One of the areas we’ve been looking at in our churches recently is ‘Faith at Home’. How can we as children’s workers and church leaders equip parents (and others) to share their faith at home and encourage their children on their spiritual journey? I have no children off my own, so rather than give you my theories I thought I’d share with you some resources we found useful. I’ve split them into two sections – families ‘doing faith’ together and resource books that give you Bible reading notes, prayer ideas and other activities you can try as a family. I’d recommend any of the books listed here so pick any one of them and you won’t go far wrong.
General books
Parenting children for a life of faith Rachel Turner
One advantage this book has over many of the others is that it is written from a UK perspective. This means that the examples used and advice given will seem more relevant and applicable to British readers. The key themes explored in this book are tying together Biblical truth and real-life experience, praying to and hearing from God (or catching God’s voice as Turner describes it) and connecting children directly to God rather than have you act as ‘high priest’. The book is full of practical advice and even includes a planning section so you can outline what you like to do with your family over several years! Good if you’re looking to bring God more into family life, especially through prayer.
Sticky Faith Kara E Powell and Chap Clark
This book is written from an American perspective and has more of a focus on teenagers. Its starting point is thinking about your children leaving home and preparing them to stand on their own two feet faith-wise. The book is based on findings from real-life teens (they surveyed over 3,000 teenagers and had in-depth interviews with 250 of them) so the advice is backed up with evidence. Some of the areas covered in this book are how faith manifests itself in all aspects of life (e.g. serving others, giving, rewards), using rituals to honour God in the rhythm of family life, finding time to talk; and allowing your children the freedom to discover God for themselves. If you’re worried about your teenagers disconnecting from church and God this could be the book for you.
Bringing up children in the Christian faith John Westerhoff
This book is older than the other two but Westerhoff is one of the foremost thinkers on developing faith in children. There’s a lot of deep wisdom in here about growing in faith together as a family. Westerhoff explores five things that he thinks families should do together: Read the Bible, share stories of our faith and life, pray, listen and talk and perform acts of service. Don’t let the age of this book put you off as what Westerhoff has to say is worth reading.
Resource books
Table Talk
Table Talk is a series of devotions aimed at exploring the Bible as a family. Each day follows a similar pattern with a discussion question, Bible passage, questions and prayer idea. Each devotion should take approximately 15 minutes. Each booklet contains three months of devotions and covers stories from the Old and New Testaments. There are 12 booklets in the series.
Old Story New
Old Story New is also a series of daily devotions for families. The format is similar to Table Talk in that each day has a recap, Bible reading, questions and prayer idea. Again each devotion should take approximately 15 minutes. You can buy it as a print or e-book. Old Story New covers the New Testament and contains 78 weeks of devotions. And if you get through all of them you can buy Long Story Short which covers the Old Testament.
The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family Kara Powell
There are lots of Bible reading notes for families but not many resources that cover other things you might want to do such as prayer, rituals and serving. That’s what makes this book by Powell a rare treat. It comes packed with lots of ways that families can share faith together. I don’t think you’ll find every idea useful but there’s more than enough in here to ensure you’ll find something that will work for your family. If you’ve read Sticky Faith then this is a good companion book to help you put some of those ideas into practice.
Stephen Mawhinney is Children’s Worker for Barnsbury Parish and writes comedy scripts in his spare time.