Tips to Start God Conversations with Your Kids
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Subject Line: Tips to Start God Conversations with Your Kids, Part One
Hello again!
Younger children are experts at asking questions—“Why do I have to clean up my room?” or “How much longer?” But most children don’t naturally ask questions about spiritual things. This is where you as parents can help!
Think about your childhood. Can you recall many conversations about faith? What things do you wish your parents had talked about with you, but didn’t? Most adults will say they rarely engaged with their parents in spiritual conversation—if ever. And as kids grow and approach their teenage years and then young adulthood, bigger questions arise about God. Children face secular influences at a much earlier age than previous generations. This is why parents need to embrace the opportunity to talk about some of these things with their children early on before the world has its say.
Sadly, today fewer than one in ten Christian families read the Bible together, much less talk about spiritual things!
In the Old Testament, God instructed the Hebrews how often they were supposed to talk about God’s Word with their children. Deuteronomy 6:6–7 says, “. . . “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart . . . teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up . . .” (NASB). Spiritual conversation should be happening all the time with our kids!
The reality for most families, however, is that faith conversations don’t casually “come up” in the course of a busy day. Conversations that steer children towards faith topics have to be intentional.
This month we are bringing you another Online Parenting Class offering some invaluable tips for how to initiate How to Start God Conversations with your kids. It will provide ideas for naturally incorporating spiritual conversation into your child’s bedtime routine. Please take time to watch the video, and don’t hesitate to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions! I’m always ready to help!
https://vimeo.com/parentministry/review/175380705/8a7a858c21
Serving your children together with you,
Children’s Pastor
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Glad you joined me again!
I hope you were able to view the video for this month and grab a hold of some tools to start God conversations with your children. Parents, you play a vital role in helping your child begin to think about who God is and how they fit into His great plan!
Raising children to follow Jesus is a lot like trying to find a particular place in an unfamiliar town, without a GPS. There are no “maps” or directions to parenting! Often, we try our best to lead our children spiritually and figure it out along the way by trial and error. And that’s ok! The important thing is to open up those conversations.
However, many parents communicate that they don’t know where to begin; they feel ill equipped to steer conversations with their children toward God. Or worse, when kids do ask faith questions, parents change the subject for fear of answering wrong. They miss natural opportunities to let children explore God!
To ease concern about answering incorrectly, consider preparing a list of questions to topics you would like to address with your kids before they leave home, and research simple answers. Write them down. If you can’t answer them, seek out wisdom from others you trust. As you think about how you would reply, keep in mind that many God questions don’t need to be resolved in a single discussion. Answers may come over the course of several years—as life experiences bring up the topic once again. For example, one question could be, “Why do you think God tells us not to lie?” One initial answer could be because it hurts others. However, if down the road your child lies to you, or someone else lies to your child, that topic could be re-opened. That second or third discussion would likely have more of an impact.
Then, listen well. Actively slow down and pay attention with a sincere interest in what the child is saying. Try not to correct every time, because part of faith conversations is allowing the child to begin to discover God on their own.
Being available to talk about God is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child and a beautiful expression of love. Don’t be afraid! Doing so honors God, who tells us that our job as parents is to “bring [a child] up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:3).
You are not alone in the process! The Holy Spirit will teach you what to say, and we are here to help, too.
We are praying for you and hope these tools provide encouragement in your parenting.
Committed to God and your family,
Children’s Pastor
Video Script
A Tip to Start God Conversations
When it comes to leading your children spiritually, and teaching them about the things of God, that can be an intimidating and scary experience. It’s almost easier to teach them how to shoot a basketball or how to catch a fish than it is to learn how to read and understand God’s word or how to pray and talk to God. Those are concepts that are not that easy to talk to a child about. I want to give you a tip today on how you, as a parent, can open those conversations, and make a real natural way for you to spiritually lead your child.
Here’s the tip. It’s not very complicated at all. In fact, once I tell you, you’re going to be like, “wow, that’s not very hard. I thought you were an expert.” I’m not an expert, and neither do you need to be an expert when it comes to training your child spiritually.
Here’s the tip. All you have to do is bring your bible to bedtime. That’s it. Bring your bible to bedtime. You see, at this stage of your child’s life, you’re probably putting them to bed almost every night. I hope at some point, you’re putting them to bed, and spending some special time with them in the evenings. Guess what. One of the ways you can help talk to them about God is you just bring your bible with you. This process, I’m not asking you to stand at the foot of their bed and deliver a sermon to them, or something awkward like that. Just bring your bible to bed, and show it to them. Put it in their hands. Let them open it up.
Here are some things you can do during that moment. First of all, tell them about the bible. The bible is a book that a child isn’t normally reading. Children normally read books from the library, or books with cartoon characters, or books with stories that are written for their reading level. The bible is not written for their reading level, and it’s not written targeted for a child. It’s definitely not their normal library book. You’ve got to help them learn how to navigate it. The first thing you do is show them the table of contents. Help them see the books of the bible. Then open up to the book of the bible, and help them see the chapters, and that it’s divided in verses. Help them understand those numbers of chapters and verse. Just that logistical way to navigate the bible is a great skill to help give to your child. It will start to help open up to them the experience of reading the bible for themselves.
The next thing you do is talk to your child about the books of the bible. In fact, one of the things you can do is say, “look at this table of contents, and pick out a book of the bible that you’ve never heard of or you don’t know anything about.” I know one of my favorite moments was when I was doing this with one of my sons, and he picked the Book of Jonah. He had never heard the story of Jonah and the whale. It was one of my favorite nights, because that’s one of my favorite stories. We quickly opened up to the Book of Jonah, and we read all through the story of Jonah and the whale. We just had a fun experience learning together.
So you see, you don’t have to be a bible scholar to talk about God, and the things of God, and to teach your child about the scriptures. You just have to be willing to grab your bible, and bring it to bedtime. I hope this tip helped you, and if you need anything, please contact your church and your children’s minister of your church, because they are there to support you in this journey, as you teach your children to understand the word of God.
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: Parents don’t have to be Bible scholars . . . only available. #talkaboutGod
Tweet Two: Train up a child #talkaboutGod
Tweet Three: Slow down and listen to your children #talkaboutGode
Tweet Four: Plan for spiritual discussions with kids ahead of time #talkaboutGod
Tweet Five: Engage in spiritual conversation often with your kids! #talkaboutGod
Tweet Six: Encourage your kids to ask questions about God #talkaboutGod
Tweet Seven: Your kids’ God questions may take a lifetime to answer #talkaboutGod
Tweet Eight: Open up the Bible; it will immediately start conversation! #talkaboutGod
Tweet Nine: Incorporate the Bible in your kids’ bedtime routine. #talkaboutGod
Tweet Ten: Talking about God with your kids is an act of love #talkaboutGod