Raising kids with God at the centre - resources

Resource List

This is the adapted list of resources that I handed out.

Books for adults:

• Leading Your Child to Jesus, David Staal (Zondervan, 2006)

• Praying the Scriptures for your Children, Jodie Bernt (Zondervan, 2001)

• Disciplines of a Godly Family, Kent and Barbara Hughes (Crossway, 2004)
  

• Treasuring God in Our Traditions, Noël Piper (Crossway, 2003).
  

• Gospel-Centred Family, Ed Moll & Tim Chester (The Good Book Company, 2009)

• Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God, Bruce A. Ware (Crossway, 2009)

This link will take you to a summary page of all books for parents I have reviewed, which include most of these above. From there you can also link to more detailed reviews.


Books for children (from younger to oldest readers):

• Learn about God series by Carine Mackenzie (God has power, God is everywhere, God never changes, God is faithful, etc)
• The Beginner’s Bible series of bible stories
• God knows all about me, Kate Toms
• God Made You Nose to Toes, Leslie Parrott (ill. Valeria Petrone)
• God Gave Us You, Lisa Tawn Bergen (ill. Laura J. Bryant)
• Lost Sheep series by Andrew McDonough. Especially Dave the Donkey (An Easter Story)
• I’d Be Your Princess, Kathryn O’Brien (ill. Michel Garland)
• Ten boys and Ten girls series, by Irene Howat (10 boys/girls who didn’t give in, who made a difference, who changed the world, etc). For confident readers.

Some bible suggestions:

• The Big Picture Story Bible (David Helm, ill. Gail Schoonmaker, Crossway Books, 2004). This is a great bible for the 4-7 age group. It is one of the few children's bibles which explains that there is one unifying theme through the whole of the bible, God's people under God's rule in God's place. The illustrations are vivid and often from odd angles, which kids enjoy. The individual story units are sometimes too long, but you can split them.
• The Jesus Story Book Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, Sally Lloyd-Jones, ill. Jago. Very good for ages 5-8. It draws attention in each story to how Jesus will or does fulfill each part of the bible, Old or New Testament. The illustrations are engaging and enjoyable. It does not shy away from details and emotion.
• The Beginner's Bible (Candle Books, UK or Zonderkidz, USA, 2005). Suitable for 3-6 years. The stories give some detail and the pictures are engaging (although not very realistic!).
• My First Bible (ill. Andrew Gleeson and Sophie Keen; Parragon, 2007). Suitable for 4-6 year olds. The illustrations are less engaging and colourful, but the stories themselves are good and quite detailed.
• When reading independently, move to a full bible (simpler translation), eg. NIrV or Good News.
• For another review of bibles see my previous post or Jean's post.
  

Bible Reading Resources:
(all distributed by the Good Book Company)

• Beginning with God - Bible discovery for pre-schoolers
• XTB (for readers, 6+ years)
• Table Talk (family bible discovery with children age 4+)

Other resources:

• Music: Colin Buchanan, Emu Music, Veggie Tales, adult Christian music – both contemporary and traditional hymns
• Bible verses to song: Colin Buchanan’s Boom Chicka Boom & Baa Baa Doo Baa Baa
• DVDs: Colin Buchanan, Veggie Tales

Christmas Ideas

• Advent calendar / set of readings about the birth of Jesus or the story of the bible up to Jesus: design your own or use another, eg. Advent Calendar Packs or XTB – Christmas Unpacked (both by Good Book Company)
• Celebrate Jesus’ birthday the same way you would celebrate any other family birthday
• Listen to good Christian Christmas music CDs, eg. carols and Colin Buchanan’s King of Christmas

Easter Ideas

• Passover Meal on Thursday night (simplified for your family. An example is here)
• Read through accounts on the days they happened
• Daily readings leading up to Easter (design your own or use another, eg. XTB – Easter Unscrambled)
• ‘Resurrection cake’ on Easter Sunday (put an cracked Easter egg on top – to show the empty tomb)

Many of these Christmas and Easter ideas are from, or adapted from, Disciplines of a Godly Family (Hughes) and Treasuring God in Our Traditions (Piper). See the books for more ideas.


Organisations / Ministries to consider supporting (there are many more!)

