In a recent newsletter, Phylicia Masonheimer noted that when she was growing up, “discipleship started at home and was ‘topped off’ at church, not the other way around.” I love this explanation to the approach that we, too, have adopted in our home. Our kids attend church every Sunday and have participated in Bible studies and other church events since they were newborns, but we view all church-led discipleship as supplemental to the discipleship taking place in our home every day.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for many Christian kids, including many of the kids we have encountered at churches we’ve attended: I love that they (and their parents) are involved in church, but without reinforcement of the spiritual life at home, their faith has less opportunity to take root.
Our family has not perfected discipleship, far from it. There is no definitive list of spiritual disciplines (that I know of), and even if such a list existed, there would be many gaps in our own family practices. These gaps include several areas that I know are lacking (evangelism, fasting, and service all come to mind) as well as the inevitable blind spots in our discipleship journey. However, we do incorporate a number of spiritual practices and rhythms into our daily life that support our kids’ spiritual growth and encourage them on their path towards spiritual maturity. I am sharing many of them today in the hopes that they might serve as inspiration for those of you who are raising young children and desire to introduce some simple spiritual disciplines and intentional faith instruction into your family life.
PRAYER PRACTICES
+ Morning Prayer — We always begin our school day with a prayer we learned from this book: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for this day. Bless us as we work, study, and play. Be with us, God, in all that we do, that we may bring glory and honor to you.” We follow this up with an unscripted prayer for our day (led by me), incorporating any specific requests for ourselves and our loved ones.
+ Mealtime Prayer — We pray before every meal, whether we’re eating at home, at a restaurant, on a picnic, at co-op, or with friends. (My kids are always shocked when their friends begin eating WITHOUT praying first.) We have a rotation so that each kid gets a chance to pray daily: Charleston prays at breakfast, Sully at lunch, and Kali at dinner; we will need to add a fourth prayer time soon to include Nico, who currently does echo prayers with the other kids.
+ Bedtime Prayer — Each evening at bedtime we gather on the floor of the kids’ bedroom and I recite the Aaronic blessing over them (“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”). Luke follows this up with prayers for each kid. We end our time with a hands-in “Jesus!” cheer.
+ Spontaneous Prayer — We stop to pray every time we hear an emergency vehicle, or if the kids are experiencing a difficult situation or big emotions, or if we encounter a problem. Sometimes when we are out on a walk and spot something beautiful in nature, I will audibly thank the Lord for these blessings. I want to model for my kids that prayer is an ongoing conversation with God, not just something we do at certain times and in a particular way.
+ Parent Prayer Time — Though it doesn’t involve the kids directly, Luke and I pray together each night. This matters just as much as the spiritual practices we engage in WITH our children.
BIBLE READING & STUDY
+ Structured Bible Study — After returning from our morning walks, we start the sit-down portion of our school day with a Bible study. We are currently reading the Psalms along with this guide, which has us read a Psalm, answer some questions, and attend to a correlating visual image and song.
+ Evening Bible Reading — I read from a Bible Story book every night at dinner time (currently reading this one), and we discuss the meaning and application of what we’ve read.
+ Evening Bible Reading, 2.0 — Charleston is ready to go deeper with Scripture, so last year he and Luke read through the whole Bible following the Bible Recap and using his study Bible. This year, they are reading through the Epistles together following a simple read/discuss format and digging into some Bible commentaries alongside their reading.
+ Post-Church Discussions — Every Sunday after church, the twins share that day’s take-home craft and we all discuss what we learned in class/service that morning (Luke and I share what we learned too). We talk about how this relates to what we already know about the Bible and how we can apply these takeaways in the coming week.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY
+ Weekly Verses — We have spent the last two years memorizing the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) at the pace of one or two verses each week. I introduce a new verse each Monday, and that verse serves as their copywork (penmanship practice) for the day. We practice reciting the verse on walks throughout the week, and on Friday we record a video (sent to family) of the kids reciting the verse along with some simple hand motions.
+ Scripture Songs — We play Scripture-based songs all day long, on CDs in the car and through the Sonos speaker in their room through the night and during quiet play time. Some favorites include Sing the Word A to Z, Seeds Kids Worship, and Slugs and Bugs. (Here’s a more comprehensive list of recommendations.) It’s amazing how much Scripture they’ve accidentally learned through song!
SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION // WORLD VIEW
+ Pledges & Creeds — After morning prayer, we recite our pledge to the Bible (“I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God’s holy Word, I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, and I will hide its words in my heart that I might not sin against God.”) This is followed by a recitation of the Apostle’s Creed. When we first introduced these, we discussed their meaning and how they apply to our lives, and we regularly revisit the meaning of these words and the WHY behind our reciting them.
+ Adventures in Odyssey — These audio dramas were a huge part of my own faith formation, and I have loved introducing them to my kids. We listen to an episode every day at lunch, and the kids listen to another episode at bedtime and often while they are drawing or playing with Legos at other points in the day. We regularly discuss themes presented in the episodes, or will pull up a specific episode that correlates with a particular holiday, milestone, or issue we are dealing with in our home.
+ Foundation World View — For more explicit instruction, we have worked through all but one of the curricula from Foundation World View. These programs have given them an excellent understanding for reading and understanding Scripture and living out Biblical truth.
+ Catechism — This year we are working through core doctrines of the faith through the New City Catechism. Each week we read, discuss, and memorize one of the 52 catechism questions. (The songs have been a tremendous aid in memorization.) I am intentional about addressing these doctrines whenever we encounter them in other parts of our homeschool or day-to-day life.
+ Open Discussions — This isn’t so much a discipline practice or routine as it is a posture. Luke and I welcome discussions about anything and everything, and we do our best to infuse faith and Biblical worldview into every conversation, whether we are discussing a book, a show, political news, cultural events, or family happenings. We don’t do this perfectly, but our goal is for our kids to understand that faith is part of every facet of our life and not just something that is pigeonholed into our daily rituals and Sunday church attendance.
As I mentioned at the top, we are not Master Spiritual Formation Experts in our home. And even if we were, there is no guarantee that a vibrant spiritual seed will take root in our kids’ hearts. We cannot save them, only God can do that. But we want to give them every possible opportunity to connect with God throughout the day. We want to set them up for a lifetime relationship with Him. We want them to know that their parents love and serve an amazing God and that we hope for our kids to grow up doing the same. Our desire is for our home life to center around what matters most to us, and that is loving and glorifying our Heavenly Father.
I would absolutely love to hear from you: if you are new to spiritual discipleship, are you feeling inspired to begin implementing a few of these in your own home? If so, which ones? Is there anything I can do to support you on this journey? And if you, too, are already actively engaged in spiritual discipleship, I would love to hear which practices you have adopted in your family. Please share!
