How we Disciple our Children

"Our goal as parents ought to be to help our kids become independently dependent on God." - Francis Chan

My two oldest children are currently 9 and 7 years old. They were recently baptized. They wanted to be baptized a couple years ago, but my husband and I wanted to make sure that they understood what they were "signing" up for, as much as possible at their young age.

When people ask how we disciple our children, I wish I had a formula to give them to say if you do this, then this is the outcome. That's never the case, because ultimately, it is the Lord who grows our children's faith, we can only help plant the seeds and water them. Hands down, what has inspired and strengthened the faith of our children is the way my husband and I strive to live our life everyday. We strive to live a Christ-centered life in every area. We care for orphans, we take in foster children even though we risk getting hurt by losing them. We love and forgive the birth parents of our now-adopted children even though they have hurt them physically, mentally and emotionally. We have visited birth parents in prison and psychiatric wards, bought them Bibles, taken them to church, invited them into our home and offered them jobs. We make it clear to our children what we are doing and why we are doing it. Because we are forgiven and we are loved and we extend that to all that God leads across our path. 

Our children see us put the Lord first everyday. I read my Bible and they know that this is my time with Jesus. They can join me and read their Bible at the same time, but I frequently tell them during this time that, "Jesus comes first. He's more important." I share with them how to grow closer to God if you begin to fall away. We talk about it once a month at least. You read the Word, you obey the Word, you pray, you sing songs of praise to the Lord and you help those in need. I pray that in times of trials as they grow older they will remember.

We are irrationally generous. If there is a need we can meet, we meet it. We don't stifle our children's natural desire to be generous. We allow them to give away their toys and clothes however they see fit. I remember this quote by Corrie ten Boom often when teaching my children about generosity, "Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."

Honestly, homeschooling helps a lot too. We are their biggest influence. At this point it doesn't matter if it's cool or not to read your Bible. In our house, it's super cool. :)

We remove things that cause them to sin and refer to scripture that tells us to do that. For example, if video games make them fight, they stop playing. If Legos makes them so angry and frustrated that they are not enjoyable to be around, they take a break from that, all while reminding them of the reasons behind our actions so that they can apply it in the future on their own.

We teach them to pray for forgiveness when they sin and ask for help from the Holy Spirit to not sin in that way again and strength during temptation.

I'd love to hear how you encourage your children in their faith in Christ. Thanks for reading how we do it. :)

Here are a few tools that we use in discipling our children in addition to the Word (we use the NLT version when we read to them):






 "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him." Ps. 127:3

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