• Compassion (Christian child sponsorship)
  
• Tear Australia (supporting Christian relief and development work, they also have a Useful Gift Catalogue)
  
• Samaritan’s purse (for Operation Christmas Child boxes)
• Church Missionary Society (CMS)
  
• Bush Church Aid
  

Raising kids with God at the centre - #3

Raising kids with God at the centre – #3

The first two goals for our children were that they:

1. Grow up in the knowledge and love of God as their heavenly Father, & Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour
2. Mature in godliness; including character, speech & attitude

Our third is that they:

3. Develop a life-time habit of bible reading, prayer and church attendance

Think:

• What are you modelling to your children in your habits of bible reading, prayer and church attendance?

If we want them to be learning to do these things, we have to be teaching them how – it’s modelling again. Again, let me say, I am not trying to make you feel guilty, we all find this hard. But, we need to keep trying and showing our kids that we are keeping trying

Bible reading

• Form the habit – read the bible or a bible story to your child every day. We do it at bedtime, it’s the only time that never changes.

• Have lots of bibles appropriate for each age. See here for my previous post about children's bibles, and one by Jean.

• When reading independently, move onto a full bible, with a simpler translation (eg. NIrV or Good News). Although, even once they are on a full bible, I would occasionally return to the Jesus Storybook Bible or the Big Picture Story Bible, to ensure they are grasping overall themes and concepts.

• Have accurate bibles – do they miss out key parts? Do they present an accurate picture of the whole bible message? Do they include sin (Gen 3)? The promises to Abraham (Gen 12)? How do they deal with Jesus’ death and resurrection? Do they have anything about Acts and the early church, the Holy Spirit, Paul and the letters to the churches or Revelation?

• Don’t be afraid to change /edit their bibles as you read it aloud to match the real version (obviously this is harder to do with a competent reader sitting next to you!)

• Don’t be afraid to give up on a bible when it’s not good enough (this is less important with toddlers, and much more important when they can read themselves)

• Check their understanding – especially when they are reading the bible themselves, make sure they are understanding it. Children are so literal things like parables can be hard to understand, they can get stuck in prophecy, etc.

• Use extra resources to help you (eg. devotional materials like XTB and Table Talk).

• Learn bible verses as a family (use songs, eg Colin CDs; stick them up on the wall, etc)

Prayer

Pray for your children and pray with your children.

We want to model that prayer is a normal, natural part of each day, we turn to God first in all things.

When to pray? always!

• putting them to bed
• before meals (grace)
• pray for God to take away fears / bad dreams
• for special events – starting school or kindy, birthdays, etc.
• about issues – problems with friends, when people are sick, needing help to be kind
• pray for emergency vehicles when they have their sirens on. (I got this idea from a friend – we pray for the person in trouble, we pray for the police or the doctors and pray that they will all know that Jesus loves them).

How to pray?

• Pray from prayer diaries with pictures (make your own). Perhaps a column for each day, including family, friends & ministry/others. Let older children help design their prayer diaries and who they want to pray for.
• Write out prayers for readers to read out. (eg. could make them with a thank you, sorry, please format)
• Pray with them teaching them how to pray informed and biblical prayers
• Let them learn how to pray aloud, but at the same time teach them more ways to pray
• If you are uncomfortable praying aloud – children are so trusting, they will think anything you do is right and good, and you will keep learning as you keep praying with them.
  

Church

• Go!
• Make it a family priority – a weekly commitment that is unmovable. It is more important than birthday parties, sport & family commitments.

To think about:

• Have you ever explained to your children why you go to church?
• How would you explain it?

Next post: Resources

Raising kids with God at the centre - #2

The first goal for our children was that they:
1. Grow up in the knowledge and love of God as their heavenly Father, & Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour

Our second is that they:

2. Mature in godliness; including character, speech & attitude


Think:

• What characteristics do you want your children to have when they are grown up?
• How are we going to teach them these things?

When you think about what characteristics you want your children to have, you probably come up with a list like this: loving, faithful, kind, patient, generous, servant-hearted, forgiving, gracious, mission-minded, self-controlled, humble…

How will we teach them these things? We have to model it.

This is not to make you feel guilty, all of us struggle with these things. We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be continuing to try and moving forward. In fact, admitting we also struggle can really help our kids to see that we are still learning too. (“I’m sorry, Mummy wasn’t self-controlled then, I got angry, I’m sorry”).

