Episode 208: Minister to Every Family with Sarah Carroll

Families come in every shape and size, and as KidMin Leaders, it's our responsibility to care for them well.

In this heartfelt episode, KidzMatter's Chief Growth Officer, Sarah Carroll, shares her personal journey and insights on supporting blended families and families with incarcerated parents. After delving into the complexities of shame, bullying, and the need for churches to create safe spaces for vulnerable families, host Hannah Augustine and Sarah provide encouragement for KidMin Leaders as they approach these challenges with grace, awareness, and a commitment to making a positive impact.

Get your free demo of KidCheck, the expert on children’s check-in, today at www.kidcheck.com.

For more support regarding the content of today's episode, email support@kidzmatter.com.

Transcript

Hannah Augustine (00:00)
What if the families we're designing ministry for no longer reflect the families actually walking through our doors? You see, more kids today are navigating parental incarceration, blended families, or the loss of a parent than we're maybe aware of. And if the church wants to truly minister to every family in our community, we've got to stop assuming that there's only one kind of family. We've got to start partnering with the stories in front of us. 

I have the wonderful Sarah Carroll with me, and she's going to be sharing some of her own story and some incredible insights that she's gained along the way.

It's going to be a great conversation, and we're going to chat about how KidMin leaders can come alongside families of every shape and size. And I believe many of you are already doing this, and so I hope this conversation is just encouraging and enlightening as we step into this new year. But as we get started, I'd love to highlight one of our amazing ministry partners.

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Now, Sarah, thanks for being on the podcast. I'd love to hear about your role in ministry. We've had you on the Kids Matter Pro Members Only podcast, but tell us a little bit about your role at Kids Matter and your history with children's ministry.

Sarah Carroll (02:01)
Thanks for having me, Hannah. It's always a joy to be on the podcast. So a little bit about me. I've been a part of church pretty much my whole life. I was very, very involved in church in my youth. So I was like a worship leader, a women's group leader. I like took pride in myself because I was like the youngest adult leader in like youth group, you know. I did like the whole camp counselor thing with like really Christian camps and all the things.

And then, you know, I hit my early 20s and I walked away from the Lord. And it sounds very cliche looking back, right? But I was unfortunately one of those statistics that walked away from the Lord in their early 20s. And then when I came back to Lord and re-surrendered my life and just got back plugged into the church, I was reminded very quickly that, you know, I have a call on my life. And so I ended up kind of doing a 180 and went from a very fancy, you know, sales and marketing director role to working bivocationally at my local church as the children's pastor. So very, very opposite, but I just felt like I needed to be obedient to what the Lord was asking me to do and thank the Lord I did because he really did just bring ⁓ an amazing full circle moment of me being able to now work for KidzMatter. And I started as the director of ministry partnerships. 

And now I have gotten a promotion, and I'm now the chief growth officer. And that pretty much means that I oversee not just our ministry partnerships, but I really work alongside our team to make strategic decisions around growth. And then also a huge part of my role is just keeping a good tab on what's happening in children's ministry, not just today, but really trying to figure out what what are the issues that we might be experiencing in five, ten years from now and are we positioning ourselves as a ministry to really help combat those issues that could potentially take place. So God has been just so good, and I love what I get to do, and I love working with you. So that's just an extra bonus.

Hannah Augustine (04:21)
The feeling is mutual. I'm so grateful we get to work together and the gifts that you bring to the table. I would love maybe another day to do a podcast just about SWOT and SMART goals and all those things because that's in your wheelhouse. So we'll get you back on to talk about that because I think that's important for every kids' ministry to do.

Sarah Carroll (04:31)
All the things. Yeah, that sounds great.

Hannah Augustine (04:40)
Kind of turning towards what we're talking about today, know many times as churches we focus more on the traditional family, right? Especially those of us who've been doing it for a long time You know if you've been in ministry for 10, 20, 30 years, we tend to think of, you know, mom dad 2.5 kids in America with a picket fence. You know, that's really not what we're experiencing in ministry  anymore and lately, you know, they're navigating different things. You know, whatever that looks like, there's a lot of different obstacles that kids are facing today and I would love if you could tell us a bit about your family of origin and then the family that you've now built as a mom.

