We try to have a time together at the end of each day when we pray together and sing a worship song together. (Currently, we generally read the Bible at other points in the day). We have found Youtube worship songs with lyrics the best thing and each child has their favourite which we rotate in now and again. We have found that doing this in private with the boys during the week has made a huge difference in their engagement in Sunday worship times. They still find it difficult at times, but there is a marked improvement – they feel less inhibited in our private worship times and are freer to worship God as their hearts lead.
Give them ways to pray
Sometimes children don’t want to pray because they don’t know how. Giving them a step-by-step approach like TSP: ’Thanksgiving – Sorry – Please’ can give them prompts to pray, as can allowing them to repeat prayers. Teaching them specific prayers, like the Lord’s prayer and getting them to slow down long enough to think about the words can help them internalize the prayer. When I was a child I used to wake up regularly in the night with nightmares. One of the things my parents taught me was to pray when I was scared at night. They encouraged me to speak out Scripture, like Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need…) as spiritual warfare against the fears that wrapped around me. Although I have nightmares much less now, prayer and Scripture are the first things that come to mind when I do wake in the night.
Include them in discerning God’s voice
As children get older, including them in the decision-making process is an excellent opportunity to prepare them for life and to help them learn to discern God’s voice. It often encourages them to seek God for themselves in ways they haven’t done before. Sometimes when we are praying about a situation we don’t know what to do, we tell the boys that we are going to spend 1 minute in silence (and yes, the clock is watched!) and ask God to speak to us, maybe by bringing a Scripture, a thought or a picture to mind.
One testimony I have of this is when our son Joel was raising money for Children’s Bibles. We were really struggling to find the Bible we wanted here in Peru (this one) and we had also not yet raised much money towards it. We were wondering if we should look for a different Bible instead and if it was really worth it. We prayed with the boys and asked them to spend one minute in silence. Afterwards Joel told me that he had seen a picture in his mind of two rooms – one full of money and one full of Bibles. That day Mark found a contact in Lima which had over 100 of the Bibles that we wanted and in the following weeks enough money came in to buy them all!
Discerning God’s voice may take longer than one minute, especially when it involves a larger decision like moving house, but including our children in the process not only helps them go deeper in their relationship with God, but also helps them to feel less resistant to the final decision if it is against their natural desires. It helps to prepare them for the next steps.
Finally, I want to say that engaging children in spiritual things can sometimes be hard work. Our spiritual times no doubt sound angelic and Mary Poppins perfect in this article and I would be doing you an injustice to not tell you that, just as nearly every meal time in our house has times of disagreement and opportunities for training, so do our times with God. My children can go from holy to horror in the time it takes for them to walk from my bedroom to theirs (actually they don’t even have to leave my bedroom). But don’t give up – large oak trees come from tiny acorns. Don’t be discouraged by the roughness along the way and don’t be afraid of resistance, because resistance builds strength. It may not seem like it at the time, but as you look back you will see your children getting stronger.
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This article originally appeared at AnnaCBurgess.com, published with permission.
Anna Burgess has lived in Lima, Peru with her husband Mark for 10 years. Together they have founded Oikos Ministries which oversees several small communities in Lima and supports church leaders from native tribes in the Amazon jungle. As well as homeschooling her three elementary age sons, Anna is a writer at ‘Busy Lives Need Quiet Corners’ and can be found at www.annacburgess.com, where you can receive your free download: 8 ways to meet with God in 10 minutes or less.
