Author: Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids – Service

We’ve been talking about the various spiritual disciplines practiced by Christians for over two thousand years (and often by Jesus himself). They are practices many Christians believe (and supported to a great extent by scripture) can help one remain spiritually healthy and continue to grow and mature in faith and practice. Because spiritual disciplines are usually discussed in adult circles, it can be important to discuss how they can be adapted for children and teens. By starting these spiritually healthy habits early, hopefully it will be easier for them to practice these disciplines consistently throughout their lives.

This week, our spiritual discipline is service. If you think of the ministry of Jesus, when he wasn’t teaching, he was healing people or serving them in some way. Perhaps the most well known story even among those who aren’t Christians is that Jesus washed the feet of his Apostles to demonstrate the type of servant hearts he wanted them – and by extension us – to have.

Service should be one of the easiest spiritual disciplines to practice – even daily – but it can easily be overlooked. Parents may assume their kids are involved in a lot of service projects at church. They may be doing a few, but I am not aware of any congregation who provides daily opportunities for children and teens to serve. Families may also serve others, but it’s so easy to get distracted by the flurry of school commitments and extra curricular activities that serving others becomes an after thought.

The attitude and practice of Jesus was that he served everyone he could as he went about his days. I imagine some days those may not have been miracles and many days they were. He didn’t command us to serve others miraculously, he wanted us to serve others just like he washed the Apostle’s feet – in humble, messy, every day ways.

Talk with your kids about all of the opportunities they have to serve others each day. Discuss how you can all become better at noticing these opportunities and then taking advantage of them by actually serving those needs. Discuss ways to point others to God as you serve them. At the end of each day, spend time together reflecting on how God was able to use you to serve others in small and big ways during your days.

Schedule in time to do bigger, planned service projects as a family. We have tons of great ideas on our website (https://teachonereachone.org/activity-ideas/). Consider asking other families or some of your kids’ friends to join you on these service adventures. After you have completed a service project, spend some time together reflecting on what happened and what you learned from the experience.

Serving others was always meant to be a huge part of living the Christian life. Make sure your kids naturally serve others as they go, every day.

Helping Your Kids Navigate Valentine’s Day

No offense to the person who decided Valentine’s Day should be a major Hallmark holiday, but talk about setting people up for disappointment! Ironically, all of the romance movie channels have made it worse. Even the great guys out there would have trouble measuring up to the heroes who instinctively meet the every need of the heroine – even before she knows she needs it. They always say and do the right things and their biggest flaw is their humble inability to realize their love is returned by the heroine!

Now as adults, experienced in dating, love and marriage, we generally see the humor in these movies. But who hasn’t on a day when their spouse wasn’t showing their particular best side occasionally sighed at the perfect words and actions of the movie hero? Even if your kids have never seen a rom com or Hallmark movie, these ideas of “perfect love” seep into the culture of even very young children. Even elementary aged children can feel pressured to find the perfect “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”.

I’ll never forget hearing a fourth grade girl tell the other girls that they couldn’t hang with her unless they could prove they had a boyfriend! Or hearing my professor tell me that in several elementary schools in her county, fifth graders defined dating as having someone tell you to do things like carry their books so they would call you their boyfriend or girlfriend and not lie and tell everyone you were gay. Your kids are probably being exposed to a jumble of messages about romance, love, dating and marriage. They have no way to sort them out without your help. Without it, they may choose to believe all sorts of unhealthy and even toxic or dangerous messages. (I hesitate to mention the girl in my sixth grade class who got pregnant so she would have someone to love her.)

You still have time before Friday to start talking about what healthy love in a romantic relationship looks like according to God. Some of God’s truths are scoffed at today, but they are commands for a reason. God knows what is best for us and wants to make sure we know how important it is to follow His wisdom. So He made them commands. But it goes beyond commands about sex and marriage. Romantic wisdom from God includes understanding agape love and what it means to help someone be the best Christian they can be (Here’s an unsolicited and unrewarded plug for Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas.). Your kids need to know how to give agape love to those they date and their eventual spouse, but they also need to be careful to only date people who are the type of people they would want to marry – godly Christians who practice what they believe – including agape love.

