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.

Teaching Children About the “Yes” From God

When our daughter was starting to walk, we told her she was not allowed out of bed without permission. We had heard too many horror stories of what happened to babies who wondered out of their cribs and rooms during the night. Our daughter was great about playing quietly or looking at books until we came and got her in the morning or calling for us if she had a more immediate need.

When we potty trained her, we wanted to get rid of the rule. I didn’t want her to wait for me to respond if she had to potty. I wanted her to run for the potty so she wouldn’t have an accident. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to convince a child who had been told a behavior was a “no” for so long that the behavior was now a “yes”. “No” was easy and safe. She knew what that looked like. “Yes” was scary. How could she know she wasn’t doing “yes” wrong?

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Work Ethic, Grace and Children

I am going to tell you a secret about me my closest friends probably wouldn’t believe. I am incredibly lazy. I mean if I had my way, I would employee dozens of servants and lay on the beach all day. Quite possibly every day. Unfortunately, my husband would probably not be thrilled at having to try and finance such a lifestyle and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t make God too thrilled either.

In life, balancing the ideas of work and play are difficult. Most of us struggle with either working ourselves so hard our bodies rebel or spending so much time in leisure activities we neglect some more important things. The church has the same problem. How much does grace really cover and how much “work” does God expect from us? We can’t figure out how to teach our children the concepts, partially because we aren’t sure what to teach them.

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Preparing Your Child For the Briarpatch

To truly dedicate your children to God, you need to prepare them to share their faith with others. Too often though, Christians seem to believe sharing their faith merely means showing up to well choreographed worship services. If we are feeling particularly evangelistic, we may invite a friend to join us. Churches are sometimes places where we are worshipping with people just like us. People perhaps unwilling to show any vulnerability in fear of appearing somehow unworthy of being there.

In The Briarpatch Gospel, Shayne Wheeler gives a view of Christianity which we need to share with our older children. In this book, we read the stories of some people who have been involved in some of the more “visible” sins often viewed as almost unforgivable by many Christians. Wheeler encourages us to realize we are all equally sinners and God has called us to something more than just evangelizing our friends.

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Creative Ways to Encourage Your Children to Pray

One of my friends found a great way to encourage her son to pray. At the beginning of the year, they wrote down the names of twelve people outside of their family who were special to them. Each name was written on a separate slip of paper and placed in a bowl. On the first day of each month, her son would draw a name for that month. She and her son would call the person and ask if they had any special prayer needs. The rest of the month, they would spend focused time each day praying for that person’s needs. She said it was amazing to her how many of the people would call back at the end of the month and tell her not only how special it made them feel, but also how many prayers were answered.

There are so many interesting and fun ways to teach your child the power of having a meaningful prayer life. Teaching your children to talk with God regularly and from their hearts, is one of the most important things you will ever teach them. While rote prayers can have their place, it is important to encourage our children to use their own words and have regular conversations with God in prayer. So what are some other interesting ways to encourage your children to pray? Here are some of my favorites.

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Teaching Children How Prayer Works

If you are following the 12 month challenge to teach your children to live more like Jesus, this month is all about prayer. Jesus modeled prayer to us in such wonderful ways. It was obvious the prayer life of Jesus was about pouring his heart out to his Father. We only have a few of his actual prayers recorded, but I have a feeling they barely touch the tip of his prayer life.

In most Christian families, prayer is probably the area that gets the most attention when our children are young. Parents love those adorable bedtime prayers of small children and most have a favorite rote prayer which is said at meals. How many of us though, have gone beyond those basics to help our children establish a meaningful prayer life?

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