Sarah Carroll (05:16)
Yeah.

I really want to make sure that I preference this conversation. I want to approach this with as much grace as I possibly can. I grew up in a home that was very different than a lot of the leaders that I interact with today. A lot of the leaders that I interact with today, they grew up in what I would call the picture perfect Christian home. And I know that those homes were not perfect, but they had two parents that loved each other. They had two parents that loved the Lord and they intentionally discipled their children, not just at home, but also at the church.

And so I come to this kind of conversation with the understanding that a lot of what I'm talking about is foreign. It's not something that a lot of our listeners, I'm going to assume has experienced firsthand, yet alone made in their ministries. And a lot of times when I'm seeing people comment even on Facebook groups or wherever about what are the hard things about ministry, it kind of hurts my heart a little bit because I understand their frustrations are coming from a real place, but I hope that this conversation challenges us to understand that our own experience is not reflective of everybody else's just to have a little bit more compassion, and my hope is that this kind of brings you behind the curtain a little bit of maybe what some of the families in your ministry are experiencing today. I'm thankful I'm on the other side of a lot of what I'm going to talk about and I'm in a healthy place, but it was very hard to get to this place. So I just wanted to kind of preference that before we kind of dive into this a little bit because a lot of what we're going to talk about is really, really sensitive topics. 

Sarah Carroll (07:14)
And so I'll first start if you're okay with this Hannah, just talking about my family and like what I built today. And then we can maybe reverse it and talk more about what I built today. I feel like it's a lot easier to talk about. And I say that more because I'm so proud of the church. We have, I think, come so far, even though I believe we have a lot more work we can do, we have come so far in accepting families that may be blended families or that may have divorced parents or single parents, all of those different dynamics, I think we have become so much aware and we have really done so much work to try and adapt our ministries to be mindful of those. And so I really want to applaud the church in that. My home is a blended family home, and so I met my husband early on when I was coming back to the Lord and . . . If you hear my story, I feel like people are like, she's kind of crazy. But I made a really big decision. Again, if I feel like the Lord is leading me somewhere, I really have always tried to just be obedient with the next right thing. And so I got to a point in my life where I was not living for Him and I hit a wall and I just remember something a mentor had once told me of don't run away from your problems, so run towards healing.

Sarah Carroll (08:42)
I remember a moment feeling like I need to run towards my healing. My problems are gonna end up following me wherever I go, but I need to run towards my healing. And so I made a pretty drastic decision to move from Chicago area, where I had grown up and I loved . . . I was working in downtown Chicago. My office looked out over Millennial Park. I mean, was the dream, right? It was the dream. And ended up moving to the middle of nowhere, Iowa, with my parents.

Hannah Augustine (09:04)
Big change.

Sarah Carroll (09:12)
where all I saw were cornfields and the first job I could get was at a warehouse that had no windows.

Hannah Augustine (09:18)
My goodness. And there was no more sushi.

Sarah Carroll (09:20)
There was no sushi, exactly. And so I had to work obviously just because I had my own little bills like I think I had a car payment and just, you know, a cell phone, little things like that so it wasn't like I could wait to work. The first thing I could get into was a warehouse but I was on the wait list to get into a call center which is what like only kind of job that was not at a gas station or a warehouse was at this call center in the middle of nowhere. I was like well I'm working there, because I'm not gonna work at a gas station or a warehouse and if you know me, picturing me in a warehouse is just kind of hysterical. But anyways, all of that to say that I started working at this call center and that is where I met my husband and about...

The very first time we went on a date I really started falling in love with him before we went on our first date, which I know sounds weird but it wasn't until our first date that he really told me about his story and so he then at our first date enclosed that he had previously been married and that he has two kids and he had told me I don't ever want to get married again because he was traumatized, right? So traumatized.

