Families, Communities and Faith Come Together
In a New Offering from FaithStreams Network

Congregations have a major new tool to address one of their top needs, thanks to an online community offering from FaithStreams Network.

When Faith & Values Media went out to survey a national sample of congregations not long ago, leader’s right across the country told us one of their top needs was to support a family-centered environment.

Now Families, a FaithStreams Community, offers a rich web space where families can grow together in faith. The community is brand new – go there now and you’re getting a sneak peak even before there’s any public announcement – but the elements are all in place and fully functioning.

FaithStreams Families combines a number of important benefits:

• Family activities and resources, such as Family Dinner and a Movie, a planned evening with a video pick, themed meal plan and recipes, and a conversation guide for talking about things that matter.

• A chance for parents to get answers to faith questions. A broad panel of advisors from Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions help to make the connections between parenting and faith.

• Community tools such as a forum where parents can interact and offer support to each other.

• A sophisticated but easy to use group application where parents can create a space for family members and approved friends to keep in touch and build relationships safely. Because the community is intended particularly for use with parents of younger (5-10 year old) children, parents remain in control of all online relationships at all times.

FaithStreams Families is offered directly to parents for their personal use, but it also offers communities of faith a number of opportunities to use it as an extension of their ministries.

• Congregational leaders can create their own groups to serve such programs as children’s faith education classes, children’s choir, parenting classes, marriage classes, parent’s morning out programs, or weekday preschool programs.
• Involving members in such an online group allows the congregation to increase and enhance the degree of communication and interaction they have with young parents and their children.
• The increased interaction not only helps with the creation of a family-centered environment in the congregation, it also helps build a sense of community – another important congregational need.
• Built-in features of the group software make it easy for the congregation to inform members of the group about important dates or events; ask or respond to questions; and contribute to the family’s faith development.