you're in a smaller church? Or what's that like, because that's very different journey for everybody. Like within our community here. It's fun to hear stories of how we end up in these smaller places.

Stephanie Carlson: 2:45

So I grew up in this community, but I grew up in a Catholic church in town, and it's the only one so it was a larger congregation. But having once I got married, my husband and I were seeking out a church, and this is the one we landed on in the Covenant Church. And, and he actually was raised covenant, but I was not obviously, and this is my first ministry job. And so my experience in ministry, is this

Laurie Acker: 3:16

one in a in a smaller congregation. So are you a bigger, smaller church or a smaller, smaller church?

Stephanie Carlson: 3:20

I would say we're a bigger smaller church. Okay.

Laurie Acker: 3:23

Very cool. So tell us about this Wednesday Night Ministry, because this is what I'm just so excited about this, like, you do something very unique on Wednesday nights using a curriculum, but it's not really your typical midweek Kids program.

Stephanie Carlson: 3:38

Yeah. So we call our midweek program, like Wednesday family group is just kind of what we've called it. And it is the concept of it is parents come with their kids, or grandparents or a trusted adult. But if the kids are there, then there is an adult that's with them. And that this came out of some questions that I was wrestling with. One of the questions was, why as a church, are we separating families? I kept thinking, you know, kids, majority of kids are at school all day, both parents, we know now, majority are all working. And so the family unit is often separated for eight to nine to 10 hours a day. And so why as a church, are we asking them midweek to separate again for two or three more hours? And so that was one of the questions I was wrestling with. Another question I was wrestling with was, you know, we often within children's ministry, we say that we're equipping parents. And then I was kind of thinking through well, how are we equipping them?

Laurie Acker: 4:56

Yeah.

Stephanie Carlson: 4:57

Because our experience was is we were just kind of I need a worksheet home that had some topics that maybe they could talk about. But I know as a mom, they were, it's a joke, right? Like they would they're the carpet of the van, or they're the garbage can liner in the classroom as they were leaving. And I was like, this isn't equipping, but we still keep calling it that. And

Laurie Acker: 5:21

okay, I just have to say I the first thing you when you said the first thing that came to my mind when you said how are we equipping parents are those stupid worksheets, like, and I don't mean stupid, like somebody put a lot of intention in there. But really like in today's day and age, with all the information, we have things coming home, those worksheets totally become like Van carpet, so and I want to applaud you all. So Stephanie, for like asking these questions, because most people wouldn't even think about this, like you're saying, How are we equipping parents? How or why are we splitting the family unit? They're already split? Like these are? This is where I think we should be thinking all the time, like quit doing it like the box. So

Stephanie Carlson: 5:57

yeah, yeah. And so and to the worksheets, right, there is a purpose for them, and we're still sending them home, actually. But by doing this method on Wednesdays, there's more modeling that's happening, so that it's not so foreign, when they get home, they know how to use it. They know what they're talking about. They were there. Right, they heard the story. They heard what what was really being pulled out when the leader was leading the lesson. And so that was, that was huge. And, and I often like part of that, too, is I think of when we're training for a job, right? We don't just, we don't just start the job. Somebody's showing us the job. And then we do the job. Well, they watch us do what they did. And then we're released. Right? Yeah. And that's kind of what I thought, how can we do that? With these with parents? To show them what to do? Another question I was wrestling with which I think, you know, I was, I've read it a ton in books. I've listened to it a ton on podcasts. I've seen it a lot in the research. But parents just saying like, we don't know, enough, you know, like, I don't feel I can't like I can teach my child at home, read the Bible, ask questions or answer them. And, and so we wanted to provide this opportunity for them to truly learn alongside their child if that, if that was necessary, right. Which we know if if somebody's new to following Jesus, they wouldn't know how to disciple their child at home. To because they are just learning themselves. And so this is kind of giving this safe space of recognizing we're all here to learn. We're all here to grow. And and we can do that together. And another thing Oh, another question I was wrestling with is, how do we create a stickier web of adults around

Laurie Acker: 8:02

our kids? Right? Because eautiful image, right. And

Stephanie Carlson: 8:06

the research shows us that a child who is connected in relationship with what is it at least five adults is is more likely to stay in church as as a as a as a Christian for the rest of their life, to have lifelong faith. And I thought, Okay, well then how do we intentionally put Christians in the lives of these kids? Yeah, yeah, those are, those are some of the questions I wrestled with in in doing what we're doing. Yeah.