And I remember leaving our coffee date, we were on the phone on my way back, and I just remember telling him the kids don't scare me, but I need you to know that I'm looking for marriage. I'm not in a season of life that I can deal with playing around anymore.

We ended up getting engaged less than a year later and married six months later. So like literally within two years we were married. We've been together 10 years, and we're actually celebrating our 10 year anniversary this summer. So yeah, kind of crazy, but we have a beautiful blended family. I have two bonus kids, Chase and Alexis. And we have experienced some things for sure.

But I think with blended families, the thing that can be the easiest, maybe hurt, I don't know if that's the right word, is that there have been times that we have attended church, or when we were looking for a church, I should say when we were looking for a church, that we immediately felt judgment, because they would look at our family . . . and I am nine years younger than my husband so my stepdaughter is, she was 12 and I was like in my mid-20s and they were like, how's this work? Like they immediately knew that something was not connecting there, and we were not this "traditional" family.

And those experiences are always very hurtful when you're like, this took everything in me to just come today. You know, and so the last thing I want to experience is any sort of judgment, especially on my kids, that can be really difficult. The other thing that I think is also really difficult with blended families that I still have, we still have to walk through with a lot of grace today . . . is that they are being, our children are being raised and completely different [homes]. So these standards and the lifestyle, the culture that we create in our house, is vastly different than the culture that has been created in the other partner's home. And so we are trying our best to navigate that with our child.

And how do we love them through this? How do we point him to the Lord without feeling like we're shoving faith down his throat? When he's at his mom's house, that's not even on their radar. And so as parents with blended families, we're already struggling a lot. The last thing we need is to go to a church that is like "your kid wasn't there last Sunday," and you're like, yeah, I didn't have him.

This is where I have a lot of grace. I understand there is frustration and it's not even just with blended families. It's across the board, a lack of consistency, and that does cause it to be very difficult to build solid relationships. So I think that lack of consistency and knowing that you may only see a kid once a month, you'd be lucky if you see them twice, just being happy when they show up . . . 

[Don't be too] in your head or too frustrated that "I can't make a real relationship with this kid"; do not discount what the Lord can do in the little bit of time that you do have them. If you are making massive impacts in a kid's life, I'm sure that you even have experiences where you attended one time an event somewhere, somebody was super kind to you, shared about the Lord in something that was impacted your life. 

Why is that not maybe top of our mind, what could potentially happen when these types of children are coming into our ministries? And that's what I would encourage people to strive for, is to not get discouraged with something that is out of a child's control, let alone out of some of our parents' control, but really just do the best that we can to make an impact.

Hannah Augustine (14:49)
I wanna, yeah, just touch on a couple of things you said. I think, incredible awareness. And I think that's probably the, if we could sum up this entire episode in one word, it would be awareness. And it would just be a sensitivity and a grace. And I think, like you said, when we don't come from maybe the same type of home as someone else, whatever that looks like, that could be living in different areas of the country, different economic status, you know, all of that. We cannot fully compare or understand . . .

Sarah Carroll (14:58)
Yes. Awareness. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Yes. Yes.

Hannah Augustine (15:23)
. . . what someone else is going through. But I think learning and seeking to understand is huge. Don't pretend you do understand, right? Because you don't. Don't ignore that you don't understand. Like ask the questions, you know, and say, I had a sweet friend, her name is Sarah too, actually, and we had worked together, we're a similar age and kind of similar to your story. She married someone who had been previously married and had two amazing kids, and they were in my class at church.

