Practical Discipleship At Home

Many parents I know are excited about the ideas of faith formation at home and the joy of discipling their kids in the faith. But many are curious about how to start?

What does “family ministry at home” look like?

The following blog posts provide practical and simple ways to begin inviting Christ into the everyday moments of your family’s life. Once seeing God in the every day becomes a habit for you, establishing rhythms and routines that are intentional and purposeful become natural growths of your expression of faith in the home. And the effects of those faith-filled moments will impress on the hearts of your children the goodness and love of the God you serve.

Four Ways to Disciple Kids from Faith not FEAR – With all the scary things going on, it can be our tendency to parent our kids from fear. But what is that teaching our kids about God and the World? Here are four ways to ensure you lead your kids in faith, not fear. ‪

Four Simple and Fun Ways to Pray with Your Kids – Looking for a way to get the whole family to explore prayer together? Check out these fun activities that show that prayer is much more than just “talking to God.” Includes handouts for elementary and preschool-aged children as well as a number of fun family activities!

Four Simple Questions Your Family Should Ask – Parents, looking for easy ways to introduce discipleship into your daily routine? These four questions offer great starting points for ongoing discussion and celebration. And they can be done at dinner, in the car, at bedtime…anytime that works best for your family!

Hypocrisy at Home? Consistency and Truth – This blog explores 5 “church” activities that we freely engage in at church but often don’t continue to practice at home. Consistency in what we teach and how we live is critical to creating an atmosphere of authenticity both at home and at church. Who we are and how we are living should flow seamlessly between those worlds without friction or tension.

Practical Discipleship BEFORE they are #Being13 – You can give your kids the unchanging foundation of Christ to build on no matter what come into their life in the future. No matter what screen they end up behind, no matter what digital relationships they find themselves in. Even now, when they are very young, you can give them the tools, the gifts, the foundation they need to enter this digital world and not lose themselves. Here’s a few practical ways you can do just that.

4 Baby Steps for Discipleship in the Home – In Deut 6:4-9, God gives us four times throughout the day that we can impress on our kids the commands of God. Here are some easy ideas to utilize those moments to re-focus your home and your kids on Christ.

Family Movie Night – One really fun way to integrate faith and family is being intentional about Family Movie Night. These four movie moments can help you get some deeper conversations started about faith, family, and future decisions your kids will be faced with. And it’s a fun way to let your kids see that Jesus is in all of our everyday moments.

Four (im)Perfect Moments to Disciple your Kids – During the brief time we have to raise our kids we are given a few perfect moments to talk about our faith. But in that same time we are given many, many imperfect moments. If we can learn to seize those moments, God’s perfect love will find roots in our kids hearts.

Practical Advent: Celebrating Christmas in the Everyday – Keeping the focus on Christ during the holidays can be difficult but if you invite Jesus into your “busyness” you may find it hard to look away. Explore practical and fun ways to let Christmas be about Jesus no matter what you are doing. Includes a great Christmas Song Scavenger Hunt for the family to do together!

Practical Holy Week: Telling Your Kids THE Story – Looking for a way to engage your kids in the story of Holy Week and connect them deeper to their faith? This story using 4 simple props, one hero, one villain and US tells the overarching story of God’s love for us throughout time and is a great springboard to deeper conversations about our part in the story!

Practical Summer: 5 Simple Ways to Invite Jesus into your Summer Vacation – Summer vacation is the perfect time to be intentional about the time you get to spend together as a family! Here are 5 simple and practical ways you can invite Jesus into the everyday of your family’s summer vacation. Whether you go or stay, these ideas can keep your summer Christ-centered and full of fun and intentional discipleship moments!

SERIES – Growing Deep Roots: Communication for Faith Formation at Home

Based on a Parent Seminar presented at Nicholasville UMC, this series focuses on how to use effective communication skills with the home to create an atmosphere for discipleship and faith formation.

A parent recently contacted me looking for information specific to tweens/teens. Here’s a quick list of resources I put together for her:

TWEENS/TEENS

ReFocus Ministry Books – The parenting books there would be helpful as well as the specific one for teens.
Simply Youth Ministry has a ton of resources at http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/resources-parents—fami… .
D6 Family at www.d6family.com is one of my favorite resources. Go to their search engine and type in teen – Lots of great stuff there including 5 Love Languages for Teens, videos, pamphlets, etc. Great resources!
Spiritual Parenting is a great book by Michelle Anthony that covers a lot of parenting bases http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005SJ1ADO/#
This website contains a list of articles and resources that could be useful http://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/teens/
I had this book recommended to me but haven’t read it – more for that tween/young teen agehttp://www.christianbook.com/…/mar…/9780310671145/pd/671145…The book Sticky Faith is a good overall book on keeping kids in church.

Practical Middle School: Four Ideas for Intentional Conversation – The prospect of your child starting middle school can be challenging and you probably want to make sure you have some heart-to-heart talks before you get started. Here are some ideas born from my own experience that helped to open the door for those conversations to take place.