Laurie Acker: 8:44

Okay. I love that. I love that you're wrestling the questions. And I also love the questions you're wrestling with. And I would love to throw one more scenario out to you because, you know, when you talked about helping parents disciple their kids who don't who feel like they don't know enough, they feel insecure, or you know, those kind of things. I would like to also say, and I know you haven't unpacked your Wednesday program yet, but I would also like to throw this scenario in. I think what you're doing on Wednesday night is also helpful for parents who know a lot. Because not only is that worksheet, what do we do with it, but it's just awkward where kids push back like, Mom, I don't want to do that with you. Like, even for, you know, for parents who feel very equipped to disciple their kids. You know, I think doing it together, like a group thing, I think is really beautiful. So are you ready to kind of unpack and kind of share what your Wednesday night looks like? Because I have more follow up questions, too, but maybe we should let everybody know what you do first.

Stephanie Carlson: 9:35

Yeah. So our Wednesday nights we use the gospel project as our curriculum. And we're split into two groups. So we have our babies and preschoolers is what I call it, and then we have our kindergarteners through fifth graders. So those are our two groups that run and so our babies and preschoolers are through preschool. letters, they are run. If and if you're familiar with like ECFE, early childhood ad, they often do a lot of like Mommy and Me classes or parents and me classes. And that's kind of how that class is run. They use the text or the story for the week. And they share that Bible story, but they sing songs they play, there's a little craft, so it's just creating rhythm of gathering together and putting these safe people in their space.

Laurie Acker: 10:26

So are the parents or adults in with them to then? Yeah,

Stephanie Carlson: 10:29

okay. Yeah. Yep. So the parents and adults are there and with with the babies through preschoolers, okay. So that's the group looks like, and then our kindergarteners through fifth graders, they to have their adults with them. And we start our night, we have a beautiful big old gym. And so we start our night playing together, because we know developmentally playing is the key to a child's heart. And so we want to create those opportunities. And what we've also found is that has really broken down this barrier even between the parents, right, because we're just having fun together. Yeah. And, and especially between the men, there's been some great competition that has come up between some of the dads and grandpas and the dads. And so that's been fun. But we start with planes, we do about 20 minutes a plane. And then we segue into our space where we do our lesson. And we usually do about 20 minutes of lesson. And it's, again, it's using this like the, I think it's the student version, or like the kid version of the gospel project. So we leave that lesson. And then with about 15 minutes left, the families dispersed throughout our space. And, and then they go through the questions, and then they go on, go through Scripture memorization. And they do essentially, what if you are familiar with like, what's the model of Sunday school what the Sunday School teacher would be doing with them? That's what the parents get to do. And and we release that opportunity to them.

Laurie Acker: 12:09

So in my mind, I'm thinking like, large group, and we break into small groups and your small group leaders really become the parents or grandparents or guardians or the extra adults that you have around. Yeah. So how long have you been doing this? Yeah.

Stephanie Carlson: 12:25

Well, this started out of necessity, coming out of COVID. Oh,

Laurie Acker: 12:30

okay. So you've done it that long?

Stephanie Carlson: 12:32

Yeah, we've done it. Yeah. Since we started gathering, in after COVID. And, but it was always this thing that it was spinning in my mind before COVID happened, but I just had no idea how to make it happen. Because people just couldn't see it. It just didn't probably make sense. And so but because of out of necessity. Yeah. We just had to, and now we've just made sense. And we've just continued with it. So

Laurie Acker: 13:03

I love that you said like people couldn't see it. But there was like this vision because I think we get stuck there sometimes because you're creating something that really isn't out there generally mean like, like most people don't have this model. There's a whole bunch of reasons why this model wouldn't work or a bunch of challenges. And I want to talk about some of those. Because you and I talked about a few like there are a few few challenges or opportunities, maybe to, to figure out, you know, some ways to do this better. And I do really want to talk about that. But I want to again, just applaud you for like having this vision and doing something and trying that because I think sometimes we get so stuck that we don't want to try something because it might not work well, yeah, anytime you do something new, it might not work, you know, and it probably won't be perfect. And tweaking along the way is so important. I also really want to key in on the fact that you said 20 minutes at the beginning is play. And that is part of the impact of the program. I just want everybody to hear that. Because sometimes we feel like this is a wasted gathering time. That is a highly relational time it's important for for adults and children, the movement, the transition time, the connection that happens, like I think we really dumbed down the value of that, but I think you're bringing a lot of educational principles into your position, which I also love. So, okay, anything else on that before I start asking you about some challenges?

