Having children has really put me into touch with the sinful nature. And I ain’t talking about my kids. I’m talking about myself. Man alive. I finally see myself a bit more how God sees me – I’m filthy rags. Thanks be unto God for His saving grace.
But really, Barry and I realize the heavy burden that we bear – the burden to teach our children in the ways of our Christian faith. It’s a daily walk for me – and I’m not teaching Annie, she’s teaching ME. Every day I learn things from her. Every day being with her causes me to beg God for mercy toward me. And as I am teaching Annie to obey me, I am teaching her to obey God.
Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
Part of our daily training of Annie includes our family Bible time. It’s something we make a priority to do every day. Andy is also with us. Yes, he’s only 10 months old…but we believe in saturating our family in the Word as much as possible. It will not return void.
I got the idea to start a family catechism from my fabulous friend, LeighAnn, over at Intentional by Grace. She was doing it with her family, so I copied her. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Right? That’s what I keep telling myself.
We looked around on the internet until we found a good catechism for the 3-5 year old age range. But quite honestly, I think it’s good for me and Barry too…and we’re 30+ years old. So, I think this will be our official family catechism no matter the ages of our children. But what IS a catechism?
A catechism is a summary of doctrine used in religious training of children and adults.
We believe that by teaching our children these fundamental truths about God and Christ, that they’ll be ingrained in their mind for their entire life. That’s what the Word has promised us. And so, we started at 3 years old. We could have started earlier…but her attention span isn’t very long as this point.
I’ll admit, I’m surprised at her ability to retain information. She’s already learned 18 of them and can recite them back to you. Barry and I are learning them right along with her.
Each night, Barry asks the question posed and Annie responds. When she learns them well, we move on to another point. Barry makes sure to explain each one – which can sometimes take a while.
Barry made us this nice lovely chart. I’m making the PDF available to you too – in case you want to print. It’s 11×17 in size to make it plenty big for reading/posting in your home. We had it laminated at Office Depot for a few bucks because, I gotta tell you – there’s a whole lotta spilling going on at the Myers house – and sometimes Annie spills her drink too. Better safe than sorry.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MYERS FAMILY CATECHISM
Dinner is when we are usually all together, so that’s when we have family Bible time. After we finish eating, we have our devotions together. Family dinner is a big priority here…but it might not be at your house. You just have to find a time that works for you. Maybe it’s before bed. Before bed here is a living nightmare with gnashing of teeth, so that doesn’t work for us.
Here is what our devotion time looks like:
- Barry tells a Bible story and reads from the Word. He does questions/answer time.
- We take prayer requests and pray.
- We sing a song (sometimes Annie requests “You Spin Me Right Round Baby”, which we DON’T sing as part of Bible time, but will take up a bit later)
- We do the family catechism
Now, is it always hunky dory? Absolutely not. Sometimes it looks like this:
- Barry tells a story while Andy screams his head off and Annie lays in the floor humming.
- Annie wants to pray for everything under the sun, including the dirt outside and the ants in the field. Barry prays while Annie runs from the room to get a toy.
- Barry and Stacy sing a song while Annie picks her nose and Andy throws everything in the floor.
- Barry tries to do the family catechism and Annie acts like she doesn’t speak English.
My kids LOVE doing Catechism – and we have used a wonderful book called “Training Hearts, Teaching Minds.” I will say that I dont agree with all the points in it, but the vast majority is a really wonderful foundation for raising my children in the ways and knowledge of the Lord.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I really enjoyed this post. I had to stop and read a few parts to my husband because it is almost 10 pm and I’m just randomly bursting out in gut-busting laughter. I can TOTALLY relate to the “Sometimes it looks like this…” oh my word. I like the layout of your family Bible time a lot and appreciate the printable. Thanks!!!
Wait – you mean my kids aren’t the only ones who act like that? We should get our family bible time on VIDEO!
I laughed so hard at your description of family devotional time, because that’s pretty much what ours look like too, except in addition the 2 year is flipping himself over the couch and the 7 and 5 year old are arguing over who prays first! Thanks for keeping it real 🙂 And thanks for sharing how you do catechism, we really need to start that since our kids are definitely old enough to handle it alongside Bible time and prayer.
Arguing over praying is better than something else. LOL
Ha! So true! 🙂
That’s great, Tina! I hope you love the book and this printable. Thanks for taking the time to holler at me. 🙂
This is a great idea, and thanks for the printable. We’ve just started reading through Phyllis Tickle’s book The Divine Hours at every meal. It’s from the Book of Common Prayer and I love it so far. My kids are enjoying it more than I expected.
I’ve just found your blog and am really enjoying it. I actually just went and bought Trim Healthy Mama at your recommendation. I had baby number 4 five months ago and this weight isn’t moving!
So anyway, I’m just saying hi and letting you know you have a new subscriber to your blog. Thanks and have a magnificent weekend!
Tina from mommynificent.com
Amen to that.
Thanks for the heads up. 🙂
There’s nothing more important than getting the Word of God in your childrens hearts
as young as possible. Bless you and your family. Kathi
This is great. I have been challenged lately about doing family devotions as we don’t currently but I think what puts me off is knowing that they won’t always go perfectly. The kids might play up or show reluctance. Yet, you have convinced me that it’s worth it despite this. Thanks for a great post.
