What do you do to reinforce faith in your home?

Welcome to the T3 Church podcast.

Our vision as a church is to practice the way of Jesus so that we experience the fame and needs of God in our time.

My name is Colton Seekers.

And I'm Ray Seagers.

And over the next couple of episodes, we wanted to do a question and response for the people in our church community.

And so what we did is we asked our church to submit questions.

And these are our responses to a handful of questions that we just love y'all.

Enjoy the podcast.

Alright, the first question is from Tony Haas.

And his question is what do you do with your kids to help reinforce faith in your home and outside of the church?

Thanks, Tony, for your question.

So what do you do?

That's a great question.

The stuff I've tried to do, which is incomplete.

Well, first, I suppose I want to say what we do is certainly not prescriptive for all believing families.

This isn't like the right, the seekers are doing it the right way.

And so I don't I don't want in any way to be prideful, like, oh, we've done it right.

Um you need to ask the Lord for discernment for how to shepherd your kids.

Um but just for guidance or curiosity's sake, um, I have tried to buy every children's Bible I could get my hands on.

If they sell it, I have bought it.

Um and so I've tried to read him.

I mean, we've probably read 20 different children's Bibles, just you know, a story and that kind of thing, hoping that this person says it this way, that person says it that way.

Different people highlight different stories, different people, just different authors are presenting the gospel message in different ways.

And I'm hoping that somewhere in this sea of different presentations, different images, different focuses, something will hit, that some image, some drawing, some something, the the truth will get in there.

I'm hoping that different, I hope that different presentations could help.

Yeah.

Um just tried to read him, faithfully read him the scriptures every night.

Is there one in particular that you would say this one's been the best?

Jesus storybook Bible is probably the best.

I know that's obvious, that's what everybody likes.

Yeah.

Um, that I I have left.

This will sound really arrogant, so I apologize.

Um I I don't mean arrogance.

Um, I have still not found, I'm 10 years deep on you know, purchasing children's Bibles.

I've not found the children's Bible I was looking for.

It has left me going, You're gonna write that Bible.

Do I need to write this Bible that I was looking for?

Like people often invent things or write things that like you wrote the thing that you were hunting for and that you couldn't find.

Um, I wanted a Bible that, in like a 500, 600 word at a time thing would teach him biblical theology, would give him like, it's not just that the Israelites marched around Jericho, it's that God created humanity.

Humanity was supposed to be his partner, humanity failed to be his partner, Israel's his new partner, then they went into slavery.

The Exodus is them being set free out of slavery and taken into the land, just like we will one day be set free out of slavery to sin, go through the wilderness of suffering, and be taken in like back to Eden.

I wanted something that would vision cast like a biblical theology, biblical theology for him, and I didn't encounter, I'm not criticizing at all.

No, um I I bought and I bought it, I purchased and purchased and purchased and never encountered what I was looking for.

So maybe, maybe one day, who knows?

Um, or maybe it exists and I didn't buy it.

Um but that's what in terms of bringing faith into our home, using the scriptures for children and making it a practice every night or every day, pretty consistently, to have the scriptures as something that you're reading into his life and something that's being not just inside the church where we hear the Bible or taught.

Absolutely.

Yeah, just reading it, reading it to him.

Absolutely.

We also have a I have tried to make, and I know you have as well, a playlist of worship songs, not just worship songs I like, but I want these lyrics to be in your child brain.

As your as the foundation, as the concrete of your faith is wet and the foundation for your faith is getting laid, stuff you hear in childhood is really is in there really, really deep.

I want the lyrics of Andrew Peterson's Is He Worthy, like deep in your what people call your lizard brain, like deep in your kid brain.

Um, I want the lyrics of these, you know, 30 songs to shape the early imagination of your faith.

Um and so we try to play that just if he's doing his Lego if we're cooking dinner.

I try to put that on, and then it's really cool all of a sudden to see him sitting there doing his Lego and like he's mumbling along to this song that I'm like, I really play that.

Um so I try to have that, we we try to have that in the air.

Um but I think there's nothing more important that you can do than pray every single day and beg the Lord for the salvation of your kids that he would write no number of children's Bibles, no number of Andrew Peterson songs can make your kid a Christian.

