In recent weeks this is what we've been doing:
- I quiz Ali from her new book I requested for her birthday from the grandparents. It's called "My First Book of Questions and Answers," by Carine MacKenzie. It's a training tool to teach kids about faith and the answers to the big questions. John and Noel Piper highly recommended it so of course that interested me! Ali has already worked her way up to question 9 in just a week or two. I wish I had learned catechisms as a kid!
- We read some from Proverbs and Mark.
- Sometimes we read a children's Bible story as well.
- We sing 4 hymns we are working on learning. Just the first line of the hymns. We also sing a few children's Bible songs that Ali loves, like the CEF song, "Just Turn Around" or "I've Got Joy Down in My Heart," etc.
- We pray for the needs in our family and for Mommy to have patience and for the kids to learn obedience today!
Of course this isn't the full extent of our training. There are meal time prayers, stories throughout the day, bedtime prayers, Sunday School, Children's Church, and times when I need to correct throughout the day and explain Biblical truths. But I think it's SO IMPORTANT to make spiritual training the biggest part of your child's day and have a regular time each day set aside for this. There will be days when I can't get everything on my schedule done and days when all I can manage is fast food and a dirty home. But as long as I have gotten the most important things done, teaching my kids about God, reading His Word with them, and helping my husband, that's all that counts!
What do you do to help train your children in the Lord?
4 comments:
I will be watching here with interest. After taking two months off of our schooling/routine due to my around the clock morning sickness, we're starting to get back on track. I am thinking it's time to do something different. Every day we'd repeat the week's memory verse a few times, sing a song (might be a children's church song or a hymn), and talk about someone from the Bible. I don't know exacty what I want to do now, but the gears are turning...
Before our naptime/bedtime prayers, I always ask Madison who she wants to pray for. Sometimes it's for Daddy at work, sometimes for Papa or Nana or her cousins, sometimes it's just as simple as praying for her toys or our home. I usually pray first and when I'm done she will usually say a short prayer for whoever or whatever she wanted to pray for. We also learn Bible songs and Bible stories. She learns new songs so fast, I love hearing her sing!
We, also, strive to make Christ real for our children (mostly just Isaac is "getting it" now!), and God is a huge part of our every day. One example of something we do is to pray when we hear a siren. Isaac is very serious about this, and I think he has made an impression on some of our unchurched relatives when he stops and becomes serious about folding his hands and asking me to pray when we hear a siren in the distance.
I really didn't think anyone was reading my blog anymore...I have been such a slacker lately! :) Anyway thanks for stopping by! My devotions with my kids...we've done a few different things. When they were about Ali and Jer's age we did a little devotional about every other day or so and always had songs going. Throughout the day I would try to incorporate whatever the devotion was about. Like feelings...how do you think Jesus felt when people didn't treat him right (like if someone was to hurt the other person) kind of thing. At the time we learned the New Testament books of the Bible...Matthew, Mark, Luke...there was a tape they listened to that had it. NOW is a totally different story. Jenna is a preteen and so it is more about modesty and how to have Godly character even though your body is changing kind of thing. Nathan has another one that he and his dad have been working on. And then Jason and I have been working on Disciplining Your Kids through the scriptures or something like that and it has some ideas for devotions that we use as a family. :)
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