Help Families Get a Fresh Start with Family Devotions This Fall

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The first weeks of August mark the beginning of the “back to school” season. When I was a kid, I hated to see the end of summer, but on the other hand, back-to-school time felt a little like Christmas. I got new clothes, a pair of sneakers, and in my younger grades, a brand-new box of 64 Crayola crayons – the kind with the built-in sharpener in the box. The start of a school year also allowed me to apply myself to my studies to get good grades.

As pastors, we can take advantage of the season and encourage our families to make a fresh start with family devotions. The new school year provides an opportunity to remind parents to remember the spiritual education of their children. We can help families restart family devotions and make the back-to-school season a back-to-God season.

I’ve not met a parent who did not recognize the importance of their children’s spiritual training. So why do so few parents seem able to pull it off? One thing is sure. Our lives are far busier today than ever before. More kids are involved in after-school sports and activities. There are far more homes where both parents work. While smartphones are excellent tools, they pressure us to communicate electronically every waking moment of the day. Growing up, people didn’t call during dinner time. Today people can call, text, telegram, voice message, and email 24/7. Even during family time, we feel obligated to respond. With life so busy, it is essential to prioritize our children’s spiritual education.

Here are four ways to help families keep family devotions on the front burner this school year.

1. Promote with grace

Parents whose practice of family devotions is weak or nonexistent will experience a wave of guilt and condemnation the moment you raise the topic. The last thing they need is word of correction from their pastor. Remember, they want to do family devotions. One of the best ways to encourage them is to share a story or two about your failings in this area and then encourage them to give it another go. Show them how to use the back-to-school season for a fresh start in family devotions. Look for a family in your church to share their testimony of overcoming the common obstacles to hold regular family devotions in their home.

2. Provide a resource

One of the top reasons families don’t hold regular family devotions is that they don’t know what to do or where to begin. You can eliminate this obstacle by providing your families with a resource to use for their family devotions. Here are a few things to offer.

Dip into the church discipleship budget and buy a family devotional for every family in your church. There is nothing like getting a new book to mark the back-to-school season and a fresh start with family devotions. It is less expensive than you may think. Family devotionals purchased in bulk will cost around fifteen dollars or less per family. If you have eighty families with children in your church, that is $1200. That is a small price to pay to help families with Christian discipleship in the home. You can drop that cost by offering that same resource for five bucks. That decreases the cost to under a thousand.
If the church budget doesn’t allow providing a published resource, create a resource from the Sunday sermons in September that you can pass out at the end of the service and or email a copy. A simple family devotion contains a scripture (the one you just preached), a short commentary or explanation of that scripture (taken from your notes), and a few discussion questions you can write for families to talk about (taken from your application).
Another way to encourage family discipleship is to read through a book of the Bible together as families. A weekly announcement, update, and a word of encouragement to the participating families go a long way to help motivate them. If you are going through a book of the Bible for your Sunday preaching series, divide the book into daily portions and ask the congregation to commit to reading through the book, following the schedule you provide. Reading through the Bible in a year is challenging, but most families can complete reading a book from the Bible. Providing simple discussion questions to use at the end of their daily reading will facilitate spiritual conversations.

3. Preach the Word

Start a tradition in your church to preach a family devotion message each August. There is a special grace that comes through the preached Word. Take advantage of the fresh start vibe of the back-to-school season and promote a little family devotion. Here are four ideas for sermons you can preach to encourage family devotions:

2 Timothy 3:1-6 and 2 Timothy 3:14-16 – Timothy’s mom and grandmother made a difference in Timothy’s life as they taught the scriptures to Timothy from his infancy.
Proverbs 2:1-8 – We get a glimpse of Solomon’s devotions with his son in this teaching.
Exodus 10:1-2 – The amazing Exodus story, including the foreshadowing of Jesus in the blood of the lamb painted on the door, was planned by God to give us a story to tell our children.
Psalm 78:1-8 – Family devotions result in our children setting their hope in God.

4. Pray for your families

Besides teaching the scriptures, prayer is our most important tool, yet too often our most neglected one. As pastors, we can get sucked into waiting on tables and become too busy to pray (Acts 6:4). Take time to intercede for the parents in your church. Ask God to give them the grace they need for regular family devotions. God honors the prayers of the shepherds he entrusted with the care of his people.

If you take time to implement a few of these ideas, participation in family devotions in your church is sure to grow. Then next year, when the advertisements for back-to-school pop up in the news, and families looking to get their kids a new pair of shoes and a fresh box of crayons, they may also think – you know, we ought to start up family devotions again.