And I had to learn even what did they call her, right? Because I didn't want to say your mom, because then maybe that's not what they're calling her. So I'd, okay, they called her Ms. Sarah. So if I was talking to them, I would say, hey, what did Ms. Sarah think about that? Or did you have fun with Ms. Sarah when you went to Disney World? ⁓ And honoring not just what the parents want, but what the kids want and how they feel ⁓ and being able to support them and have that

Sarah Carroll (15:56)
Mm-hmm. Right. 100%. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Hannah Augustine (16:18)
Even just, hey, how are you doing? And like you said, if they miss a week, no, kind of keep track. OK, I know this is their week at mom's or dad's. And so you can even say to you or to the parents who are attending your church, you can say, hey, how did it go last weekend? We missed having them, but I know they were with so and so. How was that? How's everything going when they're over there? Just having that, I think, sensitivity expresses care and expresses just an awareness of, hey, I get, I don't understand, but I see where you're coming from. And I want to support you however I can and just be in your corner, I think is so huge.

Sarah Carroll (16:47)
100 % 100 % while you were talking, it reminded me - there was a workshop that we did at the KidzMatter Conference and we had somebody come and kind of talk through this topic a little bit, and again, I am NOT an expert. We have amazing ministry partners - shameless plug - that are experts on this, and we're so grateful for that. Something that they had said during this workshop that really stuck out to me and that I loved is, they said that we are . . . 

Hannah Augustine (17:17)
Yes, and we're so grateful for them.

Sarah Carroll (17:29)
We are probably needing to get away from even...classifying kids or recognizing that kids don't just have parents anymore, they more so have a "person". And that really was like, you're right. especially, and I'm even thinking, I'm thinking of my own, you know, bonus kids, is what we call them, as bonus kids. Some people are step kids, you know, again, we have all of these type of language that we could attach to this. We call them bonus kids. And I'm thinking on my own bonus kids in this and I'm like man like they probably feel like lone stars like lone wolfs a lot, you know, like they have to navigate so much on their own. I wonder if for them their safe space it might not be with a parent, and that is, that takes a lot for me to have to like admit and be okay with and be comfortable with, that their safe person might not be me - it might just be a [person]. And who is that person and just praying over that child and making sure that that person is at least solid. That person is at least a good Christian influence. Maybe you are meant to be that person. Maybe one of your volunteers is meant to be that person, and being just open to that, I would really encourage our listeners. 

Hannah Augustine (18:53)
I know there have been studies done - I think Amazing Life has done quite a bit of research on this, right - of the importance of a consistent loving adult that's not your parents, you know, that's outside of maybe the family unit. There is so much power to that, and that's one reason I know, you know, I feel like I'm giving Amazing Life some plugs, but you know, they have their Lead Small principles right, that talk about the importance of consistency for a small group leader. . .

Because you know if Timmy is only coming to church twice a month and you're only there once a month, you might see Timmy once every three months - and  that's difficult to build a relationship, you know, with him. But if you're there every week, then when he is there, he knows you're stable. I think, Sarah, you could probably speak to this, but for kids who are in a home where they're maybe going back and forth, stability is so important

Hannah Augustine (19:41)
And so if they can know a church is a safe and stable place, it doesn't have to be the same every week, but if they know there's consistency, right, and there's things that they can rely on, including you and including your volunteers, that's gonna make a big impact.

Sarah Carroll (19:49)
Yes.

Absolutely, absolutely. And like you said, the consistency factor is huge. Something that even within, when I was a children's pastor, what we really tried to do is even within our volunteer teams, is we try to provide some form of consistency. And if you're not doing this already with how you're scheduling, which again, no shame, but just encouragement here, but at least try and find two volunteers that can be consistent within a classroom . . .

For us, when we had two services, that was super easy . . .we were able to just have somebody who did the first service [and] somebody who did the second service. We went through some massive changes that I will not get into on this episode where we ended up doing nights on a Saturday one service - it was crazy - and during that season, we at least had the same teams working every other week, which with a blended family, that works perfectly because when they have them on the weekend, if they're coming, the same team is serving  . . .

And so, you know, just figuring out creative ways to bring some form of consistency is not only going to help you as the leader with your scheduling . . . but also it's going to help a lot with these kids that, like you said, they're just seeking some form of consistency when their life is not consistent.