Stephanie Carlson: 14:21

Um, no, I think

Laurie Acker: 14:24

okay, so what are some challenges you've had along the way that you've made tweaks to or things that you've made some adjustments to already?

Stephanie Carlson: 14:32

Um, so some of them I would say, like, how do we how do we come alongside new families? Okay. So, um, you know, I think that's, that's been hard and because

Laurie Acker: 14:47

they expect the kids to be taken care of and the parents to be free because of an expectation or because like a relational like, we don't know anything or

Stephanie Carlson: 14:56

probably both, definitely both. But what we've found is of, of the, of the families that may become as they've been invited by one of our participating families. What I then encouraged that family to do is almost like shepherd the new family, right? Oh, so you invited this family in now your family gets to minister right to this family to show them? How do we run the night. And so maybe we do that for two weeks or three weeks. And then we will release that family then to be on their own, and kind of figure it out for themselves right and unpack questions on their own family's level. And so that's been one way that we've handled that. Another that is probably my, my, my hurdle right now is very new to the faith families. And or just families that are, they've maybe been following Jesus for a while, but they just don't know how to have these conversations with their kids, how to sometimes even keep their kids in a space with them. And so, you know, my, what I'm dreaming through on that right now is what could it look like to be inviting some of our spiritually mature congregants into this? And be almost what, I don't know, you could call them spiritual grandparents? Or, or mentors, right? How can we enter them into this to be walking alongside these families? Again, modeling for them? What can be done? Watching them do it and then releasing them to do it? Right. And, and sometimes it just takes that just being shown how to do it. And, and I can't obviously be in all the spaces that wants to help families through all that,

Laurie Acker: 16:52

and nor should be you, you know, nor should it be you because so many people have much to offer. So what's the challenge in in getting, or inviting, or encouraging those those spiritual mentors, the, you know, maybe some more of the mentors in the faith? What's the challenge in getting them in? Have you started reaching out? Have you found some pushback? Or what's, what's that been? Like?

Stephanie Carlson: 17:12

Um, no, I haven't started reaching out. I've definitely I've shared this with people. But I think on my end, there'll be a lot of hand holding that will have to take place to make it happen. And I don't necessarily have that capacity right now to be able to do that well, often leading some of those nights. And so how, you know, what's the challenge and getting other students, I think, truly seen that they could hold on a vital role in, in this right for them to recognize like, whoa, you want me to do I could be a part of that. Yeah.

Laurie Acker: 17:52

And you have an idea? Yeah, I have an idea. share this podcast with them? Yeah.

Stephanie Carlson: 17:58

Well, that's my plan.

Laurie Acker: 18:01

I want to I want to just thank you for being just just really transparent about like, you know, where you're at, and even what your challenges are, because I think we need to do this more. Like we look at, you know, a church or a program or something, or, you know, even just a part of the program that like, oh, they have it all together. I wish I could do that. And the reality is, even when we're running successful things, there are always challenges. They're things we want to do differently or better. And I think having these kinds of discussions is just it's so important in what we're doing, you know, in small churches all over the globe. Okay, what else you got? I know, you took some notes, I know, there were things you want to share what what else would be super helpful for people to kind of hear or understand is they even think about, like, how could this meet a need in my, in my church or my environment? Yeah.

Stephanie Carlson: 18:49

Another this I think, is a value of small churches, but this is also has bubbled up to be a true value of what how Wednesday night operates. But relationship is key to discipleship in my opinion. And, and I believe one of the assets that the small church has is there's there's a small enough number where genuine intentional relationships can happen and and I think that with the capacity the amount of families that we have participating right now there's enough of us to be able to truly invest in ever like the parents, the kids and we all we see each other the kids know that these other adults miss them or want them there or love them. And and it's just so it's so valuable. It's so valuable. Yeah, and so that's and and what I found is like the kid to kid relationships, we kind of some of the moms and I will joke of how like we just they act like cousins, all these Kids are just a bunch of cousins, right? And then the kid to adult relationships have been excellent. But the one another probably another hurdle that I'm up against is it's, it's these adult to adult relationships that are that have been hard to, to create to, to encourage them to be in relationship with one another and not necessarily to be best friends, but to be to be mission partners, right. If our families if our families are to be, you know, ministry hubs in our community, how then can we you know, relate with one another on that, but then support each other? In our communities? Yeah. Yeah. And so those are some of the things Yeah, how do we how do we help these parents see their their family in that capacity to them to be using one another?