Don’t just have these conversations now, have them all throughout the year. Have them frequently. Talk about all sorts of important topics within the realm of dating and marriage. Talk about being a healthy, happy single and refusing to settle. With your older kids and teens, this can be a great time to pull out all of your dating horror stories so they don’t feel so awkward sharing with you! Talk about purity. Perhaps most importantly, remind them that even if they feel unlovable because someone has rejected them, it isn’t true. Because God will always love them, as will you. Those whispers of being unloved and unlovable come from Satan, not God. Don’t let Satan’s whispers push them into unhealthy relationships. The loneliness they feel at times can be mitigated with prayer, reading scripture, fellowshipping with Christians and serving others.

Don’t leave your kids alone to navigate the turbulent waters of dating, love and marriage. Help them know which way to go.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids – Worship

Of all of the spiritual disciplines we are covering, you may think worship is the easiest. You just take them to church every Sunday, right? Spiritual disciplines are practices Christians have partaken in for over two thousand years in an effort to become who God wanted them to be. Many of the disciplines Jesus himself practiced while he was on Earth. Since it’s so important to spiritual health and growth, we may need to take a closer look at worship.

The dictionary definition of worship is to show reverence and adoration to God. While corporate worship as a community of believers is crucial, your kids need to also learn how to constantly worship God. There are all kinds of clues in scripture about what God considers worship. In Isaiah, the prophet says, “…I will exalt you, I will praise your name, for you have done marvelous things…” (25:1) and “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously.” (12:5) Paul writes in Romans that we are to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (12:1) In Psalms we read “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” (150:6)

You can help your children have a worshipful life by modeling one yourself. Sing praise songs around the house or in your car. (There are some great kids’ praise songs that have scriptures as lyrics so they are also memorizing scripture as they sing.) Be thankful to God out loud and praise Him in front of your children… “Isn’t God amazing that he created such a beautiful sunset for us to enjoy?!” “It is awesome to see how God worked in that situation even better than we could have imagined or hoped!” If you are sincere and consistent, your kids will begin to follow your lead in most cases.

But what about corporate worship at church? Although some churches still provide separate environments for children during worship services, don’t let your kids participate. Studies are finding children fare better spiritually when they are brought in with the adults as modeled in scripture. Yes it is more work for you, but they will grow so much more by learning how to worship from a young age, rather than being entertained. They will develop relationships that can become mentoring with Christians older than them who sit near you. They will feel like part of a family – which is what church was always designed to be.

Once they’re in worship with you, it’s crucial they participate – no matter how young they are. Our daughter was encouraged to sing along from infancy and would often hum along before she could say the words. When we stood, she either stood or was picked up and held while we stood. She was encouraged to fold her hands and pray when the grown ups did – even if she just said her own prayer because she couldn’t quite understand what the person was praying. She gave her own money to God from her allowance each week. (Most churches have a box in the foyer where your children can put their money.)

But what about the sermons? When she was tiny, we had a fidget book I had made that was based on the Bible. Each page was a different story and had something she could do on it to keep her hands busy. She only saw that book during the sermon on Sunday, so she never had a chance to get tired of it. I also had a few other Bible based books she could look through.

As soon as she was old enough to begin drawing. We got her a special notebook for sermons. We would draw pictures based on things in the sermon and she would color them. As she got a little older, she was encouraged to listen to the sermon and draw things she heard from it. Most weeks she might only catch one or two points – usually the Bible story or theme in the sermon, but it taught her that the point was to listen and learn. Afterwards, we would often talk briefly at lunch about her notes and what she learned.

So what if your child gets antsy? Starting at about one year old, we began training her about appropriate behavior in worship. We sat in the back for several months and I would take her out and correct her if she became disruptive and then bring her back into worship. I won’t lie. Some weeks, I had to get up more than once. It’s important to state clearly what was disruptive in your correction and repeat that we don’t do things to disrupt the worship of others. It is also important to return as quickly as possible, because some children will learn acting out gets them out of worship and into an environment with toys. The point of training is not just about behavior. It is teaching them worship is not about them being entertained, but about praising God and helping others worship Him as well. It’s the beginning of a foundation of considering the needs of others and putting God first, instead of themselves.

Work with your kids on worship. It keeps them in constant contact with God and keeps their perspective and priorities focused on God instead of their own “selfish desires”.

Using Your Kids’ Interests to Reinforce Biblical Truths

What are your kids’ interests outside of screen time? If they don’t have any, that’s another discussion (But please get them back in the real world!). Did you know you can use aspects of their interests to reinforce things they are learning from the Bible? You just need to help them look a little below the surface to find all kinds of real life examples.

