Some Practical Suggestions to Exercising Faith with your family....

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Phil.2:12-13 ESV)

One of the things I keep hearing, reading and seeing in the youth of today is, how does my faith apply to real life? How do I live a life dedicated to Jesus and His glory that we talk about all the time? We as fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers and church members in general have a responsibility to live out our faith and not only that but to also show others how to live out their faith. We should be instructing them, investing in others, teaching them, and showing them how real life faith is worked out in the real world. 

I hope my theologians and scholars in the church don’t crucify me for this one. No deep theological discussions or scriptures this week. This week my aim is to give some simple yet impactful suggestions for exercising faith as a family. 

1.) Open the Word of God as a family, (I told you it wouldn’t be real deep remember) I know it sounds simple but don’t just find time to do a devotion, don’t just squeeze it in on the days you have time. Make time each and every day to open the Word. Show your family it is important, so important that it becomes a priority each and every day. Utilize the tools the church provides like weekly devotions and family lessons. (Dinner time is a great time, in most families it may be the only time a family is completely together, so use it!) This is not age restricted, it should be an all your life practice. Grandparents take time and open the scriptures with your grandkids and show them, tell them what they have meant for you in different stages of your life and how they have gotten you through the good times and the bad. 

2.) Make teachable moments out of everything.  One of the greatest joys a person could ever have is opening up one of life’s moments and being able to relate it to God. Remember the whole WWJD craze? It really isn’t a bad practice to be able to take real life experiences and say, “What does the Bible have to say about this?” An example is when you take your kids, grandkids, or even friends to the movies and something comes up that you weren’t expecting. Maybe crude language, or inappropriate sexual relationships, or any number of things you are likely to see in a movie today; instead of doing what we have always done and saying, “Don’t do that, or we don’t talk like that, or do those types of things” try this, well what did you think of the movie? When the topic of the questionable material comes up then go to the Word of God and say well this is what God has to say about that, but don’t let it stop there. Children, friends and family need to know more. The next step is to say, now why does God tell us not to do those things? We need to be able to provide a reason and not just a “because I said so, or because God said so” moment. Make sure you do the same for positive experiences as well, not just accentuating the negatives. Take advantage of every little thing life hands you and use it as a teachable moment for real life faith. 

3.) Serve alongside others, All good things must come in three points, right? A huge difference maker in the faith of youth today is seeing others serve and not sitting on the sidelines but serving right along with them. Everything that I keep reading and coming across continues to show that if a youth or young person has parents that serve in church and invite them to serve too, it is then that they are more likely to serve and stick in church and in the faith through all of life’s problems; college, kids, family and more. Here is the more startling statistic, the surveys also show that if a youth has at least 5 others in the church who invest in them and show them their faith, and serve alongside them they are 80% more likely to have a faith that “sticks”.  

So you may be saying, I don’t have kids, or my kids live far away, my kids are grown or even I only have my kids every other weekend, there is always a chance to invest in the lives of others, to make disciples here in our field of labor, and to be a church that lives out the great commission. My prayer is that we could do this together and learn to live out our faith as a community working together for the sake of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.