Hannah Augustine (21:18)
So good. If you've got, and I guarantee . . . [Stephen] Doc Hunsley talks about special needs families and how there's such a high percentage of the population. And if you don't have special needs families in your congregation, it may be because you're not reaching them. I would say the same with a blended family.

You should be seeing that pretty consistently on a Sunday morning. And if you're not, you may need to step back and say, hey, what are we doing to care for them? Could we have a small group? Could we have, you know, a mom's night out for single moms in the area? Could we, you know, what does it look like to do some outreach to these families so that they know they're welcome, they're loved, they're seen, right? That there's not judgment. You know, at the end of the day, it's not our job to say, well, you should have, or you shouldn't have, or, you know, our job is to love like Christ did. And we see that exemplified
in His ministry all throughout the Gospels. He spoke truth, but He did it in love.

And so find ways that your church can support, whether it's through, you know, that once a quarter event, or even just a weekly small group families, you know, who are maybe blended or looking different than what you might be expecting . . . 

[Let's] talk about maybe some other types of families you're experiencing a Sunday, or that maybe again, you're not [seeing], and maybe you need to figure out how can we minister to these families.

 So Sarah, I would love for you to share a little bit about how you grew up and some of what you experienced, especially in your teen years.

Sarah Carroll (22:34)
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up where, I wouldn't say we were blended, but my parents got a divorce when I was very, very young. And then my mom remarried when I was young as well. So I grew up with my stepdad, which I just called my dad. He is the one who raised me.

And they didn't really start taking church seriously until I was probably in elementary school. So I was coming in a little bit rough, be honest with you, into the church world. And they so graciously pulled me out of a private or public school and sent me to a private school. I always share this because so much of my life, I have felt a little bit like the black sheep. I never was able to fully feel like I measured up in the Christian world because of a lot of the things that my parents struggled with and walked through, whereas a lot of my friends that were at a private school, they were kids of pastors or of really solid, almost legacy-type families that they just have all of these amazing Christians, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. You as a listener is like, yeah, that's me. I was that kid that grew up like that. 

So it was really difficult for me to feel like I could fit in, though. And I share this because I just want to preface that, because some of the stuff that I experienced later on, it doesn't even compare to what my siblings have had to experience. Feeling that alone can really impact a child, especially when you get into [adulthood]. There are times even within my role at Kids Matter that I have felt like, [am] I ever going to really be able to do something like that?

And you almost feel like this [imposter] syndrome for everything that is church-related, because you have these voices in the back of your head that you're constantly having to battle about not fitting in or not being Christian enough or "they don't know where you came from, they don't know the stuff that your parents are struggling with, they don't know this about you".

There's a lot of that going on and behind kind of the scenes when children are dealing with that tension of seeing their friends in really healthy homes, and they're not. They're in a home where their family is just trying to figure it out, which praise the Lord, they are. And as a church, we should welcome that and encourage that.

And there's really nothing I think you can do as a leader except for not shaming, encouraging, welcoming, growing the gifts that they do have, and not holding them to this imaginary line. I grew up in a church, that it felt like there was always an imaginary line, in order for me to kind of be a part of, you know, the close core of my church. And that line always felt like it moved up. I was like, I can't reach it. I can't reach it. I thought I finally reached it. I can't reach it. [It] does create this striving for your salvation, which is obviously [not good], and we could go into that a whole other day. 

But I share this again because what my siblings experienced is nothing compared to [what I did].

They went into an investigation [of my dad] for a year. So there was a whole year where my dad was not allowed to be around my siblings. And the two younger ones, my sister and then my younger brother, both adopted as well . . . especially my brother . . . he had some special needs, and my dad was a safe person [for him]. So there [were] some major struggles within that first year.

