Meet: Kirsten Strand

By Kirsten Strand & Karen Brown

Kirsten Strand lives in Aurora, Illinois with her husband Scott, sons Erik (age 13) and Brian (age 12), and their dog Lucy. She is the Director of Community 4:12, the Compassion & Justice Ministry of Community Christian Church, a multi-site church with 14 (and counting) locations . She is deeply passionate about addressing the “injustices” and inequalities that people living in poverty face and about bringing people together across racial, cultural, and economic differences. She believes that everyone is rich in some ways and everyone is poor in some ways, and only by coming together can we help address each other’s poverty. Check out her blog.

Question: Do you have a specific vision for your family that's beyond just surviving the day? 

If so, how do you keep your vision in all the chaos? When my husband and I got married 17 years ago, we went on what we called a “Family Summit.” We went off to a cabin in the woods away from all technology and people and wrote a Family Mission Statement and dreamed about our future. Every year since then, we have gone on a “Family Summit.” The kids started joining us when they were in elementary school, and they have gotten more and more involved each year. We go away for three nights and spend time evaluating how we have done as a family in the past year in sticking with our mission (which was revised when they were old enough to have input) and accomplishing any goals we’d set the year before. We dream and pray together and work through any conflicts or tensions that haven’t been resolved. Our family motto is, “A cord of [4] Strands is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). We try to model the idea that if we all stick together and keep God at the center of what we do, we can get through anything. The Summit weekend is the highlight of the year for all of us, and recharges and refocuses us for the coming year.

Question: Are there any routines that you’ve incorporated into your daily schedule that help foster faith formation in your children? 

Despite our hectic schedules, we try very hard to eat dinner together most nights of the week. We do a family prayer before that with everyone sharing something they are thankful for or a request they have. We are not a particularly “spiritual” family in terms of doing family devotions or lots of praying together, but we are on a “mission” together as a family in an under-resourced community, so we hope that our lifestyle choices and efforts to put our faith into action are influencing our kids’ faith journey.

Question: Do you have any practical tips that you have found especially helpful in managing your household? 

I am an off-the-chart “beaver,” so planning ahead and being organized comes naturally, and at times drives the 3 other “otters” in my house crazy. One thing that saves me during the week is that I plan and cook most meals ahead of time (on the weekends) and freeze them so that I don’t have to worry about cooking during the week and so that we won’t have to be tempted to swing through the drive-through. We also have a rule that the house/bedrooms get completely picked up every weekend, but I don’t stress too much about the mess during the week. I have learned to be okay with having “book bags” and “bat bags” sprawled around the living room.

Question: What are some practical ways in which you help your children think and care about others around them? 

When my kids were very young, my husband and I made some significant life choices that have significantly influenced the life my kids have lived. I joined the staff at our church to start a ministry to help Christ-followers address poverty and justice issues. My husband left his corporate job and went back to school to get his teaching degree so he could teach and impact kids in under-resourced schools. We then moved from a mostly White, affluent suburb to an under-resourced and mostly Hispanic community so that we could be a part of helping to restore that community. My kids have come with us to serve at homeless shelters or with refugees since they were toddlers. Their best friends are what society would label as “poor Mexican immigrants.” We helped start a bilingual campus of our church in our neighborhood so that we can worship with our friends who don’t speak English. We also hope that we have shown them that Jesus cares more about “loving” the poor than he does about “serving” the poor. Jesus wasn’t anyone’s volunteer. He was their friend. And that is what we hope to help our children be.