Every family touring a school asks some version of the same question: will my child actually be known here? At Martin Luther School the answer has a name. It is called a Faith Family, and your child would be in the same one, with the same adult, from kindergarten until the day they graduate. This is what Christian character education in Joplin looks like when it is built on a relationship instead of a program.
Walk the building on a Faith Family morning and you will not find a single grade level in one room. You will find a fifth grader helping a kindergartner thread beads onto a string. You will find nine students sitting on the floor of a staff office. You will find a second grader coloring next to an eighth grader who has known her since she started kindergarten.
That is the point.
What Is a Faith Family?
A Faith Family is a small group of students from kindergarten through eighth grade, led by one adult on our staff. Every staff member leads one.
It is not a once-a-month program. It is three things:
Every Wednesday, in chapel
Students sit with their Faith Family, not with their class. A kindergartner worships next to a sixth grader every week of the school year.
Eight mornings a year
The schedule stops school-wide and the groups meet to work through a Friendzy character lesson together.
And lunch together
On those same days they eat as a group. A cafeteria normally sorts itself by grade. On a Faith Family Thursday it does not.
On those mornings the groups meet across the whole building — classrooms, the library, offices, wherever there is floor space and room to talk.
Here is the part that makes it work: a child keeps the same Faith Family, and the same leader, for their entire time at Martin Luther School. A kindergartner who joins this fall will still be in that group as an eighth grader. When the eighth graders graduate each May, a new class of kindergartners takes their place.
Nine years. One group. One adult who watches a child grow from age five to age fourteen. That is not a program. That is a relationship.
Most schools cannot do this. A large school cannot keep a child with the same mentor for nine years, and it cannot seat a kindergartner beside an eighth grader who already knows her name. A small school can. Our classes run about twelve to fifteen students. We are small by design, and this is one of the reasons why. You can read more about that choice on our Why Martin Luther School page.
“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”
Psalm 145:4 (ESV)
Faith is handed down. It is handed down from adults to children, and it is handed down from older children to younger ones. A Faith Family is simply a room where that happens on purpose.
What Is Friendzy?
If the name is new to you, here is the plain version.
Friendzy is a character education curriculum built for Christian schools, and it is a real subject here, not an occasional assembly. Your child’s own teacher teaches it in the classroom, week by week, all year. Every grade works the same unit at the same time, so a second grader and a seventh grader are learning the same idea in language that fits each of them.
That is what makes the Faith Family mornings work. By the time the whole school mixes into those groups, every student in the room has been sitting with the same unit in their own classroom for weeks. They are not being introduced to an idea. They are talking about one they already share.
The five skills Friendzy teaches
Schools everywhere teach these five and call it social and emotional learning. The difference is the foundation. Friendzy roots every lesson in Scripture rather than in self-esteem.
That distinction matters to us, and it is the same one you will find on our Faith & Values page. A lesson that tells a child “believe in yourself” runs out of road on a hard day. A lesson that tells a child “you are loved by God, and so is the kid who just hurt your feelings” does not.
Friendzy comes with lessons, student activities, and resources for parents at home. Each session pairs a short lesson with something to make or do together. The activity is not filler. It is what gives a shy second grader something to do with her hands while an eighth grader talks to her.
September’s unit was ‘Ohana: Stick Together — a Hawaiian word for family, meaning people who care for, help, and belong with one another. A fitting place for a Faith Family to start the year.
What Faith Families Are Studying This Year
Each unit runs for several weeks in the classroom and carries a catchphrase the whole school is using at the same time. One school-wide Faith Family morning belongs to each unit. Here is the 2026–27 year:
Current MLS families: this list is worth keeping. If you know the catchphrase your child is hearing at school, you can use the same words at home — and that is where character actually sets. Friendzy publishes parent resources for each unit, and we are glad to send you your child’s.
| Unit theme | Faith Family morning |
|---|---|
| ‘Ohana: Stick Together | September 10, 2026 |
| It’s OK to Not Be OK | October 8, 2026 |
| Grow Gratitude | November 19, 2026 |
| 100% Attitude, 100% Effort | December 17, 2026 |
| Practice Makes Permanent | January 25–29, 2027 |
| Communicate to Connect | February 25, 2027 |
| Another Angle | March 24, 2027 |
| Maximize the Moment | May 6, 2027 |
Two of those are worth a note for your calendar. The January unit runs across a full week, because it falls during National Lutheran Schools Week. And March’s falls on a Wednesday rather than a Thursday.
Read that list again and notice what is not on it. There is no unit on winning, standing out, or believing in yourself. “It’s OK to Not Be OK” is a hard thing to teach a fourth grader, and it is exactly the thing a fourth grader needs an eighth grader and a trusted adult in the room to hear.
Why We Do It This Way
Children do better when several adults know them well. Not one adult. Several.
A child who has only one trusted adult at school is one bad year away from having none. A child who has five is steady. Our goal is simple to say and hard to build: every student here should be able to name at least five adults who know them and would notice if they were struggling. Faith Families are one of the ways we build that.
The multi-age mix does its own work. Older students learn to lead by leading somebody smaller. Younger students learn how a big kid behaves by sitting next to one every week. Both are hard to teach in a room where everyone is the same age.
It also changes the hallway. A first grader who knows four eighth graders by name walks into the gym differently. So does the eighth grader who knows the first graders are watching.