Paul says to Timothy “train yourself to be godly” (1 Tim 4:7b). Our children are sinners, just like we are. Just like we are still learning, so are they.


You might want to pick a few specific traits you would like to work at modelling to your children, and then think about how you might do it. We did it briefly with these three:

Forgiveness

• we want them to understand grace!
• that they are forgiven (by God and by us) and that they can forgive others
• we don’t hold grudges, forgive and move on: “yes, you did do the wrong thing, but you came to me & apologised and you meant it, so thank you”

Kindness/gentleness

• being kind to them– how we treat them – listening, giving them time, etc
• showing kindness to others - people behind the counter, on the road, their teachers, their grandparents.

Generosity / being servant-hearted and mission-minded

• showing generosity with the time, money and resources God has given you, and speaking about it: “God gives us all our money and we want to give some back to him”
• sponsoring children & help our children pray for them, & write to them (we sponsor through Compassion because you are allowed to talk about faith and God)
  
• praying for & supporting missionaries
• make up Operation Christmas Child boxes (see Samaritan's Purse)
  
• explain “we don’t spend our money on that, instead we choose to spend it on…”
• explain why we make meals for people when they need help, or why people bring us meals. Talk about how we see generosity in others

Modelling involves doing something AND taking the time to explain why you are doing it.



Next post: Developing a life-time habit of bible reading, prayer and church attendance

Raising kids with God at the centre – #1

Last post I outlined some things we want to remember as we think about raising kids with God at the centre.

The first goal we have is that our children:

Grow up in the knowledge and love of God as their heavenly Father, & Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour

a) What do you believe?

The key to teaching our children about God is knowing him and loving him ourselves. We want our children to follow our model of faith, imperfect as it is.

Paul says to the Corinthians, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). We could say the same to our children.

It’s worth thinking through what you believe, and how are going in your relationship with God. Are you growing in your knowledge of him, in your trust of him? If not, make it a priority that you are growing in your faith.


Some things to think about:

• How are you growing in your knowledge and love of Christ as your Lord and Saviour?
• Write 1-2 sentences that explain your faith to a child. (if you would really struggle to do this, perhaps get a hold of Leading Your Child to Jesus, by David Staal, reviewed here)

b) How do we teach children the things of God?

Using all opportunities at all times:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 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 upon 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. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

Some things we can use to teach children about God:

1. God’s word (this is so important I’ll look at it separately in #3).

2. Resources

There are so many good resources these days for teaching children about God, you just need to look for them. I recommend going to a Christian book shop without children and spend time reading what is there, and be discerning – see if it’s any good. Trust your instincts. What my family loves, yours may not and vice versa. (I gave out a very detailed resource list at the seminar, I will reproduce some of it at the end of this series)

3. The world around us

- Use the world that God has made to teach of him - refer to things God made - people, the animals, the land, the rivers, etc

- Talk about the weather & the seasons – that God sends the rain and the sunshine

- Use the things around us to show how we can be thankful and praise God:

• the rain that gives us water to drink and helps the garden grow
  
• the butterflies and the ants in the garden
• our house to live in
• a car in wet weather
• that Daddy has a job so we can buy things
• that we can go to church safely, etc, etc.
  

4. People & the way they act

- Explain why people do things in biblical terms: eg. sinful, self-controlled, gentle, generous, obedient, etc. (rather than naughty, mean, happy …)

- Do the same with your own behaviour and theirs:

• “I’m sorry, I was not being loving”
• “You did not do what I asked, that was disobedient”
• “I could tell you were angry at your sister, good job at being self-controlled”

5. Events of the year

• Traditions - Noël Piper says that “Our children come to believe, probably unconsciously, that whatever is repeated regularly has significance.” (p34) & that “we must plan to reflect God and teach about Christ in the repeated events of our lives” (p35). (Treasuring God in Our Traditions, Piper)

• Birthdays – use them as a time to thank God for your child. If you make a big deal out of birthdays in your house, put the same amount of effort into Christmas and Easter.

The two big times of the year where you can plan to teach specifically about God are Christmas & Easter.

