Intended Use

A family devotional, as per the name, should be something that suits your family. Therefore I am simply offering a guide with a nudge to make it your own. Each week, you will receive a family devotional guide with a companion coloring sheet. I will briefly go through each step and ideas/ intended use for each of the 5 steps. 

1. OPEN 

Christians seem to have mixed reviews on an appropriate opening. Some people like to dig right into scripture while others enjoy a good story or question to draw you in. If you fall into the first camp, skip step 1! My thought with a more light hearted opening question is to draw various members of the family into the conversation in perhaps a less begrudging manner. Also if you do the devotional after dinner, this could be a fun conversation during dinner. If nothing else you could converse about my lame attempt at a cool opening question. Figure out what brings your family together best for devotional time. 

2. PRAY

This is a quick liturgical prayer to usher the family into devotional time and to invite the Lord into this time together. Great opportunity for a literate or aspiring-literate child to step in and read the short prayer! 

3. READ AND RESPOND

Read the passage of scripture. In the interest of consolidating the devotional to one sheet and a nudge to get out a physical Bible, the passage is not listed on the sheet. Read the scripture. You can read the entire passage or the condensed version. You know the attention spans of your household best. Then pick some questions to answer. There is a section for littles, bigs, and grown ups. In our house now we are definitely answering questions for the littles, but Mark and I will go back and do the grown ups questions later. If you have children of various ages pick and choose the questions you want to answer together. 

4. REFLECT

Our “so what” if you will. At this point hopefully you have read God’s word, you have discussed what His word says about God and about you. So what are you walking away from this time with? Did you learn something? Remember something? Have a follow up question? Record everyone’s thoughts. I say repeats allowed from person to person but your house, your rules.

5. PRAY

Close out your time with prayer. Every family likes to pray differently so lean into that. I will provide topics that can guide your prayer. A Rector family favorite is something I learned at Camp Desoto, a “whisper prayer.” We say “ready set go” (I am sure there is a more holy intro but that seems to really get our competitive family going) then we all whisper our own prayers to God. After about 30-60 seconds we close together with the Lord’s prayer. 

And the COLORING SHEET…

Similar to the opening question, the coloring sheet is only as useful as you want it to be. Please don’t overthink the illustrations - you’ll see from my limited graphic designing ability,  I don’t! Coloring sheets are helpful to two particular audiences.

1. They are a good way for our squirmers to stay seated. 

2. They are also a good way to get our tight-lipped members to chip in to the conversation. 

In the same way we tend to open up more on a walk or in the car when not face to face, a coloring sheet can open up a similar avenue for discussion. As you go along you will figure out what works best for your family. The first time we tried this, one child lost the dot marker top midway through the scripture passage and oof it was a tragedy. Had to run it back from the top. The next time the grown ups held onto the tops until the end!

“We’re tired.”

“They don’t understand it anyway.”

“We can do it when they’re bigger.”

If you have felt any of these ways, you are not alone. We have felt all the above and yet have come to the conclusion that we press on anyway. Even when we’re tired and grumpy. Even when the message seems to be falling on deaf ears. As it says in Joshua 24:15 “as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord,” and serving him by studying his word with your household is a pretty strong place to start.