Laurie Acker: 21:02

Yeah. All right. Let me ask you a couple questions that are in my head and might be on other listeners heads. One. And I don't know if you encounter this in Willmar, Minnesota or not, but one thing on my head is what about the kids whose parents won't come or will never take them? Like, you know, like those kids that want more? Are we leaving them out? Because they don't have a family? Like, have you encountered that? Or what do you do with that? Yeah,

Stephanie Carlson: 22:00

so we don't like we don't necessarily have kids that are walking off the street and come into church. That's not, that's not a reality that we're experiencing here. But one thing we are experiencing is, our families might be bringing a kid with them. Right,

Laurie Acker: 22:17

so that they're just in that family unit? Yeah, yep. So

Stephanie Carlson: 22:20

that. And we've actually and because of that, I have switched, just the way we approached like the how we talk on a Wednesday night, I just, we're all teams. So we're just this is this team. That's that team, right? Because because we're not all actually part of not every

Laurie Acker: 22:38

team, like a nuclear family. Yeah. So that was the other question I was going to ask you about is the word family because we've talked about it a few times in my church. Last year, we started family days, it was once a month, it was for everybody. And in my head. It was church family. Everyone's included. And we started getting comments that Oh, that's really nice. But that's, that's for families with kids. And I'm like, no, no, this is our church family. Well, they couldn't overcome that. And so we changed the name to community days. As soon as we called it community days, instead of family days. It it completely changed the demographic of who felt welcome. So that's interesting for you like to even talk about how you're changing what you're saying, you know, in in that night during the programming, but for you, do you call it family night? And has that worked for you? Because again, different Damodar demographics, I really think churches have different cultures. So does that work? No, do what do you do call it? I think you already told me what you call it. But I already forgot.

Stephanie Carlson: 23:35

We we just we've been calling it Family Life Group. And it's worked so and it's working and whether or not but I think that almost every family calls it something different. Like my like, my kids call it Family Church, like Oh, even though even though we do Sunday church as a family, like our kids don't get separated, like, and so but they just call it Family Church. So every bowl, buddy calls it something different. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 23:57

yeah. No, I'm really glad that worked. And the other thing I really want to ask you about is you said your husband was in agriculture, is that agriculture, I'm assuming is pretty big around Willmar.

Stephanie Carlson: 24:06

Yes, we're very large. Yeah.

Laurie Acker: 24:09

So we have a lot of churches in our community listening right now who are agricultural, you know, that their culture is agriculture. You know what I mean? Like, that's what it is. And I know that really causes a lot of stress and strain during different times of the year, harvest time, and all of that, does that affect your regular programming, like your Wednesday nights or anything? Because I know some churches make a lot of adjustments around harvest time. I'm not a farmer. So you gotta correct me, you know, tell me how that affects your programming, if it does at all, and maybe it doesn't. Yeah,

Stephanie Carlson: 24:42

actually, we found it doesn't affect our programming. We don't have within our congregation. We don't have a lot of farm families. Okay, so, so we, so that doesn't necessarily affect us, like it, may others. But we do we do follow our schools, the public school schedule, right. So they don't have school. We don't have programming. That's

Laurie Acker: 25:04

awesome. So as we're as we're wrapping up, because we're almost out of time, I'm always just think like, I go crazy with ideas, but I just really believe that this intergenerational mixing of generations is so important, and I believe it's one of the superpowers of small churches. I'm trying to think of the concepts and the things that you're doing like how is this transferable to you know, any church any program Sunday mornings, Wednesday night like, I love the power first of how you set up your just your structure of playing together playing games together, like how often even at intergenerational things, my church included, we just did this. We had the kids go out to do the pinata today. Well, I should have had everybody go out to do the Kenyatta and let the you know, the dads and the grandpa's in our in our singles that are in our older widows would not have been a hoot, like having a beaten up in yada. Like, you know, so I'm thinking about those kinds of things. What else? Do you think you do that that's really transferable outside of a Wednesday night program, just a principle that somebody could go, Oh, that would work.

