How do you effectively lead your children in a relationship with the Lord? It all starts with you.
Hey there! My name is Lacie Glenn, and I’m the Children’s Ministry Director at Three Trails Community. Often the question arises of, “How do I teach my children to have a relationship with the Lord?” Or, “How do I teach them what it looks like to be in relationship with the Lord?” Well, the answer, though you may not want to hear this, starts with you.
If your kids are anything like my kids, you know that telling them something doesn’t usually work out. I mean, I think this morning I told my four-year-old to put his socks on five times, and then I said, “Why don’t you have any socks on?” His answer… “I didn’t know I was supposed to put socks on.” It starts with you and your actions. Children are far more likely to respond to what you’re teaching them if you’re living it out. There are three key ways that you can help them to walk in a relationship with the Lord.
1) Pray
The number one thing you can do is pray! Pray out loud and pray often. Kids often have no idea what it means to pray. I mean, sometimes the prayers at my dinner table sounds like, “Please, Lord, let us play Xbox all night.” Well, that’s not exactly what I meant by say dinner time prayers. Be an example. Show them what it looks like, what it sounds like, and yes, they can pray for anything, but help to guide them just a little bit. It’s not always about Xbox.
2) Read the Bible
Number two is to teach your children how to read the Bible. Now you may be thinking, “My kids aren’t old enough to read. How do I do that?” I know, it can be tricky. One of the key things that you can do is read it with them. There are plenty of children’s Bibles out there and I’m willing to bet that if you’re reading the children’s Bible to your children, you’re learning something too, because I learned a lot by reading the children’s Bibles.
3) Live it out
Number three is to be the example of what it means to live out what you’re reading, to live out what you’re praying for. Children see you. They look to you. Do they see you reading your Bible? Do they see you praying? Do they see you being kind to the people in the world? Remember that they are tactile learners and sometimes their relationship with the Lord is so abstract that it’s hard to understand. But if you make it concrete by the way that you live and act, by the things that you do, they are way more likely to understand. Just like if they see you put your socks on and say, “Hey, you should put your socks on,” they’re going to be more likely to go do it than if you just tell them five times, “Put your socks on,” and then there’s no socks.
So remember, there are three key ways that you can be helping your kids to learn what it means to walk in a relationship with the Lord. One, pray, not just for Xbox. Two, read your Bible. Read your Bible in your own time, and read the Bible to them. Three, live it out. Take what you’ve learned from the Bible and what you’ve learned as a family and live it out, and help them to do the same. That will help your kids learn what it means to walk with the Lord.