You’ve already seen on the blog that we believe parents are highly influential. In fact, while the average church leader gets about 40 hours a year with your son or daughter, a full time working parent who gets eight hours of sleep each night and doesn’t homeschool has 3000 hours of influence with a child over a year. Seriously.
What do you do with all that influence?
We want to encourage you to create a rhythm at home that makes conversation about God normal.
Here’s the thinking: Every family already has a rhythm. Yours does. Mine does. And what happens in that rhythm becomes ‘normal’ for the kids. If you grew up in a musician’s home, it might be normal to have artists around playing music. For others, it’s just normal to see mom and dad out on long runs or it’s normal to never miss a football game. In other families, it might be normal to build furniture or make custom jewelry. Whatever shows up in the rhythm of every day life in our homes is perceived both to be ‘normal’ and to have value.
The question is: how does God get worked into the rhythm? See, sometimes God is someone who shows up on Sunday, but is absent the rest of the week. Not because he’s not important, but because he doesn’t have a role in our daily rhythm. For others, God shows up in our life over the week, but he’s kind of awkward. You know the ‘okay-now-that-dinner’s-done-let’s-read-the-bible-any-questions-can-we-be-excused’ drill? God’s there, but the dialogue’s just not normal…not yet.
Here’s what’s true: the younger your kids are, the easier it is to create a rhythm. There’s craft time, play time, nap time, meal time…you get the picture. Life is so structured, so it’s easier to regularly incorporate faith into the rhythm of life. But the older they get, the more creative and purposed you have to be about creating a rhythm.
When our kids were younger, we prayed with the nightly and read the bible regularly together. We used the take-home resoucres from church to amplify at home what was happening at church. But beyond that, my wife Toni and I tried to weave conversation about our faith into spontaneous moments too – in the same way you might talk about a great movie, a friend or sports.
As our kids entered their teen years, that spontaneous conversation has become so important. We sometimes read the Bible as a family, but we’ve largely moved toward personal devotions for all of us (after all, faith ultimately has to become personal for everyone). I often find long car rides to be great times to dig into faith and life issues. It doesn’t happen every day, but what I’m so grateful for is that it still feels ‘normal’.
How about you? What age are your kids and what has become a best practice in your family for focusing your priorities on what matters most?
What’s working for you? What have you tried that isn’t working so well?
I have a four and a half year old boy and a three month old baby girl. The last few months have been a bit crazy in my house adjusting from one child to two children plus me going back to working outside the home full time. My son has had issues with seeing monsters and being scared of going to bed by himself so I started laying down with him at night until he falls asleep. At first, this was really annoying to me but then I started using it as an intentional time for just me and him (without his baby sister being around) where we got to talk. I have been amazed at how much he opens up to me and how much I have enjoyed getting to spend this time with him every night. It is “Mommy and Ethan” time. Now when he talks about his fears, he asks me to pray for Jesus to send his angels to protect him and then is able to go to sleep. I don’t have to initiate us praying, he does! For me, I put time with him every night as the priority no matter what is on tv or what is going on. And he knows that. And that has made a huge difference for my son and for me too!
My kids are 9 and 6. We have tried reading scripture at the table, but that was a giant flop. I bought a kids devotional and worked through it with the kids at story time before bed. That also didn’t work out so well. I have found that spending one on one time cuddled in my bed with each child just before they go to sleep works best for me to find teachable moments. They tell me about their day…the good, bad, and ugly. We discuss how they feel about it and often times I find very real ways to teach them what the Bible has to say, and use an example from my own life. I have had many opportunities to humble myself and apologize also. I make it my policy to be real with my kids and let them know I am still learning. My dad used to watch Oprah and other shows in the afternoon and often time I would find myself next to him as I got older. One thing that struck me about those times….is that he always made them into an object lesson and we had some very serious faith building discussions. I always joke that I was the only kid I knew who had Oprah be a teaching tool about what was right, not because of anything she said….but how my dad used it. I took that concept and do the same with my children. Not Oprah, but use the things they are taking in a school or with friends to use as teachable moments. I’m always on the look out.
We also make our commitment to growing in God very seriously. So, we demonstrate that by going to a small group each week. Even when my fibromyalgia is so flaired I can hardly sit up….I demonstrate to my children my commitment to grow, by honoring the commitment I made and I go. I always feel refreshed afterwards and know that communicates God is #1 in my life. I am trying to live it out, but I’m bringing my kids on the journey and involving them in it….asking and answering questions along the way. It’s a natural part of the tapestry of our lives.
Our rhythm includes waking up in the middle of the night with a knee, foot or elbow lodged into my back because my son and/or daughter decided they would crawl into bed with us at a time when I’d be too tired or dead to the world to do anything about it! Guess that’s part of having a 2 and 4 yr old.
For a while now we’ve had story time before mom or dad put the kids to bed. Recently been much more intentional about it being a Bible story or at least one that can teach some kind of truth about God. (this definitely has challenged me and my creative story-telling ability or lack thereof). I’ve also made it regular to pray with each of my kids before saying goodnight.
Also have tried to make time in the car more intentional especially in the morning. I’ve turned off sports radio and spent time talking to my kids, especially my son since he’s bit older, and have found he is more than happy to talk about God and ask questions, etc. Usually he will bring something up and I can steer the conversation to ‘What do you think Jesus wants you to do about that?’ We’ve had some great conversations over the past few weeks about Heaven, being nice to people who are mean, and helping others, all on the way to school.