Category: Family Devotionals

Fun Activity for Teaching Kids About Self-Centeredness

The funny thing about people who are self-centered is that they often appear to be totally unaware that they think the world should revolve around them. In fact, confront the far end of the spectrum – a narcissist- and they are likely to respond with “Who, me?”

God wants His people to put others before themselves…. to have servant hearts. To put God in the center of their universe, not themselves. There is a fun activity you can do to help your kids become more aware of when they are shifting into self-centeredness.

Plan an evening or a few hours in the weekend when you can spend time together as a family. Plan to have a meal together and play board games or do some other activity. Before your time together begins. Tell your kids the story of Absalom found in 2 Samuel 13-19, focusing particularly on his moments of pride and vanity. Ask your kids what it means to be self centered. Read 1 Peter 5:6. Point out that “I” is often the antithesis of humility.

Explain that for the rest of the day, the goal is for everyone to avoid saying the words “I, me, my or mine”. Ask your kids why those words when we say or think them can be a sign we are struggling to be humble and may be becoming self-centered. Make a tally sheet for each person. Everyone needs to listen for the “forbidden” words during your family time and keep track of who said them. The winner is the person who said them the least by the end of family time.

End your time together by discussing why God doesn’t want us to be focused on ourselves, but Him and others in life. When you notice bad habits starting up again in the future, you can do the activity again for an awareness check. Raising humble children is the key to their own spiritual health and the health of the church.

Fun Ways to Help Your Kids Remember to Thank God

As a Christian parent, you have probably prayed with your children since they were babies. At some point, you will need to begin to transition them to a personal prayer life. You will still pray with them at times, but you need to encourage them to pray regularly when they aren’t with you, too.

Part of that process is establishing habits of praying to God about certain things. The Bible mentions multiple times that we should be grateful to God for His many blessings. There is a fun way to get your kids in the habit of thanking God daily when they pray.

Call your kids together and tell them the story of the ten lepers found in Luke 17:11-19. Ask them how Jesus must have felt when the one leper came back and thanked him for healing him. Then ask them how Jesus must have felt when the other nine did not show gratitude. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Ask them why they think it is important to thank God for our blessings.

Give each child a large sheet of paper and have them draw a giant heart on it. Point out that expressing gratitude is one way of showing God we love and appreciate Him. Ask your children how often they think God blesses them. Hopefully, they realize he blesses them daily. If not, take some time helping them think of blessings that God gives them every day as well as some special blessings He gives them from time to time, like healing them when they are sick.

Have your children write or draw on their hearts blessings God gives them every day. After they are finished, have them pray to God thanking Him for those blessings. Then help them place their hearts where they will see them every day. At dinner time or bedtime every day, take a moment and have each child write or draw three things they were grateful to God for that day. Encourage them to thank God for them in prayer then as well as for all of His blessings throughout the day. Talk about visual reminders they may see that remind them of a gift from God. Encourage them when they see those things to take a few seconds and thank God in the moment.

Habits take time to develop, so you may need to do the activity together for a few weeks and gradually transition them to doing it independently. Create new heart drawings when one gets filled, but save previous ones so your kids have reminders of God’s blessings in their lives. Eventually, your kids may not need the physical reminders any more, but even adults can benefit at times from reminders to be grateful to God.

Fun Family Activity on Controlling Your Words

One of the great things about little children is that they have no filter. If they think it, they are extremely likely to say it! While that can be funny at times, they can also say things that unintentionally hurt the feelings of others. Over time, most children begin to develop a filter of sorts. They learn that it is probably not the best idea to say certain things. As the world around them is beginning to have no filter, however, you will have to spend more time working with your children on developing a godly filter between their thoughts and words. There is a fun mini family devotional and activity you can do with your kids to begin the process.

For the activity you will need white paper, markers or crayons, pens and scissors. Call your kids together and tell them the story found in Numbers 20:7-12. Point out that Moses evidently thought he would strike the rock instead of speaking to it as God commanded. His thoughts convinced him to (in this case) not say something God told Moses to say. More often though, we think something and shouldn’t say it, but do.

Give your children each a sheet of paper. Have them draw a brain at the top and a mouth at the bottom. The drawings don’t have to be fancy, just clear enough so your kids will remember which is which. Then have them cut another sheet of paper into strips.

Have them write on slips of paper things they often think, but shouldn’t say out loud. They can stick these slips to their brain drawings with glue or tape. Then have them write on slips the types of things they should be saying to others and tape those slips to the drawings of their mouth. Older children can draw a filter between their brain and mouth and write down things they could say to themselves to remind them to not actually speak things that shouldn’t be said.