The Holy Spirit has got to take out their old heart of stone, give them a heart of flesh, open their eyes and hear stories of the Lord Jesus, open their mind to understand the scriptures, give them an interest in God and his kingdom.

You can pass that generationally, certainly, and we should.

Um, but I try to pray every single day and ask the Lord to justify, sanctify, glorify Ted, write his name in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Damascus wrote him, bring him to faith, bring him to faith by the work of the Holy Spirit that has nothing to do with me in a way that I was part of, but did I was not the driver of the bus of his faith.

You drive the bus of his faith.

Go get him, be the shepherd who sought the sheep that was lost.

Um and in the kingdom, when I stand and praise you forever, may I stand next to him.

Um pray him into the kingdom.

And do not, if it were possible, I don't think it is, but if it were possible, if you really if you thought it were possible to pray enough to save somebody, if that were real, how much would you pray for their salvation?

Give that a go.

Yeah, it didn't hurt.

Anyway, that's what I think.

What do you think?

Yeah, I think when I read the question, Tony, I think what I thought was the most important thing, like you said, the most important thing is to pray for them, which I agree, but as far as like practices inside the home, I think following Jesus is more caught than taught.

Definitely.

I think the best thing that we can do is to show him what following Jesus actually looks like as adults inside the home.

This is what it looks like to uh read the scriptures daily.

Here's what it looks like to pray daily, here's what it looks like to be thankful, um, here's what it looks like to uh and so we we do those things just and and and we do aim at it.

I think we're intentional with it, uh, but it's it's also just because we are following him, those are things that we naturally do.

And so I do want him to see us read in the scriptures because that's what followers of Jesus do.

I do want him to um see us praying um because that's what followers of Jesus do.

I want us to share testimony of what he did that day.

If he answered a prayer for us, I want to share those things with him, and so we vocalize that stuff in our home and then we celebrate those things.

If we haven't answered a prayer, y'all know this.

If we haven't answered a prayer, we try to most of the time we will do some type of celebration for dinner or some something just to mark a moment where God has been faithful to us.

Um just so that He, I I think most adults and kids still think of faith as an idea and not as like God and Jesus as an actual person that is very active in your life, in your day-to-day situations.

He is right there, active, wanting to speak, wanting to do things.

Um, and so I want to take something that could be far off and invisible and make it very, very visible and very, very uh attractive, and something that he can actually tangibly touch and see and taste.

Um and so in the good ways, we try and model the faith, and then when we do it bad, we try and model the faith.

And so when we sin or when we are angry with one another, we we seek to follow Jesus uh in front of him by repenting or confessing that sin, asking for forgiveness, forgiving the other person, fixing and forgiving um in those ways, and like we tell him like the reason that we fix and forgive is because we're called to forgive.

And this is what it looks like to follow Jesus in this way.

We're not always gonna do it perfectly, but this is what it looks like to do it.

And so as far as ways that you can show faith to your kid outside of the church and inside the home, I think it needs to be modeled.

Um here is how you follow him, here's how you walk with him, here's how you confess your sin, uh, here's how we um show gratitude to those around us, here's how we serve the poor, here's how we do those things, here's uh here's what we do with our money and how we um serve Jesus with our money.

Like he's gonna see all that stuff.

Um and I think he will, if we just told him a lot about it, but he never saw it, it would almost look seem like hypocrisy.

Like you talk a lot about these things, but I don't see any of that stuff in the home.

When you and mom fight, you don't seem to do any of that.

Yeah, and so it's easy to talk about it at church, but if he doesn't see any of it at home, he can be like, well, dad and mom are just two different people.

They're they're these type of people at church and these type of people at home, and I want the gap between those to be almost non-existent.

Nothing who we are at church is who we are at home.

Um and so those we talk about at church and how we spend our money at home and how we have conflict at home are identical.

Right.

In in if when things are good.

I would also say something you and I try to do imperfectly, but um I I can't back this up with data, but it's my instinct that your kids learn more from eavesdropping on your conversations with your spouse than they do in stuff that you are telling them.

So if I sit down and like, Ted, I need to tell you about this important topic, like I think they're out pretty quick.

