What is ParentZone?
ParentZone is a community of parents dedicated to acquiring tools and ideas that help us to disciple our own kids. The original concept was designed for parents of elementary aged kids (kindergarten through fifth grade). As the group has evolved, parents of kids of any age have found valuable relationship connections as well as meaningful strategies to help with their own as well as their child's spiritual formation.

What might a typical gathering of ParentZone look like?
The first ten minutes of our meeting time is spent catching up with other members and welcoming newcomers. The atmosphere is relaxed and social. Any “official business” like mission updates, logistical details and announcements for upcoming family or children's events is taken care of at the beginning of our time together. Next, we generally share stories about the ways we've implemented the disciplines and discipleship strategies that we discussed during the previous gathering. We also share insights that we've learned about and from our children. This leads us into the week's main focus, which is taken from the lesson content that the kids are studying, the questions they are interacting around in class, the spiritual formation exercises that revolve around the memory verse, or a spiritual discipline that is a natural extension and enrichment of the kids' curriculum. For example, since kids were recently learning about going on “God Hunts” in Sunday school, we came up with ways to play a game of spiritual “I Spy” with our kids to help them practice the presence of God. At the end of our time together, we pray in small groups for each other and for our kids.

What else?
Parents who came looking for a connecting point with other parents and some practical ways to help their kids to grow have discovered an added bonus. Putting training wheels on ideas for our kids helps our own faith to grow. Also, as a group, we never seem to be too interested in our time together being a neat package that gets all tied up at the end. From the beginning, we've expressed the desire to come away with relationships and seeds of discipleship-making tools. As a result, community always takes precedence over content.