After they are finished, talk about their art. How hard is it for them to remember to not say certain things? What can they do to get better at filtering their thoughts before speaking? Why does God want them to be so careful about what they say to others? With older children also talk about the difference between opinion and truth and that it isn’t necessary to share their opinion with anyone. (Note: “Their truth” is usually an opinion and not an objective truth.) You might also want to all memorize scriptures like James 1:26 and 1 Peter 3:10.

If you have children who are extroverted, you will need to revisit this conversation multiple times. Extroverts are more likely to speak, which often increases the chances they will say something they shouldn’t. Introverts aren’t immune to saying unkind things, however. They just may say it a little more quietly or think no one hears them because they are saying it under their breath.

If your family has developed really bad speech habits, you may want to have a fine jar for collecting fines when people don’t filter their speech. Of course, once your kids can control their tongues, don’t forget to work with them on controlling those negative thoughts to begin with! The Bible says this is one of the most difficult skills to master, so make sure you spend plenty of time with your kids working on it.

Fun Activity for Teaching Kids About Perseverance

Let’s be honest. The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. Those who don’t have perseverance won’t make it to the end and spend eternity with God in Heaven. History is full of stories of people who perhaps started out as Christians, but quit when it became too difficult. If your kids are going to be faithful, productive Christians, they need perseverance.

Perseverance requires a good kind of stubbornness. A willingness to keep living the Christian life even when it gets hard or seems less fun than sinning. The problem is how to help your children develop perseverance before they need it to live the Christian life. Fortunately, there’s a fun family devotional you can do to help your kids begin to understand the importance of being perseverant.

You will need 5 straws, a piece of paper, a plastic fork, one soda can, 6 inches tape and a rubber band for each child. Call your children together and tell them the story of the walls of Jericho found in Joshua 6:1-27. Point out that the walls didn’t fall the first time the Israelites marched around them. Or the second. Or the sixth. And even on the seventh day when the walls finally fell, they had to march around the walls seven times before they fell.

Ask your kids why they believe the Israelites didn’t give up and quit before the walls fell. Ask them to explain perseverance to you. If they are younger, you may need to explain it to them. Have your kids think of examples when perseverance can help. Explain that being a Christian is not always easy. People may tease them or refuse to do things with them because they worship and obey God. They will have to be perseverant in order be a faithful, productive Christian for their entire lives.

Give your kids the items you gathered. Tell them they are to use the items to design something that can shoot a rubber band at a target three feet away and hit it. Give them several minutes to try. When the time is up, ask if they would like to continue or give up. After you’ve had fun with the activity, talk about the perseverance needed to succeed. How can they be more perseverant when things get tough?

Fun Family Devotional on Obedience

Obedience is crucial for your children to live a faithful, productive Christian life. If your children obey you, it also makes your parenting job a lot easier. Yet, it seems that from a very young age, children want to do what they want to do – even if it means disobeying you and God.

Part of the problem is that children don’t have enough life experience to understand that rules are meant to protect them. When they disobey, there will often be negative consequences in the moment or at some future time. When those consequences are delayed, your kids are even more likely to believe they can disobey at will – leading to all sorts of serious issues.

There’s a devotional you can do to help them begin to understand that obeying God’s rules and yours is necessary for living the best possible life. You will need some light weight or origami paper and instructions to make various origami figures. It can be helpful for you to practice making them ahead of time if you’ve never done it before.

Call your kids together and tell them the story of the twelve spies in Numbers 14. Instead of focusing on the lack of faith at the beginning of the chapter, look closely at the end of the chapter when the Israelites tried to take Canaan against the word of God and Moses. What happened when they disobeyed? Why is it important to always obey God? What did Moses and God know that the people chose to ignore? What do parents, God and other adults know that kids don’t know? Why do adults and God make rules for kids? What are those rules usually designed to do? What happens when kids break those rules? Your goal in this conversation is to help your children understand that rules are not made to keep them from having fun, but to protect them from something they aren’t wise enough from which to protect themselves.

Give each of your children a piece of paper. Don’t show or tell them the origami figure they will be making. Do not demonstrate how to make the folds, but read the verbal instructions, one by one. In most cases, the finished figures won’t resemble what was supposed to be created. Show your kids what they were supposed to make. Talk about how disobeying the instructions – even a little – changed the intended result. Point out that when we disobey, our lives often don’t turn out the way God had wanted them to be. We can end up with a big mess when we insist on doing things our own way and disobeying God.

Have fun making additional figures adding visuals and help when needed. Talk about how much easier life can be when we listen to God and obey Him. It’s still not perfect, because everyone doesn’t obey God all of the time, but it is much fuller and richer than living a life of disobedience.

You can revisit this topic regularly using other Bible stories and any activity that requires following instructions. Spend time making sure your kids understand the importance of complete obedience to God.