Practical Discipleship in the Home

Starting today a series of posts will be going up on the St John’s Children and Youth Blog focusing on bringing practical discipleship into the home. Over the last 18 months that I have been at this church, I have had people ask me questions like “How do I raise my kids to be Christians?” “Why won’t my kids/child/ grown up kids come to church?” or others without children have spoken of their difficulty praying, or reading the Bible.

I get it, I really do.

It is difficult raising a family to be disciples of Christ. I have been involved in Youth and Children’s ministry now for 11 years, I have been a Christian for 16 years, I have been to Bible college, and my wife who has been a Christian for her whole life has also been to Bible college. With all that behind us we find it hard to know how to raise our two boys in the Lord.

I think about my life: it is busy, frantic and complicated. I find it challenging to find time to pray; to sit under God’s word and let it speak into my life; to quietly listen to the Holy Spirit; to take Jesus’ teaching and apply it correctly in my life.

I am a father of two, and a husband, I am studying at uni and much of my time spent dwelling on God’s word is based around the next Sunday School, KoG, Youth or Church thing that I am leading. I do my best, but life is busy, prayer is hard and when I read passages like Deuteronomy 6 and look at my family I feel a little bit out of my depth.

This series of blogs is therefore going to be a selection of practical ideas that you might want to try in your households (I will explain in a future blog why I use the term household, for now think of it as a placeholder for home). Ideas that are meant to help inspire, and guide people in bringing Jesus into every aspect of their lives. This idea started at ReCreate2 where I was running the children’s program, and I wanted to send the families there home with resources they might want to try with their kids to help them make Christ part of everyday life.

These ideas won’t magically work at making kids who don’t want to come to church come, but what they will do is provide us with opportunities to make Christ part of our entire lives, and opportunities to engage our kids in active discipleship (more on this later too). Also these ideas are not only for families with children, they are for share houses, older people, young marrieds, singles, teens… Everyone!

You wont be alone in trying this, Ruth and I have been trying some of these out ourselves and my hope is that it will bear fruit in our sons’ lives. it is important that we understand that these ideas are not ‘must-do’s, they are simply ideas that you might wish to try out and help. I have worked hard to keep each idea is simple as possible, and relatively easy to incorporate into your life.

BUT…

these are what we call spiritual disciplines, and as the name suggests they do require various degrees of discipline. They will take an active and willing desire to change the way our families operates to really be of benefit.

As parents it will be our job to raise our children in Christ

I assure you it is worth it.

Have a read, have a pray and see what you can do.

Father in heaven,
you understand us, you understand our world.
We pray for our households, for the kids, adults and everyone in between that lives with us.
We pray that our households will be places where your name is honoured and your son worshipped.
Please strengthen our resolve as we seek to live lives that honour you,
and give us the strength and courage to make all of our lives yours.
In the name of the Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit

Amen.