In My Humble Opinion...
(how well do you know your internet acronyms??)
I've had some questions over the years on how we do family worship (devotions, Bible time, etc). While I think it looks different in every family and there is certainly not any "right" way to do it, I believe it's so important to gather as a family and worship the Lord together. It brings a "way-far-out-there-God" into our personal lives and also allows us to share our hearts with our children... to let them see our brokenness and need for a Savior, and also our love-affair with our Heavenly Father.
When Travis is here, he tries to get some time with the children in the Word, but more often than not, he's simply not present for a formal time of family worship. Which means, that time is usually left for me. It's not ideal and not even really how we would desire it (we really would love for Travis to lead this time), but it's our lot in life... so we work with it.
Simply because I always am looking for fresh new ideas, especially good books, for time with my children, I thought I'd share our routine and the books we use.
FAMILY WORSHIP UTENSILS:
++ We begin off our time by gathering on the couch. When the children were younger,
it was simply a 5-10 minute period, teaching them to sit still beside me and listen.
Now that they've learned that, we open to our memory passage and review the verses.
Right now, we're memorizing Proverbs 2.
We take one verse a week, and go over it day by day.
I usually make up some sort of hand motions or voice inflections to make it stick,
and the girls are always surpassing me in their ability to memorize.
++ We then read from either the Bible, or a children's Bible.
These are the two we enjoy:
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| The Jesus Storybook Bible |
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| Classic Bible Storybook |
While I think both are excellent, I found it nice to have a variation
(especially after you've read through both multiple times).
++ My kids like to read. A LOT. So, when the Bible stories are short,
or they simply want more, we love to supplement with the "Miller" books:
My parents read these to us while in our younger years.
The stories are about a Mennonite family who uses experience and story
to help their four children grow in wisdom, prudence, etc.
Storytime with the Millers is a perfect one for younger children (2-5 years).
We also have Wisdom with the Millers. The girls have nearly out-read these
so I think we should be buying the others soon.
++ We end the time with song-singing and prayers.
I copied my sister's idea of choosing a new hymn every month,
alphabetically ("A" hymn for January, "B" for Feb, etc),
so right now, we're on "D", since we began in December.
Again, it's amazing how quickly things are engrained in the children's
minds and hearts by simply repeating daily.
And that's that! Do you have any good book reviews or ideas that you implement??
2 comments:
We enjoy both "The Big Picture Story Bible" and "The Gospel Story Bible" too :D
I'm going to check out those Miller books!
You brought back so many memories! Peter and the Pit!! yes, our children, too, enjoyed many of the same devotional, character teaching books as you, and young and old enjoy the Jesus StoryBook Bible where Every Story Whispers His Name. Thanks for writing about the uniqueness of every family, and that not one size fits all for devotions. Too often, moms especially, deal with guilt because their family does not look or follow a prescribed certain pattern as written in many books. And each moment we are putting into their hearts what we believe about our God and Father in the way we react, the way we endure, persevere, enjoy the world around us, open our homes and hearts to others, the list can go on. I am sitting at LAX awaiting my flight back to the snow and cold this spring with a little trepidation after enjoying the warmth and sun here in So Cal :-)
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