Stephanie Carlson: 26:12

I think, you know, one of the biggest things that we've, we've seen with this is the ability to have faith conversations. Yeah. Right. And when we're in this, when we have this shared experience, yeah, we can have a conversation later, right. And so even like, last summer, we did, we didn't do our Wednesday programming. But we did Wednesday nights of worship. And, and we and it was open to the whole church. And we did you know, this a mini little sermon, we did some worship, and then we broke out and had questions based off of what we were doing what our youth group does what we were doing on Wednesday nights. And so then here, we have, you know, the five year old and the 13 year old and the 66 year old and the 82 year old, and they're all sitting there, and one of them, there was sharing when they've been baptized, right? And then you hear all these baptism stories of all these generations. Yeah. And, and that wasn't a program that was just, you're provided with questions out of a shared experience that we had. Yeah. And to even see that flow into, you know, people when when you have your coffee hour if you have a coffee hour, right, like, if it's following church, what could it look like to to create, you know, a little shared activity at a table. And, and that will provide some, just a couple questions coming out of out of the shared experience of the sermon. So I think those are those are tangible takeaways that cross ministries.

Laurie Acker: 27:51

Yeah. And, you know, I would love to say that happens organically in small churches. But often we need a push, we need a little teaching, we need a little bit of, hey, find somebody who is at least 10 years older than or younger than you. And it's almost like we we need to almost reteach the intergenerational relationships with that we're natural, you know, generations ago, because we've done so much splitting in schools and workplaces and churches and everything. So it's almost like we're reintroducing people back to that. And I think it's, I think it's beautiful, but I do think it's better with guidance, you know, like, it just yeah, we're, we're all doing it together. It's not so awkward, right?

Stephanie Carlson: 28:32

Yeah. Well, and what I found, right is if I have if I have five people who are willing to, you know, in that type of a situation, like during a coffee hour, who would be willing to lead that, right? They've experienced it, you know, if they're one of my moms that's experienced what we do on Wednesday nights, and I can say, Hey, would you be okay, with leading a table on Sunday morning doing this? Why not? Right, because we've done it, we know what that looks like. So

Laurie Acker: 28:55

yeah, I love it. I love what you're modeling Stephanie, like, so hundreds of people are gonna hear this podcast, and they're gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, and they're going to be so excited. And they're going to be putting your tips together. And thank you for literally just sharing what you're doing and what your process has been. It's really, really beautiful. So if people want to ask questions about your program, or learn more about you or your church, is it a church website? Are you in the Facebook community? How might they connect with you or just learn more about your church or what you do?

Stephanie Carlson: 29:29

Yeah, so you can find me on Facebook and on Instagram personally as Stephanie Carlson. I am in the Church of the small church ministry network. And you can find me in there on that Facebook page. We do have a website so my contact is on there as well. Okay, first covenant. Oh, golly, here have no I have to know what my website is. Maybe it's FCC. Wilmar dot orgy. Okay.

Laurie Acker: 29:57

Okay. So Willmar, Minnesota, Stephanie Carlson, thank you so much for being on the podcast truly, and just sharing your experience. It's, it is such a pleasure to meet you to hear what you're doing. And I'm excited to hear more, because you're not just an idea person. But you are willing to take a risk and step out and try something and it's beautiful. So I can't wait to hear more about what you do in your ministry.

Stephanie Carlson: 30:23

Thank you, Laurie. Thanks for this opportunity. And I just truly, I want to be able, I gleaned so much from the communities that I'm a part of. So You know, if somebody can glean just something from what we're doing. Oh, that would be, that'd be a blessing.

Laurie Acker: 30:38

So yeah, awesome. Well, this has been so fun. So wherever you are listening from, I just want you to take a minute and just think, what's one thing from this podcast that has made a difference? Or I could think about applying? Because one thing we just finished up a conference, you know, right before this recording, and people always talk about all the information, like it's so much it's so good. I don't know how to get it all. You know, I'm always like, okay, don't don't do it all just do one thing. Because if we do one thing and make one change, it is amazing what happens. And then we go, oh, what's the next thing? And what's the next thing, but when we think about all of it, right, we can get really overwhelmed. So I would love for you wherever you're listening from whether you're on a, you know, treadmill, or driving in your car, sneaking in a podcast at work are on your lunch break. Just think of like one thing that whatever program area you're in, you know, how could you add a little more intergenerational? Or how could you add a little more faith conversation? Or how could you add a little more play? So let's make this podcast actually actually have an impact on your ministry and your life. And I hope you enjoyed meeting Stephanie and I cannot wait to loop back with you next week with another fun podcast episode as we really value. And I want to say Elevate, we elevate the, I don't know maybe the mindset of what we think of small churches, because small churches are changing the planet. They are absolutely like one community at a time and it's really beautiful to hear from people in small churches all over. So hope this has been encouraging. And until next week, be light