In our journey to raise our children to glorify God we have used family devotions as a tool to teach our children the ways of God, the history of His people and to talk after Jesus. We are not always consistent, and in fact have gone through periods of very consistent, daily devotions, and periods of dryness when family devotions do not get done. So we are certainly not perfect in this regard, and are in fact going through a period of dryness in our home at the moment. Usually these dry times come as a result of a disturbed schedule, and since my foot has been burned so badly Larry has been taking over most of the domestic duties, and is feeling rather frazzled and distracted. Despite this, family devotions are a burden on our hearts, and something we love to do together!

Over the course of our devotions together as a family there are a few different styles/techniques of devotions that we have tried. As new believers when we first started daily devotions we used them largely as a time of learning and bible study for Larry and myself, expecting the children to just listen in on what we were discussing and to learn from osmosis. We would sing some hymns and psalms, pray, then head on into Bible study. At times we would include a story from the children’s bible story book we were working through – our oldest loved this. And sometimes we would be so intrigued we would spend most of our devotions reading from the story book! In any case, Larry started seeking the Lord as to what he should be doing as the leader of our family devotions, and he eventually heard the word that he should engage the children more actively.

Our devotional time then transformed from a time of adult bible study into the primary means of teaching, and engaging our children in the word of God at their level. Larry started at the beginning and we started working through the bible in an interactive way. Larry discussed the scripture with the children, drew pictures (sometimes a series of pictures in a single day) of it, built models out of lego, asked the children comprehension questions informally etc. And the children LOVED it!! They were so excited when it was time for family devotions! We are now working on a set of figures that we are making to play the role of various bible characters so that we can re-enact the bible stories with them (we have been doing this with people we make out of lego!) This also sparked my oldest daughters creativity, and she would often draw her own pictures of the events that were covered that day in devotions. Of course, we also sang psalms, hymns, prayed as well as the main part of the devotions – the bible lesson as it were. At times Larry woul lightly pre-plan the creative activities based upon the upcoming text of scripture, so we might know for a couple of days in advance that a lego model of the tower of Babel was upcoming, or a model of the ark, but sometimes he just plays it by ear, and either draws or lego models as needed for the days lesson.

We are currently on a break from our creative daily devotions because we noticed our children needed some more intensive training in sitting still during church. So for a time we have now been listening to sermons (downloaded by mp3) on our computer, while we all practice sitting still on the couch. And the children have been making good progress in their ability to sit for extended periods of time – of course they get fruit snacks, books to draw in, quiet time books etc. to look at during this time.

So, these are a few of the different approaches we have tried for family devotions, and each is unique in its goals and purposes. We believe that in the long term the creative family devotions that speak to the child on their level, and actively engage them in God’s word will bear the most fruit for our family. As our children are still pre-schoolers most of their learning is taking place informally, family devotions is the core of their educational experience, and if we accomplish that, I feel we’ve had a successful day. As adults we get to experience the word of God afresh (and since we are new believers, we often cover new material ourselves) and our children will benefit from a deeper understanding of the story of Gods plan for the world.

Enjoy praising the Lord with your family!