I linked here from Thrive at Home Linkup and thought you might want to link this post at the linkup I host called Essential Fridays.
http://www.essentialthingdevotions.com
I’m sure my readers would love to see this!
Blessings.
You’re sooooooooooo gonna give me a big head. LOL
Stacy, I love reading your articles! I even like reading the comments! I think the comments are so interesting because your articles are sooo fascinating!!
🙂 Thanks!
I love when “coincidences” like that happen. 🙂
What a great idea! My daughter is 8 months old so a bit young to begin the question/answer process. But like you mentioned, I want her to be saturated in the word of God from a young age. I currently use some CDs that have catechism questions and answers put to song. I’ve enjoyed learning the catechism myself as I play the music in our home.
I know, me too. I didn’t learn these growing up in my church, so I’m enjoying learning them now. 🙂
Stacy, we were just talking about starting a catechism with our children last night. Printing….thanks.
~Katie
http://www.simplefoody.org
LOVE THIS!!
We’ve been doing family Bible study most evenings since we celebrated advent and learned how special of a time it can be! I’m going to show this catechism to my husband and see if he might be interested in adding it! I’m glad you shared some of the tidbits of how chaotic it can be in your home – it sounds a lot like ours many nights! I know it’s important, though!
Even when we think they aren’t listening – they ARE.
Imitation is certainly the greatest form of flattery. No doubt. 😉 I’m excited to see how your family has implemented family devotions. We continue to do ours in the morning since it’s when we are consistently together (and Sam seems to be in a better mood). He’s 2.5 now and boy does he daily impress me with what he’s able to recite. Of course, he doesn’t quite know what any of it means yet, but the truth of each learned statement and verse will be there when he’s ready to understand. Plus the look of triumph when he finally remembers the newest one we’ve been working on is amazing! Thanks for sharing what you do!
🙂 Back at ya….you inspire me.
In Georgia I taught the pre-school age children. I loved that age. One night during Vacation Bible school the children were extra energized. They couldn’t sit still so we hopped, skipped and walked around the room. The whole time I was talking about our Bible verse we were studying. Another lady was helping me and she said “Do you really think they are learning anything?” When a parent come to get her child she asked what we had done. He looked at his Mom and recited our Bible verse!!!! I just love our children.
🙂 When you don’t think they’re listening – they ARE.
You’re welcome!!
I know…tell me about it. 🙁
🙂 Thanks for reading it!
Agreed. Boogers and all.
🙂
I am VERY blessed that Barry is the spiritual head of this family. 🙂
🙂 It is crazy more than it’s peaceful – but we press on.
I read that the attention span a child has is the same amount of years they have – so 5 minutes sounds right for your son. 🙂 I’m 31 though and I’m not sure my attention span is that long. LOL
Good heavens – hardly anything goes beautiful and glorious around here! LOL LOL I’m glad to have you here!
WOW! I.LOVE.THIS! I’m so very blessed to know of young families doing this with their children. Amazing how WE are the ones who learn when teaching kids huh? May God bless your family as you seek to follow HIS footsteps. You’re so right – as HE is…HIS WORD does not return void. Praise His Holy Name!
To God be the glory!
I love your honesty and that you don’t pretend that “Family Bible Time” is always a beautiful and glorious moment but real moments. I’m new to your blog and look forward to reading it each day!
Awesome! We read from a children’s Bible when we have our story time. My little sister (7) loves the Bible stories and sometimes wants me to read 4 or 5 (I am for about one or two depending on the children’s attention spans that day). My son doesn’t enjoy the Bible stories so much, he’s five. Maybe once a week he’ll really get into it. Sometimes (depending on our time) we watch the corresponding video (if there is one) on The Mormon Channel. They’re under 5 minutes long and it helps them (and me!) remember the story better to have read/seen it in two different media forms. It sort of solidifies it in our memories better and sometimes I’ll catch something I didn’t while reading. Right now, the kids are also practicing 7 hymns a day for church, they do this via a CD sent home from the church, so last night we sang 2 during our story time. I would eventually like to incorporate memory verses into our time, since they are older and should be able to do that now.
Thank you for including the times when it doesn’t work- so encouraging!!
Amen. Keep up the good work and it’s so nice to see husbands that are spiritial leaders in their homes. I think Family Worship is #1 also for teaching children to sit for church services. Every kid in our church over the age of 4 can sit still in church and our services are long. We have a nursery but that’s it. My sister couldn’t believe that 4 year olds could sit in church and she asked me what do we do if they can’t? I said, they all can. But, it got me to wondering why the kids in our church can and other churches pull kids out of church services to have game, skit, snack time until kids are 20. Family worship; I’m convinced. These kids are in the habit of sitting and listening daily at home. Daily would be ideal but that has never happened here. In the mornings when hubby is at work, we read the passage that will be preached that Sunday so they’ve heard it A LOT by Sunday(ideally). And my husband does Family Worship as Spiritual Head of our home right after supper. And we worship all week long and not just on Sundays. That’s the goal anyway, but we fail ALL the time and we keep getting up, dusting ourselves off and starting over. All credit goes to God.
Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful.
We need more families doing this in America!!
I love this, Stacy. Thanks for posting it!
Love it! although, my eyes did get just teeny bit moist at the first picture . . . she is growing up so fast!
I love this idea! Thank you!