Connecting Your Child to Christ (Part 1 of 3)

I was raised in a Christian home…of sorts.  My parents believed that God existed.  They had both said at some point in their lives that they wanted Jesus to be their savior and were water baptized.  We went to church for the most part and I wouldn’t say that my family was  anti-Jesus but we sure didn’t talk about Him.  We didn’t read the Word together.  We weren’t taught of Him or His character except for what we gleaned in Sunday School or “big church.”   And I don’t say any of this to bash on my parents.  They did a lot of things right with us kids and I’m completely positive we were more similar to the “norm” than not.  But that piece of the puzzle – the piece about making Jesus known in the home – was missing, and I didn’t realize how big of a piece it was until later in life.

I remember being in about 7^th grade and I decided I was going to start reading the Bible and I learned that God took a rib from Adam to make woman and I was stunned!  I couldn’t believe that was real!   How did I not know this?!  That Noah guy that took animals onto a boat – it was in the Bible; it wasn’t just a wallpaper border in the nursery – it really happened!  I just had no idea because we didn’t read the Word as a family.

It wasn’t until I went to college and I met Wrex and two church leaders (a husband and wife duo from Clarendon, Texas) that I really got an understanding for Jesus.   These people had REAL relationships with Him.  They talked about Him.  They talked WITH Him.  He wasn’t this mystical guy only to be pulled out for a few hours on a Sunday…He was an everyday, every hour, every minute part of their lives.  Because of their unabashed love for Him, I became a TRUE believer in Christ.  I dedicated my life to Him, was baptized and later married that good-looking man who showed me what it was like to know Jesus in a really real way.

After we were married for a few years, we took some high school kids to a Dare to Share conference.  I was skimming through some of their information and it talked about how parents couldn’t just send their child to youth group to learn all they needed to know about Jesus.  It explained that there just wasn’t enough time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights for youth leaders to build a teen’s foundation and that Biblically, that was the parents’ job…it had to start at home.

Now, these might seem like common sense facts to you, but at the time, I was just shell shocked.  All these lights went off, I heard the Hallelujah chorus, my head was buzzing and it all made sense.  God help them, my parents did what they knew best which was send me to church on occasion and hope that I’d learn enough about Jesus to get my free ticket into heaven.  And while I want my children to spend eternity with Him, I also want them to have a relationship with Jesus, because THAT is what He wants from us…that other stuff comes as a result of that relationship.

I want them to know Him better and closer and more intimate and deeper than I ever have.   I want the most I have ever known of the Lord, to be the least they will know of Him.  I want my ceiling to be their floor.  I want to leave a legacy of the fear of the Lord with them that no one can take away.  I want them to have a reverential awe of the Him, a worship and wonder of God the Father, a deep respect and reverence for the Lord and His ways – because that’s what He wants from us as parents.  It is our duty to connect our children to Christ.  They’re not going to learn it anywhere else.  Youth groups and Awana meetings and Moppets can come alongside us as parents and help us and bolster us and fill in some missing cracks, but we, as parents, have got to be the ones that build their foundations.

I adore Psalm 78 and the instruction it has for us.

O my people, listen to my instructions.
Open your ears to what I am saying,
²     for I will speak to you in a parable.
I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—
³     stories we have heard and known,
stories our ancestors handed down to us.
⁴ We will not hide these truths from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
about his power and his mighty wonders.
⁵ For he issued his laws to Jacob;
he gave his instructions to Israel.
He commanded our ancestors
to teach them to their children,
⁶ so the next generation might know them—
even the children not yet born—
and they in turn will teach their own children.
⁷ So each generation should set its hope anew on God,
not forgetting his glorious miracles
and obeying his commands.
⁸ Then they will not be like their ancestors—
stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful,
refusing to give their hearts to God.

He tells us that we have to share our stories!  We have to pass on what we know of the Lord to the generations after us.  We aren’t to hide the truths of the Lord from our children, we’re to tell them these truths.

So how do we do this?  How do we connect our kids to Christ?