[At this] point in my parents' [lives], they had really gotten involved in the church. They were even on staff at the church. So this was a big blow to our family. And to be quite frank with you, I still to this day believe that my dad is innocent. And I know that that can be a very controversial thing. I have my reasons. I have also fully accepted that I may never know what really happened. And so I do not blame a person if they're like, you're crazy, your dad is absolutely guilty, blah, blah, blah. Again, I've gotten to a place where I'm healthy, I'm okay. I no longer put a lot of weight into what other people think of my family situation. But let me tell you, it's taken 10 years to get to that point. It's taken a long time.

It was about a week before Christmas. I remember this because it was around my birthday that he got sentenced. My parents went into it with full faith that the Lord was going to be their defender, that He was going to be, you know, claimed innocent, found innocent. And there was complete shock when he was found guilty. He was in shock. My mom was in shock.

. . . the aftermath of this event is something that I don't think anybody could be prepared for. And that's really what I want to talk about . . . I told Hannah before this episode that a huge part of why I want to do this podcast is, I'm thinking of my brother and my sister, and knowing that there's kids like them in your ministry today. The statistics show that one in like 43 kids are impacted by this. That means [there are] kids in your ministry that are somehow impacted by this. Guess what? They don't want to talk about it. It is very, very shameful.

And I think that's what makes this so complex, is that you may or may not know about it because it's not something . . . you're not going to come up to someone and be like, "Hey, guess what? My dad is in jail." You know, or "my mom's in jail." That's not something that is like information that people just want to willingly give up.

But with this instance, I really want to talk about if for some reason you're actually walking with a family that is currently going through a possible trial or recently getting a sentence because with my siblings' experience, what happened during that time alone was very traumatic because what should have been, especially within the church, a time where at least the church was a safe place, became everywhere they went, this was the talk of the town.

"What's going on with your dad? What did he actually do?" All of those things, or leaders coming up to them and almost just wanting to soak up information for drama's sake.

Again, I'm not wanting to shame anyone. This is about awareness and about how those two years, the year of my dad's investigation and the year immediately following . . . I just was telling Hannah, I'm so thankful my sister is even willing to walk into a church today because those two years were horrid. But as kids who were so young - I mean, I think my sister was eight - like she was so young when this happened, and her whole life and her faith got completely rocked up until my dad's sentence. She said that her word was faith, and she believed fully that like the Lord was going to show up. The Lord was going to redeem the situation. The Lord was going to be my dad's [defender].

It is happening in your communities where kids are experiencing so much shame, so much bullying, not just from their school, but even within their church. The church that my siblings were attending . . . I mean, can you even imagine the devastation of this?

They, of course, were acting out. Of course, they have behavior issues. Are you kidding me? Their whole world has just been turned upside down. They have essentially lost a parent without the ability to grieve. And that's something, I want to say that again: they have lost a parent without the ability to grieve. And what that does to somebody internally is devastating.

I feel like I'm grieving, and that never stops. If I had lost my dad, I could post on Father's Day and say an honoring post about him and his life, and the legacy that he [leaves]. I don't post about my dad. I don't talk about him often, especially not in public. This is really my first time publicly talking about this situation and being this transparent because it's so shameful. . .

You have people with their opinions, you have people that hate this person that you love, and you have people that just don't know the full story. And that's really difficult to navigate. When your parent has been criminalized, in some of these cases, it's rightfully so. Some of these cases, you need to understand that it's not.

And so again, trying to just give so much grace to these families, especially if you're aware of it and being extra, extra intentional of not just being a safe space, but helping create one. If you see people on your staff gossiping or talking about this, stopping it immediately. Do not participate. I know it's tempting. We all like a juicy story, but we are called as Christians to rise above that. And the damage that that is doing is a lasting damage because they are already going through a level of trauma that not many people can understand, [let] alone talk about.

. . . being able to approach that child with so much grace, knowing that their behavior is not a reflection of them, it is truly a reflection of this hurt that is so deep that they themselves cannot understand it.

