The Spring Project Every Christian Family Needs

One of the best projects your family can do – that will also help you teach your children about the Bible, encourage the growth of godly character traits in your kids and can be used to teach children how to serve others and share their faith is a garden. If you live in an urban area or apartment, don’t stop reading. Almost anyone in any living situation can have some sort of garden with their children.

Involve your children in the planning of your garden. Where is the best place to put it? If you don’t own land, what kind of containers can you use? Will you need indoor lighting? What plants do you want to grow? As you plan your garden, share with your children the scriptures in the Bible about making plans and getting good advice. You may want to set a good example by talking to a master gardener or reading books about gardens.

Maybe your family wants to grow the items mentioned in the Bible. You can Google for a list, but it’s actually rather extensive. If you choose to go the Bible garden route, you may even want to try making some authentic recipes with the resulting produce. When searching for produce in the Bible, why not teach your kids any stories surrounding the mention of those items? It’s a great way to review familiar Bible stories and teach them some new ones.

Planting and caring for a garden isn’t easy – especially for younger children. Give them plenty of age appropriate responsibilities for the garden. Along the way, they will be practicing numerous Christian character traits like patience, perseverance, personal responsibility, hard work, working without grumbling and complaining and more. Have conversations about why God wants His people to have these character traits and share related scriptures and Bible stories.

When your plants produce their fruits and/or vegetables, share some with those who have food insecurity or who are lonely. Discuss ways you can point the recipients of the food you have grown to God. Encourage your kids to think of other ways they can use the food to serve people – perhaps by using it to cook a dish of food and delivering the meal to someone who has been ill or just had a baby.

Have fun with it, but used intentionally, your garden will produce a lot more than just fruits and vegetables!

Published by

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.

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