A couple months ago I had the idea to start a family time. Even though our son is only a year old, and can’t appreciate it yet, I wanted to start the habit in our family of spending some focused time together modeling some important values, like praying for one another, serving one another, giving one another meaningful touch, and communicating our love for one another. My wife received the idea about like many families these days, she wasn’t too excited. She had a picture of family devotions or something that was boring. But, after we did it for the first time, she loved it.
I gave the idea to another family recently, and she just reported to me how much her and her family are enjoying it. She said she especially likes the dad choosing a prayer topic because it subtly communicates to the kids that he is the spiritual leader of their family. And she said everybody loves the massages. Yes that is massages, not messages.
Here is what we do:
- Start with massage chain, where you rub the back/shoulders of the person in front of you. We do this for physical touch.
- Wile you are doing massage, encourage one another. Tell each other something good that you've seen them do, an achievement you're proud of, or something good you've seen in their character, or thank them for something.
- (Optional) A little devotional or Family Night Tool Chest lessons
- Share serving requests. Each person shares a way that they would appreciate being served that week. Each person volunteers to serve another’s need. We do this because we value being servants and want to practice it in our family.
- Share prayer requests. Each person volunteers to pray for someone else’s request.
Also, Dad picks a prayer topic (other family, lost friends, government, etc.), and each person prays something about that in addition to praying for their family member.
- Hug, kiss, & say “I love you” to each other. These things have been lost in a lot of families. And many kids may not want to do these things at first, but they really want them and when they experience them they like it.
Here at church we have always talked about it being the responsibility of parents to spiritually train their own children. It is not the job of the church. The church is just supposed to play a supporting role. But, many parents are intimidated by that responsibility. So, I think this simple family night is a way to start and for everyone to enjoy it. Even this family time will not achieve the goal of spiritually training our kids. We are to impart spiritual truth to our kids in the normal stuff of life. Deuteronomy 11:19 says, “You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.” In other words, as you are going throug life, doing the normal things, talk to your kids about the Lord and his ways. This starts with you living a life by the Lords ways. Because if you are, there will be natural teachable moments all the time, where you simply explain to your kids why you are making a certain decision or living a certain way, which is according to the way the Lord has directed.
If you try the family time, let me know how you like it. You can even post it as a comment right here in this blog.
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