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.  (Deuteronomy 6)

We have got to talk about Him!  All the time!  He is in everything.  He IS everything. We are to talk about Him and what He’s done for us and teach our kiddos about Him.  So?  We have to know Him for ourselves.  We can’t give away what we don’t have, so some of us may have to start this journey of knowing Him WITH our children.  And that’s ok.  It’s NEVER too late to start somewhere.

So practically, what does this look like?  Here are 5 simple ways to begin to teach your children about the Lord.

1.) Read the word together.  Get a Children’s Bible and start going through the stories.  That Noah guy I mentioned earlier?  He’s in there!  Seriously though, one of the easiest ways to learn the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is by going through a Children’s Bible.  Talk to them about the stories and what lessons Jesus wants us to learn from them.   Then, incorporate different stories into other times of the day, like snack time.  I’m willing to bet we aren’t the only family that buys stock in Pepperidge Farm because of our vast Goldfish consumption.  So, when you give them the fishes that are so delicious, talk to them about how Jesus fed the 5,000.

If you give them pretzel rods or carrot sticks or celery sticks, make crosses with them and tell them about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

Make a rainbow fruit skewer and talk about Noah (he just keeps popping up, doesn’t he!?) and the flood and God’s promise.

2.) Get active.  Acting out Bible stories is a GREAT way to get kids to remember what they’ve read.  Kids (and adults, mind you) remember 90% of what they say AND do, as opposed to only 20% of what they hear alone.  As you go through the Children’s Bible, act out the stories of David and Goliath or Jesus washing the disciples’ feet or Daniel and the Lions Den (Sawyer’s favorite right now).  Get creative with it.  It doesn’t have to be Pinterest perfect but you’ll be amazed at what some construction paper and tape can create to make a story come alive for your kids.

 3.) Pray for them and with them.  Teach them that prayer is a conversation between them and God.  They can do it anywhere and anytime they want to – He loves to hear from His kids.

The 5 finger prayer is a really easy way to pray like Jesus taught the disciples to pray in Matthew, just in kiddo lingo.

Praise God – Lord, you are good and holy and righteous.  How wonderful is your name in all the earth!

Confess your sins – Forgive me for losing my temper today or for thinking and acting selfishly.

Thank God – Lord, thank you for our warm house and for food to eat.  Thank you that daddy made it home safely from work.

Pray for Others – Give Mrs. Smith peace tonight before her doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

Pray for yourself – Help me to have an obedient heart.

4.) Worship together.  Get on YouTube and search for kids worship songs.  Play them and sing together and dance together and learn some hand motions together.

5.) Serve others together.  Find a way to show Jesus’ love to a neighbor or friend and serve them.  Do random acts of kindness…leave money in a coke machine with a note; leave a package for your postman or woman; take some treats to the nursing home and just love on the elderly…anything that helps them to live out their faith.

Feel overwhelmed yet?  Don’t.  Really, don’t.  It may take some time and a little effort to get there and build those habits to where we can talk about Him at the drop of a hat, but you’ll get there and you won’t regret it.  I really don’t want you to feel overwhelmed, but I do want you to feel the weight of the importance of this thing called parenthood.   We’ve got one shot with these kiddos.  One shot to raise them with the fear of the Lord, to instill in them His ways and values, to guide and direct them in the ways of righteousness.

So, we can do all the things I discussed earlier…we can read the Word and eat cheese flavored fish and act like giants – which are all great things, but the most important thing we can do as parents is to ACT like Jesus.

God intends for us to model His character to our children.  Scripture tells us that we are to give our children affection, compassion, protection, provision and loving discipline.  When we provide this kind of environment, children then believe that HE is loving and compassionate and protective and gracious and a loving disciplinarian.

But in a home that exhibits the opposite – homes with a lack of affection or compassion or where there’s yelling or neglect or punishment and especially abuse, they begin to see God in THIS way.  A mean God; a God of no grace.  They see Him in a way that is untrue of who He really is; a way that leads to deep, deep wounds and the inability to apply His true character to their lives.

We have to act in ways that are consistent with Him – THAT is how we will connect our children to Christ the most…