Making Faith Visible

It’s been an interesting journey since I’ve started thinking about how I can be more intentional about sharing my faith with my kids. One of the key things that has struck me was about being real and making my own relationship with God more visible so that my children get to see how it works for me.

I’ve experimented with some different ideas, some that have stuck, and others that totally didn’t work! But some of the ways that I’ve found useful and that have had an impact are really very simple, don’t take a lot of time and even if they don’t happen that regularly, they are slowly becoming more natural.

When I do read my Bible (I’m going to confess, sometimes it’s every morning – at other times I can suddenly find myself a month down the line wondering how I’ve managed to leave it at the bottom of a pile of ‘things to do’ for so long!) … BUT! When I do read my Bible and my little ones interrupt with a million questions, I’ve started saying “Hang on, I know you want mummy’s attention, but I’m spending time with Jesus at the moment. Do you want to know what I’m learning?” Then I read them one or two verses, and share with them what it means, if I’m confused or what I think God is saying to me through it.

Reframing their interruption, and viewing it as an opportunity instead has meant that I give them some spiritual input, and actually, as someone who ‘thinks out loud’ it really benefits me to share what I’ve read!

Another helpful idea has been to put worship music on a lot of the time. Not only does it mean that we don’t turn the TV on, or stare at my phone, but it just changes the atmosphere. There have been times where I catch the kids singing along, others where they persuade me to change it to the Moana soundtrack, and that’s ok!

We’re by no means doing this all the time, but the more we practice these small ideas, the more natural it is becoming – so it’s just part of how we do things, and hopefully something that is helping my two growing humans to discover the wonder of God in our lives.