The document discusses lessons learned from parenting and hopes for a new faith curriculum called Faith Forward. It shares that daily prayer, connecting faith to life experiences, acts of service, sharing struggles, and surrounding children with community helped. It also notes that unexplained exposure to fundamentalism and not preparing for Christian diversity did not work. The author hopes Faith Forward will develop curriculums around love, God, contemplation, justice, and involving children in the Christian community from an early age.

2. Looking back as a parent ...
What worked:
- Daily prayer at meals &
bedtime
- Connecting God to
experiences of life
- Connecting God to acts of
service
- Sharing our struggles
- Asking for their prayers
- Inviting their interpretations
- Never judging
- Surrounding them with
friends & community
- Church as introduction to
new experiences
- Hospitality to multi-religious,
nonreligious friends
- Continuing to learn
- Apologizing

3. What didn’t work:
- Unexplained exposure to fundamentalism
- Not preparing for Christian diversity, especially
fundamentalism
- Not being more overt about Bible as literature, exposure to
meaning over fact
- Not being more bold about “new kind of Christian” identity

4. What I hope Faith Forward Can Do:
1. Develop a curriculum of love ...
- for neighbor
- for self
- for stranger,
outsider, outcast, enemy
- for the earth
- for God

5. What I hope Faith Forward Can
Do:
2. Develop a curriculum of God ...
Beyond-ness
Awe
Vocation to grow and serve
Trinity as loving relationality
Christ-likeness

6. What I hope Faith Forward Can Do:
3. Develop a curriculum of contemplation (inner life) ...
Cultivating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
Teaching non-duality earlier ...

7. What I hope Faith Forward Can Do:
4. Develop a curriculum of justice, generosity, and action ...
Seeing the world
with compassion
and responding
with individual
and collective
action.

8. What I hope Faith Forward
Can Do:
5. Promote earlier
involvement as participating
members of the Christian
community
- Liturgical participation
- Joining in mission
- Being consulted in
decision-making
- Celebrated for good work

9. What I hope Faith Forward
Can Do:
6. Sundays, yes - but
Sundays-Plus:
- for parents: 7-day prayers,
blessings, affirmations,
thanksgivings
- daily kids’ apps
- camps, retreats, field trips,
mentorships
- songs! music!

10. What I hope Faith Forward
Can Do:
7. Boldness in affirming the
best of what is ... and
leading the way to what can
be.
- People are ready (hungry!)
for a big change.
- It’s not the 1950’s (or 90’s)
any more...
- Emergence and
convergence are unleashed!

11. What I hope Faith Forward
Can Do:
8. Have fun -
and be good
to each other!