Real Worship Time with My Children
One of the questions that was recently posed to me lately was, "Am I starting my day off with my kids in a devotional time to the Lord?"
When I read the question, I thought, ugh... When I think about devotionals, I think about a book that reads a cute little story and reminds you of a scripture verse. Before we go any further, please understand that I am NOT bashing devotionals. My point is that I find it hard to do a devotion with my two rather rambunctous boys. It's not that they can't listen to a book or even answer questions about the story. It's more about the fact that I have not found a good devotional book. We definetly have reading the bible down. But my idea of devotionals is still stuck in a box.
Trying to move forward here....
So, I agreed that my morning was lacking time with the kids and the Lord. I asked the Lord and was reminded of how in the past the kids and I have worshipped together. They love it, I love it, and I KNOW the Lord loves it.
This week, we have worshipped together every morning. I have kid instruments, a keyboard, scarves to dance with, cd's, etc.
To add a little spice to the time together, I put paper on the walls and the kids and I have been drawing with markers during our worship time. (I just can't bring myself to give the kids paint in the carpeted room we are currently doing this in)
It's been so much fun. We sing, dance, draw and color and then pray together. We pray for each other, for daddy, for the girls that will be living with us soon, and for anything else that comes to mind.
Our days have been much better off since they have started with the Lord!
What does your devotional time with your kids look like? What other creative ideas have you heard or done with kids during home worship time? I would love to hear your ideas!
Posted in: Looking for a good idea on Friday, March 02, 2007 at at 1:54 PM
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What a great idea. Very creative. My son being 18 mo old we do use those "cutesy Bible story books" for him. He sits and listens. And he KNOWS it's His Bible story. He asks to read it and does prayers [putting hands together]. It is so cute. I don't have any advice for kids your age, yet. But I love your plan.
I see HIM smiling with joy and delight as you and your boys join together to worship the King! It seems that children's Spirits are just like ours - they love & thrive on creative expression and freedom to sing, to dance, and to create worhship before this wonderful and awesome King!
Thanks for sharing.
And thanks for commenting on my blog - it really gave me "Holy Spirit goosebumps!"
this is awesome, on fire! the key for us, i think, has been changing it up. i often wait to see what israel is going to do and then play off of that! yesterday he got out his guitar and was singing at the top of his lungs. and emmanuel scooted over to him and began playing on the drum. i wasn't feeling too well, so i just layed there and soaked in the worship. i agree wtih Chel, i believe the Lord is so pleased. I can feel His pleasure in you, and in me, in our teaching our children how to give him praises!
this is awesome, on fire! the key for us, i think, has been changing it up. i often wait to see what israel is going to do and then play off of that! yesterday he got out his guitar and was singing at the top of his lungs. and emmanuel scooted over to him and began playing on the drum. i wasn't feeling too well, so i just layed there and soaked in the worship. i agree wtih Chel, i believe the Lord is so pleased. I can feel His pleasure in you, and in me, in our teaching our children how to give him praises!
ps - we do coloring, too, sometimes, though i haven't tried the walls! how creative! we do like to dance around the table. or dance around the circle of our house. dance and march and yell. we get really loud when we worship sometimes!!!! and sometimes we make up little ryhmes and songs to the Lord!!! its so fun, b/c i can get as crazy as i want with praising the Lord and israel will join right in - he won't think i'm weird!!! :)
"hard to do a devotion with my two rather rambunctious boys" Oh I can totally understand. The way I showed Jesus to my boys is through every day events. (the sky, a kind person, etc...)
Thank you so much for visiting me, I too have enjoyed your blog =)
Oh, mine are pretty consistent (if nothing else is some days) -- but too often my devotions with the children are v-e-r-y dry.
Lately we've been using and really enjoying Pictures From Proverbs from this site:
http://www.ornamentpublications.com/
and then scripture memory method from this site:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/
followed by family prayer time and then a hymn story and/or practice.
Today, we also tried narrating the story of Esther, together and in turn, and found that while we know it, we don't know how to weave it together very well, so we're going to be working on that.
When my littlest ones are a bit older, we'll incorporate sword drills and other games.
I think you know what I do...it varies. Right now I am using the VeggieTales Family Devotionals book. The boys love it - but they love books and would listen to any book I read to them for hours if I had the time!
The coloring during worship is quite innovative! I would never have considered paint...I am even nervous to allow markers off of a table surface! We do worship a lot during that 4-6pm timeframe. I am getting dinner ready and we are all in the kitchen dancing and singing. This is often the scene JC comes home to! LOL.
I loved the idea of coloring on paper attached to the walls. Very creative and I bet it is a hit with all kids. Who doesn't like to color on walls!!
We have what we call our "time with God" each morning - the first of our day. I have an hour blocked on our schedule but sometimes it is less and sometimes more. It starts after breakfast and we try to make it fun and different from day to day. I don't want it to be something we "DO" out of duty but a true relationship thing. We are not clocking it...I try to gauge the heart of the kids and go with it.
Here are some things we do in addition to prayer... (we don't do all of these each day - each day is a little different) ...reading kid's bible, discussing topics/character traits, memorizing short scriptures, puppet tells stories, praise music, christian video, other bible story books...
I mentioned that we start out by praying and everyone has the opportunity to pray. With little ones I don't always get quiet time alone so I started to incorporate my prayer time into this - my prayers can be rather lengthy but I think it is good that they hear me pray and pour out my heart and cry in front of them to our God. I also have found that they are listening because I will hear prayers come from them that I have prayed.
Oh one last idea- we pick differnt spots in the house. Sometimes the kids have opinions (i.e their room vs. living room) and other days I just say lets cuddle in mom and dad's bed today. That is our favorite spot especially on days when we do a lot of reading! I love to cuddle and read!