I think we just don't know. We are not nearly as aware as we should be of the fact that this is happening in our church. And if you think it's not happening in your church, it may not be the parent; it may be an uncle, it may be an aunt, it may be just somebody who is a relative. And that alone is hard because again, they are losing somebody without the ability to mourn. And that alone is [a] really, really difficult process . . . [there is] a grieving process for a reason, this kind of takes that out of the picture, where you have lost somebody without the ability to [grieve]/

Hannah Augustine (33:50)
[I] think some of what you said, especially about how we talk about things in the church, is huge. And that's a principle that we apply to everything. We were taught, and I've been guilty of it many times, but we were taught when we were on staff that you don't say...

[That] it's a need-to-know basis, right? You know, [you] don't need to share if a volunteer comes to you [shares something confidential]. I believe it was in Robert and Laurie Crosby's Trauma Informed Children's Ministry. They talk about, you know, keeping the confidence of a child. And again, there's discernment, and you need to always say to a child, "you know, if there's harm to you or to another person, I won't be able to keep this secret." 

But treating what they say to you with care and tenderness and knowing yes, you know, there may be times when you need to share what's been shared. But even being wise, you know, in how you do that and with who you do that. And treat [it] like you would an adult if your best friend or your spouse or you know, a family member shared something with you. Would you share that freely? And hopefully the answer is no, and if it's not maybe we need to you know, reanalyze that.

But just having that discernment with holding a confidence, and again, never to the detriment of the child or the family. But knowing that when a child shares something with you that they're feeling, it doesn't mean you go and say to all the volunteers, you know, "Bobby told me that his dad or his aunt or this is going on and this is how he feels." Again, need-to-know basis and being honoring. I think that's a great word, is honor. 

Sarah Carroll (35:13)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Hannah Augustine (35:25)
[This] again goes for how you speak about the child, how you speak about that family member, because you . . . we're not the judge and jury, and at the end of the day, we don't know what happened.

Sarah Carroll (35:29)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Hannah Augustine (35:34)
I'm not the judge and jury; God is, and Scripture makes it very clear that we're not meant to judge, lest we be judged and that the measure we use will be used against us. And I think walking in humility and recognizing there's, it's not a biblical phrase necessarily, but the phrase, [you] know, "but by grace there go I," and recognizing that it's only God's grace that has me where I am. And my life could look very different if it weren't for God's work in my life.

And so having that sensitivity towards what others are walking through, and being a safe place, a safe harbor, a lighthouse for families that are navigating these things, whether that's again, coming back to where we started with blended families, or incarcerated families, or those that are experiencing a loss of a parent, [whether] that's through divorce or death . . . and knowing that . . . I think you said it very well, it's grieving that never stops.

When you and I can learn and teach our volunteers, right, to have that sensitivity and to teach our kids, because you do have kids in your children's ministry that are coming from, you know, the perfect home, so to speak.

And, you know, they may not understand. We're not, you know, making claims of what's OK and not OK, but we can help explain, you know, "Sarah is going through a lot right now," or "Amanda is really having to walk through some things, and we want to be sensitive, and we want to help support her."

That's again, the Trauma Informed Children's Ministry book is a great resource, but they talk a lot about the power of small groups and the power of creating spaces where kids can share what they're going through because they need [community].

I was just reading, Sarah, you [recommended] Flip the Script by Lifeway. And I was just reading it, and they talk about [how] you need that peer-to-peer relationship in the church. And so helping kids foster that, that it's not just our small group leaders or us that are ministering, but our kids are learning how to have compassion at that young age. Because let's face it, if they're not seeing it in church, they are seeing it in school. And we want to equip them to have those conversations with their peers at school and to be a light that says, you know what, we love you. Jesus loves you. If you ever want to come to church, it's a place where you can be encouraged and feel safe.

Sarah Carroll (37:49)
I think it's really important for us to also understand how broken our world is.

And I think how we approach our children and our ministries, that is what needs to matter the most, too, is what does God think about them? What does God think about the situation? Being really, really slow, I mean, very cautious even.

Do not make any sort of assumptions. I would encourage you to try not to have an opinion about somebody else's business. I know that [it] is really hard. I'm a very opinionated person. This is something, though, that I've had to really work on is, you know what? At the end of the day, I actually don't know what happened, especially, you know, with divorced families.

