Let’s see a show of hands on how many Christian parents desire to share God’s Word with your children daily? Of course we want to! And now a show of hands from those who actually do it. Ummm…yeah. Sadly, there are times when a week goes by without us making the effort to disciple our children. We can make all kinds of excuses, but the reality is this: If you don’t teach them about God, who will?
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We are just coming out of a quarantine where it seems most people had more time with their kids and less outside activities. We were less busy and possibly more productive at home. How did we spend our “extra time”? Binge watching shows? Organizing closets? Starting a new exercise routine? I am not saying these things don’t have their place. We could have spent our time doing any number of important and unimportant things during this season, but I wonder, are we closer to Jesus than when this all began? Do our children know more about God’s love and faithfulness than they did 2 months ago? You see, as with anything, it isn’t that we don’t have time to disciple our children. It is actually that we don’t understand it’s significance. We don’t have it built into our daily routine and it gets pushed aside like all the other things that seem too hard. We need to redeem the time!
One day, life will get back to “normal” and the busy-ness of our lives will return. We will again make excuses and find ways to convince ourselves that we will start being intentional tomorrow. It is time to stop putting off ’til tomorrow what God has commanded us to do today. Adding this in while things are still more calm will be much easier than adding to our chaos later. But what does this even look like? First, it means loving God above all else. Yes, parents, we must love God more than our spouse, more than our child, more than even life itself. As soon as the order of our love is mixed up, our priorities will also be mixed up. We need be in the Word daily. Before our day really begins, we should saturate our minds with the truth. We cannot rightly teach what we do not know ourselves, but as we learn, we have the responsibility to teach our children. This is to be our way of communicating, interacting, and living within our family.
Our household has implemented something that helps us purposefully teach our children the Bible. I call it Family Discipleship Hour (but my kids know it as “together time”). I will explain how we use this hour of our day. You might feel like an hour is a long time, but give it a try. Start with 30 minutes and work your way up if you need to. We choose to do ours right after breakfast so it doesn’t get overlooked later in the day. You may wish to do it in the evening when mom and dad are both home. If you homeschool your children, you can use this time to add in extra elements that tie right in. I will include those in {parentheses}.
What we include in our Family Discipleship Hour
~Bible Reading: This is first because it is most important. The Word of God is living and active! We read the Holy Bible knowing it is the Holy Spirit who teaches, convicts and gives understanding. I recommend using both a regular Bible and a story Bible if your kids are little. Do your best to always show how one story ties to another. Dig deep into God’s Word together.
~Bible Memorization {Writing}: Teaching our kids to hide God’s Word in their hearts is one way to help them overcome temptation, be confident in who they are in Christ, and battle emotional pitfalls. Pick a verse each week and make it fun! Create motions or use silly voices to recite it. {You can have children write the verse in print or cursive depending on the age. Older kids can memorize 3-5 verses a week and write one verse each day}. Seeds Family Worship has some excellent Cd’s that contain songs straight from scripture to help memorize verses easily.
~Prayer: We pray often in our home. In the morning, before meals, after a phone call saying someone is sick, when we are having trouble being Christ-like to each other, and at bedtime. Be willing to model what prayer is and encourage your children to talk to God. Talk about requests and praises. Keep a prayer journal and make note of answers so you can go back and see God’s faithfulness. Pray for your kids while they are listening. What a privilege to be able to approach the throne of grace as a family!
~Worship: Kids love music. Let’s be honest….most adults do too! I enjoy singing different types of songs with my children, but my favorite ones include lyrics that praise our awesome God. It isn’t hard to find worship songs on a music app or youtube. You could also purchase a CD such as Getty Kids. Choose a couple favorites each day and sing along with your kids. You could let them dance, play musical instruments as they sing or make up meaningful motions. {Let your kids learn to play some of your family’s favorite praise songs on the guitar or piano so they can provide the notes while everyone sings along. If you are learning sign language (ASL), practice doing it to some of the simple songs you choose.}
~Hymn Study: I fear our generation has lost the art of treasuring old hymns. I especially like to focus on the lyrics and how they speak truths straight from the Bible! We try choose one hymn to focus on for a week. We listen to the hymn, discuss the lyrics, read scriptures that correspond with the hymn and read the story behind it. It is always interesting to me to research the song writer and discover the reason he wrote the hymn. By the end of the week, your children have memorized a song that speaks truth into their hearts and minds. {Many homeschoolers use hymn study in their homeschool program to include writing options, music, and even history.}
~Character Building {History}: This is one of my favorites. To learn what the Bible says about fruit, righteous living, and being set apart will help children begin developing character qualities that point others to Him. So many of these go against our human nature which means we won’t innately choose to live like that. We need practice. Teach, pray for God’s help and practice some more. Point out when you notice your child being kind, diligent, or patient. {History isn’t as much about facts as it is about the character and lives of men and women who lived before us. You can find some good books that will focus on important people of history and describe their traits. (Example- Honest Abe)}
~Learn Books of the Bible: We set out to do the Old Testament books this year and are getting ready to tackle the New Testament next. There are many ways to do this! We used extra large Popsicle sticks and wrote one book on each stick. Then after laying them out in order, (5 or so each day) we would see how fast we could do it! There are also songs that have all 66 books in order. Find what works for you!
~Missionary Studies {Geography & Foreign Language}: Missionary stories are exciting for kids! They also bear witness to the faithfulness and power of God. I would much rather my children have a missionary as a roll model as opposed to a princess or superhero in a movie. It is our job to explain mission work and find ways to instill a love for evangelism in our young ones. {It is easy to use stories about missionaries to talk about geography and even foreign languages. Kids will relate better to what they are reading and will be eager to share this info with others they meet.}
We don’t do all of these each day. Choose a few and you will find the hour goes by quickly. This is not an hour wasted! On the contrary, I have found that our morning Family Discipleship Hour sets the tone for the rest of our day. It gives us all verses to mediate on, character traits to refer back to and music in our hearts to praise the Lord! It lays the foundation we need to continue the discipleship process all throughout the day.
We have created a page of suggestions to get you started. Here you will find trusted resources our family has personally used and loved! If you implement this idea in your home, take a minute to let me know how it goes!
Seeking Wisdom,
