Joyful Momma's Top Picks

Ok, by popular demand (that was a lot of email!), I am doing the next few top picks based upon questions and requests that were sent to me. This week I am going to cover my top picks for Family Devotions.

Obviously, passing on our faith to our children is important, and many moms are out there wondering what the best resource for doing this is. Well, it's been a best seller for years, though for a while there it was on the banned and burned book list. It's tried and true, and has been a blessing for well over 2000 years, in it's various forms.

Yes, folks the Bible. It's the "sword of the Spirit", the very words of God, and it really is all we need. Don't underestimate or overlook teaching your children about God right out of His Word! It's worked for many generations. (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

There are also many great aids we can use to help us to teach the Bible and it's principles to our children. First of all, at the risk of sounding like some shameless self promotion, I would recommend you getting my book, Quiet Times in Loud Households. I wrote this to help moms obey Deuteronomy 6:4-9, by first putting God first in their own lives, and teaching their children from the overflow. In it I also give great ideas for family devotions.

We find the One Year Bible to be especially helpful for family devotions. We have spent time as a family reading each day from the One Year Bible now that all of our children can read well. We pass it around the table, each taking a turn (I usually get the passages with the long hebrew names ;)). We did this last year, and it was a blessing. It also doubles as help for struggling or unsure readers--reading aloud for devotions helped to build some confidence in them.

As I also state in Quiet Times in Loud Households, I have also found Marion Schooland's book, Leading Little Ones to God to be extremely helpful for family devotions, especially for preschool and early elementary age children. It's well done, and would have my children begging for more. They couldn't wait to do devotions when we used this book. We've been through it about six times now.

As my children grew older, we have also used Marty Elwell's awesome devotional, Searching for Treasure. This is a study based primarily on the book of Proverbs, and is all about building our houses upon the Rock, which is Jesus Christ, instead of building on the sand. She covers topics like decision making and friendships, and in a way that children understand, and which fosters discussion around the dinner table. There is also a game in the back to play to test your knowledge of Proverbs, and many supplementary activities also in the back. We did change the memory verses to KJV because that is what my children learn for church, and I didn't want to make it confusing.

We've also been blessed to have Dr. David Cummins visit our church, and give an awesome talk on our spiritual heritage. Dr. Cummins has written a series of books entitled "This Day in Bapist History", which contain 366 true stories about saints who have gone on before, and also offer lessons concerning Church History, and the fight for freedom of religion in the USA. We have used this series for read aloud books in our family, to be encouraged from the boldness and bravery of a "great cloud of witnesses" from the past. By nature, we all look for heroes, and I am thankful for these books giving us the opportunity to have brief glimpses into the lives of some heroes of the faith.

My children have also found another website called Kids4Truth, which has some really neat interactive features on it, and videos.

At our church, we have a program similar to Awana called Patch the Pirate, which I absolutely love. Ron "Patch" Hamilton lost his eye to cancer many years ago (read his whole story here), but God used it for good, opening this door of ministry to him. With Patch Club, the kids get a devotional book that they have to do each week, which has provided some great times of discussion in our family. Patch also has some CDs out there too, and a radio show you can listen to online, that teach songs and Bible truths in a creative way. The Patch Devotion books("sailor's logs") are available at his music website, Majesty Music (by the way, Ron and Shelly Hamilton's other CDs are awesome too, but that is getting off topic).

Child Evangelism Fellowship's Mailbox Club also provides free devotions for children that can be done with a parent, and discussed. My daughter completed them a few years ago, and then was given a devotional book to also use. Now, as a teen, she gets the Glow in the Dark Devotional booklet each month from Youth Group, in addition to having her own time in the Word of God. I have been much impressed with the Glow in the Dark devotional, as it is not your usual "trying to be hip but failing badly" teen product.

Labels: devotions