Spiritual Goals
Deuteronomy 6:5-8:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
When they reached third grade, we bought them their own sermon journal. Todd and I take our sermon journals every week to church and take notes (again, the theory of the info going into your head, though your heart, and down to your hand makes it stick!). Buy your child a cool journal, there are many styles online. Make it a big deal that they can now take notes like Mom and Dad. We inscribed the front with their name, the date, and a special message.
| A sermon journal |
At Home
We always pray together at supper time (sometimes other meals if we are all together), and we rotate that prayer through the people in our family. So if Rebecca prayed at suppertime 120 times/year, after 10 years that is 1,120 times she has prayed out loud.
at church
Keep Sunday sacred!
We were going to church! Other plans worked around Sunday morning and Wednesday nights. Piano, drum lessons, and Scouts? They had to go on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday nights.
Catching the spirit
Even when the kids were toddlers, we did two hours of church on Sunday morning (Bible class for Todd and me, and Sunday School for Rebecca and Joshua). That is another 500 times they have attended Sunday School and heard more about Jesus. When Rebecca got into first-third grade Sunday School, she started hearing other kids share about Jesus, and she learned to talk and share about Jesus as well, and they prayed in class and gave offerings. Sunday School is awesome for kids!