Family Devotions - Once a Week

Here are some key things to remember about Family Worship / Faith Talks / Family Devotions.

All quotes are from http://www.timothypauljones.com/2013/11/18/family-ministry-the-non-negotiable-weekly-faith-talk/

THE PURPOSE:

"The purpose of faith-talks is to restore Christian parents to their God-ordained role as teachers of God's Word in their children's lives."

"For parents to become primary disciple-makers in their children's lives, parents must become Bible teachers in their homes.  This is not to suggest that Christian parents should become their children's sole instructors in Scripture.  After all, the Great Commission to make disciples was given to the whole church as a calling to reach the whole world, including children (Matt. 28:19).  Every  Christian parent should, however, become a significant and consistent conveyor of God's Word in his or her children's lives."

THE EXPECTATION:

"Parents choose a time once each week to lead a family faith-talk.
The church encourages the parents, holds them accountable and provides them with resources for this weekly faith-talk."

Why only once a week?   

"It's rooted in the rhythms of creation itself (Ex. 20:11; 31:17), because it can reflect at home the celebration of Christ's resurrection that happens every week at church (Luke 24:1; Acts 20:7) and because weeks mark times of worship and ritual throughout the Scriptures (Ex. 34:22; Lev. 23:15; Deut. 16:9-10)"

"Once a week is sufficiently frequent to make faith-talks a habit but not so frequent that parents become burdened with unrealistic expectations if they have never engaged in faith talks before.  In many households, weekly faith-talks eventually develop into daily family devotions."

THE RESOURCES:

• ekidzministry.blogspot.com
• Family resource booklet, which can be found at ekidzministry.blogspot.com
• Coming Soon: Family devotional from Generations of Grace.  Click HERE for a sample of the family devotional book that can be purchased.

THE REALITY:

While we serve a perfect, holy God, we are not perfect.  Our family worship time will not be perfect.

You can read about an example of imperfect family worship of a perfect God at http://nbfamilies.blogspot.com/2013/10/comefollow-failure.html