How? Let’s say your teen daughter loves watching rom coms on Great American Family. Enjoy the movie with her. As you are watching, take note of choices the characters make. Were there any sins (probably not on GAF)? Were there poor choices or red flags that a person would not make a great spouse? Were there questionable choices for a healthy relationship (for example basically dating someone while in a committed relationship with someone else)? What consequences did or could these choices cause? After the movie, choose one observation and ask your daughter, “What did you think about so and so doing such and such?” Or “Why do you think their relationship didn’t last?”

What if your kids participate in a sport? After practice or a game, bring up an incident or comment on one they mention. Focus on whether or not the choice leading to the incident was good or bad and what influenced their interpretation of the event. What would God have to say about the choice? What other consequences could come for the person who made a poor choice now and farther down the road?

If your children are into the arts, the conversation can take a different direction. In the arts, the focus is often on obvious and hidden messages and themes. Talk about those messages. Discuss whether or not God would want certain messages amplified with the arts or better, more godly messages shared. What sort of messages do they want to send to others with their participation in their art of choice?

You have to be careful not to do this every single time or to sound like you are lecturing them when you do. Make the conversations casual, but meaningful. Show real interest in hearing their thoughts and opinions because they may be sharing parts of their hearts with you as they talk. Since they are already interested in the springboard for the conversation, they may also be willing to discuss it at more length than if you brought it up in some other way. Using your children’s interest to begin spiritual conversations is a great way to help them better understand what God expects from them in a non threatening way. Doing it regularly can help you reinforce important biblical truths you hope they live out in their lives.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids – Fasting

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at spiritual disciplines as a way of helping kids and teens develop habits that will help their spiritual growth and health. These are practices done by Jesus, the Apostles and/or early Christians. Perhaps the discipline most common in antiquity and least practiced today is fasting for spiritual reasons.

By the time of Jesus, fasting had several purposes. People might fast while in mourning, in the face of a local or national tragedy, to prepare for something important or as part of repentance or in service to God. In the time of Jesus, Yom Kippur was the only fast commanded by God, but many observed additional days of fasting associated with holidays and remembrances, like Purim.

Although we think of fasting mainly in terms of not being able to eat, it really had greater significance. Fasting was used as a time to stop a daily routine and use that time to reflect and connect with God through prayer. It also provided time to linger in those prayers and “listen” to what God might want the person to know. Finally, it was used as a time of introspection and repentance.

Our idea of how to conduct a fast is also very different from that of the Jews during the time of Jesus. Their fasts generally lasted from sunrise until the first stars appeared at sunset. Some fasted by not partaking of food or drink during those daylight hours while others only abstained from food. The fasts were generally broken at the appearance of the first stars during sunset.

Jewish children are not required to participate in fasting until they have reached the age of twelve or thirteen, the time at which they begin to take personal responsibility for their faith. Younger children, however, would have watched the adults they know fast on a regular basis and may have even looked forward to their first fast as a rite of passage.

Since health experts question the wisdom of children fasting for a number of reasons, it’s important to teach your kids the principles behind fasting without actually making them go without food for an entire day. (Having said that, our congregation does a special month of praying and fasting every January and the teens are some of the most willing participants.) Encourage them to fast from something they enjoy that takes up their free time for a day and use that time for the same purposes Christians do when they fast from food. For some children, going without their devices for an entire day would be more difficult than going without food.

Even though they aren’t fasting from food, go ahead and plan a special dinner for any night they have fasted. Serve it after sunset. Talk about fasting, its purposes and what they noticed about fasting from their activity. If you fast regularly, talk about how your attitudes and perceptions about fasting change over time. As they approach the teens years and may want to fast from food, make sure to set some safety parameters. Fasting for spiritual purposes is not a way to diet. It should be broken after the ten to twelve hours of daylight with a healthy meal. It’s probably best if they continue to drink water while fasting and teens with certain medical conditions like diabetes should continue to fast from something other than food. Remind them to focus on the spiritual and not other more secular things during the times they would have normally been eating.

While fasting for spiritual reasons has fallen out of fashion, Christians over the centuries have found it helps their focus, their Bible study and their prayer lives. It’s worth teaching your children how to fast and help them make it a regular habit.