Right.

I think that's really overwhelming.

I don't want the lecture.

And so, like, but if I'm just talking to Colton, he will eavesdrop voraciously.

He is far more engaged in eavesdropping on my conversation with Colton than he is on like attending to my lecture to him.

Um, and so I would say the stuff you want your kids, the stuff you wish you could tell your kids, talk about it with your spouse.

Ignore the kid, talk, have that conversation with your spouse, share your thoughts with your spouse, tell your spouse what you went through or what you're thinking about, but just make sure the kid is in your shot.

Yeah.

I've done that a lot.

Like, I really want to share this with Ted.

But if I say I can't listen to my lecture, have a 30 minute lecture, he's gonna tune it.

But if I'm like, go to your like a Colton, listen to this.

That seems to be something he picks up better.

Anyway.

No, I think that's good.

And I I I guess that would be the last thing.

Like, we we talk about Jesus daily in a very uh relational way.

Um and and it's not, I don't it's not because we're trying to like, we have to make our home Christian.

Like it it's not doing that.

Um, it reminds me of that C.

S.

Lewis uh quote that's like uh where he talks about like, how did you write Lion of the Witch in the Wardrobe and how did you make it this Christian themed?

And he's like, I didn't try to write a Christian book.

Yeah, I'm a Christian, this is my mindset.

Yeah, he's like, I started with a fawn and a lamppost, the Christian thing came in because I am a Christian.

Yeah, this is how I see stuff.

The home will be Christian because we you are actually Christian.

The home will be a place where you've where they learn how to follow the way of Jesus if the home is actually a space where the parents are trying to follow the way of Jesus.

And so um, yeah, um, I hope that's helpful.

But that I I think that's we try and aim at it uh as much as we can.

I I think the church We're not nailing it, but those are our goals.

No, no, no.

But I I think the church is a resource, but like I believe the way the scriptures are set up, Teddy will primarily learn faith from us, not the church.

Yes, the church will resource him and benefit him, absolutely, and it will also hurt him.

Well, if you think about the patriarchs, like Jacob never went to church.

Jacob knew about God because he sat around the campfire and listened to Isaac tell that story of when Abraham's knife was raised in the air, the sunshine glinted off the blade, yeah, and then it almost came down, but then Yahweh stopped him, and the boys were like, you know.

Well, and even when the Lord introduces himself, you got it from your parents around the campfire.

Yeah.

When the Lord introduces himself, he says, I am the to Jacob, I'm the God of your father Isaac, and the God of your father Abraham.

Like it is the stories Isaac told you?

I'm the god about the being spike.

Right.

And the ones that Isaac heard from Abraham?

Yes.

I'm also that one.

Yeah.

And so there is a lineage to it that I think even God grabs onto and says, I'm gonna introduce you, I'm gonna introduce myself by grabbing onto your family history and um so that we can continue this thing forward.

So I grew up at Bellevue, but the God of Larian, Sherry, really is the god of my mental life, not the god of Bellevue.

Although Bellevue did a beautiful job teaching me, that's not right what's deep in my heart.

Alright, so give it to me.

Give me, like, just to sum up this 15-minute answer.

Oh dear, sorry, Tony.

Um Bible every day, pray every day and beg God for their salvation.

Get a list of worship songs you want the lyrics to be in their heart and play them in their home.

Not like family, we are all gonna sit down together and sing this.

Like, just play put them in the air while they do their lego.

Just it's background music that will catch into their hearts.

And anything you want to tell them, don't tell them.

Tell your spouse while they're in earshot.

Yeah.

And then I would say practice that.

Yeah.

Actually follow him in front of him.

Yes.

Follow Jesus with your spouse, follow Jesus with your private life, follow Jesus in front of him.

He will um, your kids, I think, naturally love the things that we love.

They will do the things that we do.

They would they Teddy has my mannerisms and he he has a love for reading that he got from Rainey, but he has those things not because we forced him into those things.

He caught those things from growing up in a culture of our home.

That's the culture of our home, and so he's adopted the culture of our home.

He will also adopt the culture of a Christian way of life if that is actively the culture in the home.

And so I would aim at those things.