Whose fault is this? We go there, and we really need to caution ourselves that that is not helpful. It is not going to bring anybody in that family unit closer to the Lord, and our jobs as ministers should be first and foremost to assess situations and figure out "how can we help this person come closer to the Lord?", and my actions matter in that. How I think matters in that. And we really need to filter those things through the Lord.

We're not going to be perfect, but that's why we have the Holy Spirit, and that's why we have grace, and we have mercy, and every day is a new day that we can choose to do better than the day before. And so that's what I would really encourage our listeners with is that we're not going to be perfect in this. And, but I would challenge you to really just take some steps back and and understand that somebody in your ministry is being impacted by this in one shape or form, and how I approach my ministry and even the heart behind what I do needs to maybe shift a little bit.

Hannah Augustine (39:38)
And I think if we were going to sum up this conversation as we close, it would be [that] there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this. There's no, you know, perfect answer. Every situation that you encounter is going to be unique. And, some of you are maybe in a rural town. Some of you are inner city. Some of you are international. And I think, you know, as you were sharing, Sarah, it made me think of, know, if you were a missionary going to a new country, you would do your best to be acclimating and aware and understanding the culture and the language and how they handle things. The reality is our generation and the generations above us who are ministering to kids [need to recognize that they have a] totally different environment than how we were raised, and so we need to treat ministry to kids as if we were missionaries, and as if we were, you know, approaching this completely blind, and seeking to understand asking questions, you know, read the books. 

Find the resources and if you want, we'd love to help connect you with some of our ministry partners. You can email me at hannah@kidzmatter.com, and I'll connect you with Sarah and our ministry partners to get more resources around this conversation, right? To figure out what looks best for you and your church, and it's going to look different at every church. How you prepare your team, how you prepare your congregation . . . it's going to look different now than it is in 10 years, and it's going to look different in Minnesota than it is in, you know, Florida.

So having that discernment and the awareness, and let the Holy Spirit lead you. And when you feel yourself feeling out of your depth, remember that the Holy Spirit is the great comforter, and at the end of the day that is what we're called to do is to comfort and to care and to love. I think of Paul, I think it's in 2nd Corinthians 1, where it says we have comforted you with the comfort we ourselves have received from God, and that is right. What we're called to do is to comfort people with the comfort that God has given us.

So Sarah, I want to thank you for sharing your testimony and being vulnerable. And I'm sure, you know, if you're listening today, you'd like to hear more from Sarah, again, email me at hannah@kidzmatter.com. I'd love to connect you with her and see how she can help support and pray with you. And if anything that we shared today was, you know, painful or triggering for you, we do offer some free coaching, and you can again, email me at hannah@kidzmatter.com, and we will set up a call with you just to see how we can help support and pray for you. 

You can check out KidCheck again at www.kidcheck.com. Great resource when you're thinking of how to keep kids safe who are maybe in different family situations. This is a great direction, [they] have some great content, some great resources there. And their team, we love Angela from their team. She's amazing, [she does] breakouts with us, and she's got some great insight.

But I would love Sarah, if you would close us in prayer.

Sarah Carroll (42:11)
Absolutely.

Lord, just thank You so much for anyone who is willing to listen to this today with an open heart and open mind. Lord, that You would speak to them, that You would remind them they have been chosen to do the ministry that is at hand. Lord, that You are going to be with them, that You are going to equip them, and Lord, that You love the kids in their ministry more than they can even fathom, and that You, Lord, are going to be walking with these kids, that You're going to be walking with these families. 

You're going to be walking with the volunteers and the leaders, Lord, that all of these hard things are completely devastating our world, God. Lord, You're in the midst, and You are there. We just thank You so much, Lord, for all that You're doing in the church, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Hannah Augustine (43:14)
Well, thank you, Sarah. Thank you all for joining, and we will see you next time.