Building Spiritual Families

Call: 434-632-4332

About Us

We are all in this together – and we are glad you are visiting our site. This is our online meeting place, where we organize our activities, share ideas, and publicize our mission.

Our mission is to strengthen the family unit.

To build spiritual families, we:

• Help adults and children find their strengths and build on them
• Provide relevant, research-based life skills information and activities through workshop series
• Train facilitators and build partnerships

The Building Spiritual Families: Challenges and Choices program helps families find their strengths, build on those strengths, and learn skills to create stronger families, improve relationships, and increase communication. The program covers 13 topics and uses hands-on activities to involve participants.

Currently, 733 facilitators from Extension and various agencies (e.g., Community Action, Head Start, schools, social services) in Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Utah, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Alabama have completed certification training. To date, 19,440 adults and 5,138 youth have participated in the program.

Building Spiritual Families is based on research showing family members can make significant changes in their behavior by focusing on strengths rather than on problems.

Building Spiritual Families: 

• Provides fast-paced interactive sessions 
• Helps families learn from each other 
• Makes learning fun
• Spirituality

A team from University of Missouri Extension developed the Building Strong Families: Challenges and Choices program in 1997.

History of Building Spiritual Families
A 1995 Statewide needs assessment showed that 93 of 114 Missouri counties wanted programs to strengthen local families. In response, field and state Extension faculty formed the Building Strong Families base program team. Fifteen team members came together from all regions of Missouri, University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Missouri-Columbia. They have backgrounds in substance abuse treatment and prevention, consumer and family economics, environmental design, human development, human environmental sciences and 4-H youth development.

The team first consulted their colleagues and community partners around Missouri, and then created the research-based program, Building Strong Families: Challenges and Choices. Building Strong Families (BSF) is designed to help families identify their own strengths and learn skills to build on those strengths. The program uses a 13-module curriculum that can be adapted for families of different types and in different settings and situations.

Team members and trained facilitators have tested the program in both rural and urban settings. Communities can customize the multi-session program by offering Family Strengths followed by two or more modules of the participants’ choice.

1.     In 2005 Pastor: Elias Cushi team up with Dr. Michael Harris Sr. and other from Jacksonville Theological Seminary and came up to make it with a spiritual strength.

Contact us here. Pastor:Elias Cushi 434-632-4332

Our Work

We work together to make our cause known, to reach out to other groups who share our vision. Whether you’re ready to lend a hand at one of our activities or have photos or articles to share about a recent event, here’s the place to do it.

Donate Here PLEASE just click.