Christmas (& advent)

• Make the decision to reclaim Christmas from Santa and commercialism – make it about Jesus in your house. If you don’t no-one else will, and this becomes even more important once they start school.
• Use advent to your advantage! Use the 25 days to talk about Jesus. There are materials available from the Good Book Co (advent calendar packs) or design your own.
• Whatever you do – make it fun – we want to good news about Jesus to be more exciting that anything Santa has to offer. We have boxes that are opened each day, each child gets a treat in the box, there’s a bible verse and an activity to do. It’s fun!
• If you follow through some of my previous posts on Christmas, you can find other ideas and these will also link to other blogs.

Easter

• Same with Easter - it’s just as important to teach what Easter is about and why we celebrate it.
• Again, make your own, or use the Easter Unscrambled (Good Book Company).
• If you follow through some of my previous posts on Easter, you can find other ideas and these will also link to other blogs.

Some things to think about:

• Which of these suggestions might you try with your children?
  
• What traditions do you have in your family? Which ones can you include more purposeful teaching about God?

Next post in series:
#2 - Maturing in godliness; including character, speech & attitude

Raising kids with God at the centre - intro

Before we kick off with the ways we want to raise our children with God at the centre, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of some key things:

1. God is in control

God is fully, completely sovereign. He provides what our children need and he takes care of them.

God alone is the one who will act in our children’s hearts to lead them to a saving faith. As parents we want to be faithful in teaching our children about God, his world and his word. However, in the end God will work in their lives and they will respond to him, or not.

For those of us who are at more of the ‘control’ end of the spectrum, this can terrify us, because we would love to be able to guarantee the faith of our children by the amount we teach them. However, in reality this is freeing, because we can rest in the fact that God is in control, and our children’s response to God is ultimately between them and God, and not up to us (however scary that may be).


2. God loves our children more than we do

Really! He cares about them more than we do and he grieves more than we do when they turn astray. This helps us to trust God – he knows what he is doing, even though we may not be able to see how.


3. We (as parents) are not alone

As parents we are the main teachers and role models for our children, but we cannot do it all nor are we expected to. We are part of a community – be it extended family, church and/or friends. Our children will (hopefully) also learn the things of God at church, at some schools, from some family & friends.

For those of us who are godparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, we form a team with parents to help them raise children as part of a community.


4. It’s never too late to start

Don’t feel like you have missed out and it’s too late to teach your children about Jesus, it’s not. You can start today teaching your children the things of God.


5. Our families are unique

Think about your family when you teach them about God. We are a ‘book’ family – we love reading. So, we make sure we have lots of good books to read which teach our children about God.

Your family might be different. You might love the outdoors, and you use that to teach about God’s amazing creation. You might be musical or artistic and you can use that to start teaching children about the creativity that God gives to people.

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking "we aren’t like them, so we can’t do that". When you read Noel Piper’s Treasuring God in Our Traditions, you find out that John Piper writes poems to each of his children for their birthdays. I could read that and think "we would never do that, my husband would never do that – we’re not like them, it’s all too hard". Do what works for your family.

The circumstances of our families will also mean that children learn things at different times. For example, in a family where someone is very sick, children may well learn to be caring and compassionate quicker than another family. A family who earn a lot of money may well need to focus on service and generosity sooner. Obviously, we want to eventually teach about all of these things, but the way we do it may change with circumstance.



In all of these things, we need to remember to trust God. He is in control of all things and he loves our children, in whatever circumstance they are in. Therefore, we need to remember to pray to him about the children in our lives.


***

The next three posts will outline the 3 goals that I suggest we want for our children, and they will be the way we plan to keep God at the centre of our families.

The goals are that our children:

1. Grow up in the knowledge and love of God as their heavenly Father, & Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour
2. Mature in godliness; including character, speech & attitude
3. Develop a life-time habit of bible reading, prayer and church attendance

Next post: # 1 – Growing up in the knowledge and love of God as their heavenly Father, & Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour

Raising kids with God at the centre

Raising kids with God at the centre - new series

I did a seminar a few months ago, titled Raising kids with God at the centre. I have now turned it into a blog series. There are 6 posts, which will be posted over the coming weeks.

It was designed both for parents of young children (babies to primary school) and others involved in the lives of young children (grandparents, godparents, and aunts/uncles). Actually, it was at a women’s conference, so I angled it at mothers, grandmothers, godmothers and aunts. But it’s applicable to both men and women!

Stay tuned...