This afternoon, Gil and I came in intertwining shifts with pairs of our kids to the Good Friday prayer open house we're hosting at New Life Lakeview (noon to midnight.) I had Jaley and Lena for the first shift. After arriving, I went off to be alone for prayer and left them to go through the prayer stations together. They quietly went through each station, following the instructions, praying cooperatively.
Then they approached me asking if they could take communion with me. What a great question to be asked by your children. I took them aside and we talked through the basics of Passover/communion and then I led them in communion.
A short while later Gil arrived with Tyce and Olivia. Similarly, Gil prayed alone while Tyce took Olivia through the prayer stations. At the end they also approached me and asked to take communion with me. The cool part of this is that Olivia just prayed to give her life to Christ last week. So this communion was coming close on the heels of her expression of faith. I took a similar amount of time to instruct and then led them through communion together.
A couple of things ring out to me from our Good Friday prayer time:
- Bring your children with you any time you can give them an opportunity to engage faith.
- Use the power of kid-pairs. Kids can learn a lot by leading each other and they feel big doing it.
- Expect more. And don't let a few wimpy protests, "dad, what are we going to do at the prayer thing?" keep you from bringing them.
- Let your children initiate spiritual steps and then instruct. Their interest level is way higher than if their simply put through ceremonies and rites.
- Rejoice when God gives glimpses of faith in the lives of your kids. Pray for them all the time and wait in faith for Jesus to bring them about.
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