A Bundle of Myrrh

God says: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

As parents Phil and I understand this to be our chief obligation to our children, keep them alive and teach them the Faith. Teaching our babies the Christian Faith comes before teaching them to read, before providing them music lessons, before making sure they’re on the little league team or even the before the current sacred cow of parenting “making sure they are successful in life.”

How this is done looks different in every home I’m sure. This is how we do it in ours.

1. We typically begin the day with Bible Time. I love our Synod’s Service Book. It is filled with wonderful resources; Psalms, a Psalter, Prayers, Hymns and short services for use at home. We use Morning Prayer as a template for our time together. Beginning in the same way every morning, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, making the sign of the cross to teach our children how to do it and that’s ok to use and what it reminds us of. Then we speak together the same verses from Psalms.

During this time I focus mostly on route memory, ingraining God’s Word into their ears and hearts. We recite our Memory Verse together. During Lent we have learned Romans 3:23 and Romans 5:8. Then we recite the books of the Bible and from Luther’s Small Catechism. I might then take some time to teach a little on what we’re learning from the Catechism.

Finally, we close with prayers and if time allows might sing a verse from our chosen hymn. I’ll ask the babies if they want to pray for something or suggest we pray for something in particular. We also follow a weekly schedule suggested in our Service Book on what to pray for each day in general.

I want my babies to have some prayers memorized. I think putting prayers into our minds is a valuable tool. Just as we pray the prayer our Lord taught us there are many other wonderful prayers to speak to God when our own words won’t come to us.

So I use our Service Book and my copy of the Treasury of Daily Prayer for these. I typed them up and taped them into my Service Book. I hope that by praying the same prayers weekly they will begin to become part of our “spiritual vernacular.”

We also aim to have Bible Time again in the Evenings. We are not as consistent with these as we’d like right now due to tired kids…and tired parents and if Phil is home. This time is usually led by Daddy. He reads from the Old or New Testament and talks about the passage with the kids. We follow the Closing of the Day service in our Service Book. We pray and sing the hymn of the month or season.

2. Another tool in my Catechesis arsenal is the use of the Church calendar. I’ve written on that before, HERE, HERE and HERE. Keeping church observances in the home reiterates the importance of what our children hear at church and that our Faith is for life and home.

This is something I enjoy doing with my children and the ways we keep it is something that changes depending on the season of life we are in. When I had less children I did a lot more and observed many more days on the calendar than I feel I am able to now. And that’s ok. I think is a helpful and fun tool, but not a necessary one.

3. I also prefer to decorate our home with images or words that will teach our children what we value. We hang crucifixes and crosses, Christian art or framed Scripture verses. It’s worth exposing children to good art, I think especially art with Biblical subject matter.

4. As often as we can we take advantage of “teaching moments.” When our children on their own will ask us something of God we answer as best we can. If a situation arises in which we can teach a deeper message we try to do so. This is part of “you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Making the Faith and the Christian life part of everyday conversation. With nature we can say “Look what Jesus made!” When we wait for a new baby we can say, “Jesus gave us another baby!” It’s a natural part of how Christians should speak and see the world. God’s hand and His work all around us. I try to point this out to my babies as often as I can and pray God will help me to do so.

5. And of course, we go to church. We attend services every Sunday, even when we’re at the Texas coast on vacation. Unless we are sick, we go to church. Now, this is not always easy. In fact, for me, I don’t think it’s ever been easy to go to church. Proof: HERE.

*I should also say that we are careful about what we do not want our children exposed to. We do our best to guard them from certain ideas or attitudes presented in some kids movies, books and music. As parents we want to stay vigilant in what our children put into their minds. Common sense and investigating are used here. We can’t filter every bit of life, but we do what we can instead of mindlessly allowing everything labeled “for kids” into our lives.

And sometimes God gifts you with a small taste of the fruit of your labor.  Or really I should say of HIS labor. Our sweet little cantor.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2017 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Hearth and Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.