Encouraging Our Kids to Walk With God
My friend Tammy is hosting a Mom 2 Mom Carnival on encouraging our kids’ relationship with Jesus.
If I’m going to be brutally honest, I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to go about helping our kids build a relationship with God!
One thing we currently do is pray before dinner each night. We try to pray for specific things and for specific people instead of saying a generic prayer. One thing I remember about growing up is that we generally only saud prayers by rote (ie. “Now I lay me down to sleep …”) so I was very uncomfortable actually praying out loud around other people since I’d had so little practice. I want to give Gwen the opportunity to pray out loud her own prayers in our home so that she becomes used to using her own words to express herself to God.
Another thing we hope to do is family Bible reading. I don’t yet know how best to do this and not make it a chore and boring, though, as that was most of Brad’s experience regarding family devotions as a kid!
I hope, also, to expose our kids to other Christian adults. Living in an intentional community in which we have deep relationships and intentional get-togethers (ie. weekly potlucks and weekly morning prayer) is a wonderful way to show our children the love of God through others. I think having positive adult role models who talk about their faith, their relationship with God and their walk with God is an awesome thing for kids to have!
All in all, I think the number one thing to do to encourage kids to have a relationship with God is walk with God yourself. Kids learn the most from what they see, and if all they ever see is a ‘Sunday Christian’, how can we ever expect them to move beyond that? That means that both Brad and I have a lot of work to do in how we live our lives and ‘walk the walk’. I hope, and pray, that we can rise to the occasion.
Tammy said,
July 28, 2009 @ 3:44 am
Thanks for participating in my carnival Kim! Some great thoughts there. I love how everyone seems to be focusing on teaching our kids to pray. I really want to work on that - teaching them a simple ACTS way of praying. Check out my blog to see who the winner is….
wordygirl said,
July 28, 2009 @ 6:23 am
Great post on a great topic, Kim. Here’s what I do with my Gwen:
- grace before dinner (which is, admittedly, a recited grace)
- prayers at bedtime: we always thank God for our many blessings, including something specific from that day, and pray specifically for our friends and family who are sick or grieving
- if we eat breakfast together, which is when I do my Bible devotional, I read it aloud (sometimes she sleeps in and I just do it alone)
- I take her to church at least once a month so that she feels familiar and comfortable with the building, the people, the rituals, the expected behaviour
- we have a few books aimed at kids about God: “Guess How Much God Loves You” is great, and “God Made Me” is good too
I totally agree with your point about role modeling being the most important thing!
kim said,
July 28, 2009 @ 7:42 am
Nice! I must admit, we don’t often pray with Gwen at other times other than dinner time, and I’m not sure she’s heard the Bible read terribly often … those are great suggestions! We have a couple of kids’ books about God, but they’re still a bit above her as of yet.
Jessica said,
July 29, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Nicely said Kim
I had a friend whose parents allowed the kids (there were only 2 of them) to color while they were read the Bible. The dad read through 1 - 2 chapters of the Bible each evening and then the whole family would discuss it. Whenever I was over I was allowed to color too. It made it “fun” to sit and listen to entire chapters of the Bible being read (some of it is boring!!) and yet the kids were paying attention even though they colored - they could answer/discuss the questions the dad brought up. I really like that idea, but I guess it depends on the kids too!
I would like to try it with our boys when they’re a bit older.
Brenda said,
July 30, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
I know that in our community, the kids often come to chapel with us, starting when they’re babies and until they go to school usually. they move around a bit in the space - like standing beside a parent if he/she is reading. and they sing along (although not always the same tune, which makes it interesting at times :)).
and i’ve always thought it’d be neat to ask kids how they’d sing words out of the Bible - or sing with them. or maybe even dance with them. like should these words be happy or sad - should we sing/dance fast or slow or angry. and i expect you could do that with colouring - either draw along with the story - or show happy or sad colours - or whether it’s busy or what. just so that they’re doing something along with the Bible. and not just sitting and being passive, which is hard for most kids to do for a long time.
kim said,
August 1, 2009 @ 7:41 am
Great idea about colouring, Jessica! I love it! (And I could totally get in on the colouring too!!)
Brenda - that’s a great idea … don’t just read - engage.
Shannon said,
August 5, 2009 @ 9:33 am
We pray with Ellie, and talk about God and Jesus a lot. It’s amazing the things she picks up on and she asks incredible questions. We have a wonderful Bible called the Jesus Storybook Bible that we started reading a few months ago. I love reading it.