When Family Devotions Go Wrong
Email 1
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Subject Line: When Family Devotions Go Wrong, Part One
Hi!
Family devotions is the issue we’ll be covering in this month’s Online Parenting Class. Family devotions don’t need to be a full-blown church service. They don’t even have to be very long—especially if you have young children. The goal and purpose of family devotions is to create an atmosphere in your home that says God is number one and that your family values the truth of the Word and wants to live in faith and obedience.
This video helps show you how you can use family devotion times to enhance your family’s relationship with God.
When deciding how to do family devotion time, don’t lose sight of the fact that the purpose is to grow and enhance everyone’s personal relationship with God. If you need suggestions on supplemental books other than the Bible, please don’t hesitate to ask me. I have lots of great resources I would be happy to share with you.
https://vimeo.com/parentministry/review/149140804/e3056ffbbb
Devoted to God and to your family,
Children’s Pastor
Email 2
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Subject Line: When Family Devotions Go Wrong, Part 2
Hello!
I hope you’ve been able to take a look at this month’s Online Parenting Class on Family Devotions, and I pray you were encouraged by it. Let’s continue our ‘discussion’ on the value of family devotions.
Let’s get to the meat of the matter by looking at some practical ways to implement family devotions into your family’s schedule.
1. Keeping it short and simple. Five to ten minutes is fine.
2. Use a variety of methods (reading from the Bible or a devotion book, acting out a Bible story, watching short videos)
3. Involve everyone. Take turns leading the devotion.
4. Vary the time of devotions—the dinner table, bedtime, road trips….
I’d also like to suggest a couple of ideas on how to make family devotion time special:
Idea #1: Taking turns, have family members place an item in the middle of the dinner table that represents a favorite Bible story. The other members of the family have to guess what story the object represents. Once the correct answer is given, the person who placed the object tells the Bible story and why it is one of their favorites.
Idea #2: Focus on the parables Jesus told. Do one per week. After reading it, discuss the parable then ask your children to write a similar parable using current events, places, and circumstances to send the same or similar message. Give them two or three days to do this, then use family devotion time to let them read their parables.
Joshua 1:8 says, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
As you do your part to make the Word alive and real to your children, I’ll be right there to help however I can.
In His service,
Children’s Pastor
Video Script
When Family Devotions Go Wrong
A great way to grow spiritually as a family is to do family devotions.
If you don’t know what a family devotion is, it’s pretty simple. You just gather your family together, teach them a Scripture, and pray together.
But unfortunately, actually doing a family devotion isn’t all that simple.
Let’s start with the scheduling of a family devotional. In today’s busy world it is so hard to find a regular time to do anything as a family. Sometimes, it’s like jumping hurdles just to get everyone in the family in the same room for a family devotion.
The hard part comes when you finally get everyone together, and you share with them what you thought was a pretty great family devotional, and they are falling asleep or even worse bouncing off the walls.
It can get pretty discouraging when you finally find the courage to lead your family spiritually, and they don’t act like they really care at all.
Here’s some encouragement for you in your efforts to lead your family spiritually through family devotions…
First, Don’t Force It. You don’t have to fit every spiritual lesson into one family devotional. This is a marathon, not a sprint. There isn’t some magical time limit that you must hit. If your family devotional is only five minutes, that’s great. The bigger questions to ask is this. Did my kids see me as a parent attempt to show them that our faith is important to us as a family? Did my kids hear me read Scripture? Did they see me pray? Did I show them with my actions that these things are valuable to me. That’s the big win. If someone asks your child a week from now what your devotional was about they probably won’t remember. But if someone asks your child years from now, is faith important to your family? they’ll remember the times you gathered together to read Scripture and pray, and say Yes it was! That’s the win that your looking for as you’re spiritually leading your family.
Second, Let the Kids be Involved in the Family Devotion. It’s tempting to put together a sermon or lecture like you might hear in church and share it with your family. But you might try another approach to get more interaction from your kids. Let them be involved. Let them act out the story. Ask them lots of questions. You might even ask them to lead the devotional themselves. If your kids are involved, you have a much better shot of them being more interested.
Third, Intimacy always follows awkwardness. If you think about it, just about every intimate moment is preceded by a bit of awkwardness. Intimacy isn’t meant to happen instantly. You have to push through a bit of awkwardness to get there. That’s very true when it comes to family devotionals. As you are trying to get together as a family and do something very intimate like studying Scripture and prayer, it almost certainly will include some awkwardness. My advice is to embrace the awkwardness knowing that if you stick with it, you’ll get to experience some amazing and intimate moments where your kids open up their hearts and ask the questions that they’ve really been wondering about. Or maybe your kids will share their fears or hurts with you because they’ve learned to trust this family devotional time as a safe place where they can share their heart.
I wish I could say those moments happen all the time, but they don’t. As soon as you experience one, though, you’ll discover that all the struggles you go through to do a family devotional together was totally worth it.
Texts/Tweets
TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.
Tweet One: Your WORD is a lamp to my feet & a light to my path. #readtheBible
Tweet Two: You gotta read it to know it…the Bible #readtheBible
Tweet Three: The Bible = best bedtime stories ever! #readtheBible
Tweet Four: Family devotions keep families devoted to one another. #readtheBible
Tweet Five: Let’s read the Bible together. #readtheBible
Tweet Six: Families that read God’s Word together learn together. #readtheBible
Tweet Seven: Share God’s WORD with your kids. #readtheBible
Tweet Eight: It’s nice to share…especially God’s WORD. #readtheBible
Tweet Nine: Know the Bible…know God. #readtheBible
Tweet Ten: Family Bible time = family growth time. #readtheBible