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Feb 13

Some Wise Counsel for Family Discipleship

2014 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Recommended Link

There’s a great book you might have heard about for parents of children 6-14 years old. It’s called, Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God, by Bruce Ware.

Dr. Ware is a seminary professor and Christian theologian. He has written several timely and important books on the doctrine of doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine of the Trinity. But in Big Truths, he unpacks the Bible’s major doctrines in the way he unpacked them for his own daughters as they grew up in his home. It’s worth getting if you have kids, and if you don’t have kids.

In a recent blog interview,  Dr. Ware’s wife, Jodi Ware, answered questions about what family devotions looked like in the Ware household when their children were young. It’s titled, “Family Devotions in Real Life,” and it’s worth your time. Here’s how the article begins.

Have you ever felt like your efforts to do family devotions — to read the Bible with your kids, to pray, to sing songs — are doomed from the start? Spilled milk, waning attention, wiggles and more seem to conspire against meaningful discipleship. Is there something the authors of books about discipling your children know but aren’t telling the rest of us?

Here are the questions Jodi goes on to answer:

  • Who influenced your approach to discipling your children? Who were your role models?
  • In trying to set a routine for family devotions, what challenges did you have to overcome in your own home, for example: schedule conflicts, distractions, young children, etc.?
  • What things can parents do with young children, one and two, whom they may think aren’t ready for family discipleship that will lay the groundwork for more intense/focused learning later?
  • What advice do you give parents of school age children who want to start doing family devotions?
  • How did your formal discipleship time shape your faith conversations with your daughters?

Click here to read the whole blog interview.