What a Faith Family Morning Looks Like
Eight times a year, on a Thursday, the schedule stops. Students find their Faith Family leader, wherever that group meets. Some groups have a classroom. Some have a rug in an office. Some spread out in the library.
The leader picks up the unit the whole school has been working on in class. It is short. Then the group does the activity together, and that is when the real talking happens — about the lesson, about the week, about whatever an eighth grader decides a kindergartner needs to know.
Then comes lunch, and they eat that together too — same group, same tables. For a lot of students that is the best part. A cafeteria normally sorts itself by grade without anyone deciding to. On a Faith Family Thursday it does not.
And Every Wednesday in Chapel
The eight Thursdays get the photos. The Wednesdays do the quiet work.
Martin Luther School students attend chapel every Wednesday morning in the church sanctuary — the main worship room. They do not sit with their class. They sit with their Faith Family.
Think about what that adds up to. Roughly thirty-six times a year, a kindergartner sits in worship with her group and the staff member who leads it. Someone older shows her where they are in the service. Someone older notices when she is having a rough morning. Nobody scheduled that as a lesson. It happens because of where the chairs are, and because an adult is sitting in that row too.
Over nine years, that is well over three hundred Wednesdays in the same small group.
Chapel is short, age-appropriate, and families are always welcome to come. It sits alongside the rest of what shapes a student here — daily religion class, the twenty-five Bible passages every student memorizes each year, and the service and leadership opportunities on our Programs page.
Frequently Asked Questions
My child is shy. Will a mixed-age group be hard for them?
Usually the opposite. Our classes already run about twelve to fifteen students, so no child here is lost in a crowd. What a Faith Family adds is a second set of people — a group that is not their grade and an adult who is not their classroom teacher. If a child has not clicked with the other eight-year-olds, that matters. New students often say their Faith Family is where they made their first friend at Martin Luther School.
My child is one of the youngest. Is an adult always with the group?
Yes. A Faith Family is built around a staff member — that adult is the group. Every gathering is led by them, and Faith Families meet in ordinary school spaces during the school day: classrooms, the library, the gym, staff offices. The older students are not put in charge of the younger ones. A teacher is in charge, the same way a teacher is in charge of a classroom.
What the older students are learning is how to be careful with somebody smaller while a trusted adult watches them do it. For the youngest children, the practical effect is the opposite of being on their own: a kindergartner here has a teacher who knows them, a classroom teacher, and a handful of older students who have been asked to look out for them by name.
Do older students actually want to spend time with the little ones?
More than you would expect. Being trusted with a younger child is a real responsibility, and students rise to it. Our eighth graders have been on the receiving end of this since kindergarten, so they know what it is for.
We are not Lutheran — or not churchgoers at all. Will this be uncomfortable for my child?
No. Our families come from many church backgrounds, and some come from none. All of that is normal here. Friendzy lessons are about honesty, kindness, forgiveness, and handling conflict — taught from Scripture, at an age-appropriate level, with no pressure on any child or family. You can read exactly where we stand, and what we will and will not do, on our Faith & Values page and our What We Believe page.
Can I see the Friendzy material my child is using?
Yes. Friendzy publishes resources for parents as part of the curriculum, and we are glad to share what your child’s group is working through. Ask your child’s teacher, or call the school office at (417) 624-1403.
Does this take time away from academics?
Friendzy is a taught subject, so yes — it takes classroom time each week, the way religion or music does. We think that is the right trade. A child who can name what they are feeling, take a correction, and repair a friendship learns more math than a child who cannot. The eight Faith Family mornings are the smaller cost, and the chapel seating costs nothing at all — students are in that service either way.
What grades are included?
Faith Families run from kindergarten through eighth grade. Our Early Childhood program serves children beginning at age three and has its own faith and character routines — see our Early Childhood page. Children join a Faith Family when they start kindergarten and stay in it through eighth grade.
If You Are Choosing a School Right Now
Most of what schools say about themselves sounds the same. Caring teachers. Strong academics. A family atmosphere. Every school in Joplin will tell you that, and most of them mean it.
So here is a question worth asking on any tour you take, ours included: how many adults here will know my child by name in three years, and how do you make that happen on purpose? Listen for whether the answer is a structure or a hope.
Ours is a structure. It has a name, a roster, a weekly seat in chapel, and eight dates on the calendar.
If your child would be transferring in
This is the part we would most want you to know. The hardest thing about changing schools is not the curriculum. It is the first month of lunches.
A new student here does not arrive with only a classroom. They arrive with a Faith Family — a staff member whose job is to notice them, and eight or nine students across several grades who have been told the new kid is coming. In chapel that first Wednesday, there is a seat with their group in it. The older students in that group have been the new kid before, and they know what the group is for.
A child does not have to be socially bold to land somewhere here. That is the whole design.
Come See a Thursday Morning
The best way to understand a Faith Family is to walk past one. Tours are free and you can come as you are. Ask for a Faith Family morning and we will put you on one — the next is Thursday, October 8. Come on a Wednesday instead and you can watch the whole school file into chapel and sit down in their groups.
Or call the school office at (417) 624-1403. Questions about enrolling? Start at Admissions.
Martin Luther School is a mission ministry of Immanuel Lutheran Church (LCMS), located at 2616 S Connecticut Ave, Joplin, MO 64804. Fully accredited by National Lutheran School Accreditation. Serving children age 3 through 8th grade since 1953 — read our history. More questions? See our FAQ.
Martin Luther School is affiliated with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and accredited through National Lutheran School Accreditation.