The foundation of your devotions ought to be God’s Word and prayer. Generally, for us the best rhythms from later elementary age on have been to read one chapter of the Bible, ask some basic questions about the chapter, sing a song, and pray. Don’t overly complicate the time. It’s better to go shorter than longer. I would rather have five ten-minute family devotions a week than one hour-long devotion. The daily rhythms help draw us into closer intimacy not only with Christ, but also with one another.  

Angel and I have a nineteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old. On the precipice of empty-nesting, I’ve been reflecting upon what has worked and what hasn’t worked as I have tried to lead our family spiritually over the years.

I have experienced ebbs and flows of successes and failures as the spiritual leader of our family. By God’s grace, our kids are faithfully following Christ and have vibrant spiritual lives. Angel and I give God all the credit and glory for the ways in which we have been able to encourage Camille and Soren’s spiritual development; anything good we gave them the Father first gave us.  We cannot lay claim because “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) We own the times we have unintentionally and foolishly put obstacles in their spiritual path. Perhaps our wins and losses might help you walk a wiser course.

The Basics

None of the basics will surprise a mature Christian. While uncontroversial, these are more important than my suggestions for spiritual rhythms below. If leading your family spiritually is playing jazz, the basics are the structure that keep the music cohesive, and the spiritual rhythms are the improvisation that make the song unique to your family.

I’m not able to properly lead my family into spiritual health if I myself am not intentionally growing spiritually. They are watching you closely: lead through your example. There is no faster way to give Christianity a bitter taste than for your kids to sniff out that you don’t take your walk seriously.

Similarly, the spiritual temperature in your marriage will impact your children. The depth of spiritual intimacy in your marriage will directly affect the depth of spiritual intimacy in your family.

If your spouse isn’t a Christian or isn’t committed to the spiritual development of your children, it’s far better to act alone than to wait for your spouse to get on board.

Just as your relationships with your children change as they get older, so too will your spiritual relationships with them change. Expect this to happen and welcome their growth in spiritual maturity.  As you walk alongside them, you will be blessed watching God transform them and even through their struggles you can experience joy in seeing God sanctify them.

Spiritual Rhythms

I’m that dad – the one who introduced his kids to great books about two years too early. A great book isn’t great if the reader isn’t ready for it. Similarly, I often made the mistake in our family’s spiritual life of trying to push the kids ahead of where they were developmentally. How about you? Our goal as parents isn’t to have the most theologically astute eight-year-old, but rather a child whose walk with Christ is marked all the days of his life as having run the race well.

Infant and toddler stage: this was the most straightforward stage for me. The main goal is to create a warm environment where children come to love singing praise to Jesus and reading his Word. For us, this meant that our bath and bedtime were times where we sang simple songs of praise (such as “Jesus Loves Me” and “God is so Good”) and read Bible stories (The Jesus Storybook Bible and The Biggest Story Bible are both excellent).

Elementary stage: this transition was very hard for me because of several challenges. First, most families will begin to have after-school activities (sports, music, and clubs) that impact dinner and bedtime. If you also have toddlers and other elementary-age kids, this is exacerbated.

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