Family Devotions

[Stephen Smith]

At present, we have a "Bible Time" every night before the kids go to bed. We read a chapter of the Bible, I explain it a little, then we pray and sing. Afterwards, we turn out the lights, and with the boys tucked in, I read one chapter from a Christian biography.

They enjoy the biography more than the Bible reading.

How can I make Bible Time more exciting to 7, 5 and 2 year old boys, and get them to pray for the nations?

Thanks,

Stephen

[Lowell Snow]

Bless you for this commitment to your children. Family devotions had a great influence on my life. I wrote about that in the ‘how to develop in prayer’ discussion so I won’t repeat that.

Bible reading:
I’m not a child education expert, but I think I’d focus on the stories of the Bible. Some folks buy Bible story books to use. You can google ‘Bible stories for children’ and get lots of ideas.

If you want to read stories directly from your Bible, I found a list with references by googleing ‘great Bible stories’. Here’s the link I found: http://www.biblestudygames.com/biblestudies/biblestories.htm


Prayer for the nations:
Years ago, when the mission support auxiliaries were common, there was a great deal more emphasis on praying daily for missionaries. That was a good thing. Anyway, you might adopt a missionary and pray for them daily. Get on their mailing list and keep your boys up on what ‘their’ missionary is doing.

Pray the front page. Every day before your family devotion; think about what’s front page news that day. Then think about how those events are affecting the people and missionaries of that area. Lead your boys to pray simple prayers for them. You might mention an issue, and then ask them how they think they need to pray for those people. Let it be their prayer.

I teach what I call ‘prayer by suggestion’ that works well with children. It’s a silent prayer time in which you make suggestions out loud and then give them a few seconds to pray silently what you’ve suggested. You might use this in praying for issues where your boys aren’t sure what to pray.

Hope that helps.
Lowell Snow
www.leadingprayer.com

[Stephen Smith]

Thanks, Lowell.

This week I started reading Pray!Kids to the boys. I'm starting with "Intercession" because I'm also using "Window on the World" and praying for a different country each night.

Our oldest is now reading easy-to-read Bible stories to us, so the boys are all getting a little more involved.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Stephen

[Lowell Snow]

You might take a look at Kids On Mission.com. The link is:

http://www.kidsonmission.org/

They have prayer requests from children of missionaries. There are some interesting stories and videos too.

Hope that helps,
Lowell Snow
www.leadingprayer.com