Once a week might be wiser

Recently at a seminar I was running on family devotions, a participant shared the key to his family devotions.

Quite simply, he runs his family devotions once a week, not nightly. Now, this seemed to clash with the normal 'model' of the nightly, round-the-dinner-table devotions that seem part of the folklore of Christian piety.

But the more I thought of it, the more it made sense for him, and potentially, for many others.

You see, this guy has a really busy family. He has lots of kids (stacks more even than me) and they range in age from young to quite old. Both parents work, and it's a really tough task to get everyone around the dinner table every night to do anything resembling a 'traditional' family devotion.

What about a family Bible study group?

And so, instead, he runs a weekly family Bible study group.

In the same way that I head off on Wednesday nights to meet with a group of men in my church to share, pray, read the Bible and generally encourage each other, this father meets once a week to do the same with his family.

So, instead of squeezing the family devotion into the end of the eating-bit of the evening meal, they put aside a weekly event where they can give full energy to having a good Bible study together.

What I like about this approach is that it helps families with crazy schedules to deliberately organise a common time.

I also like the fact that it provides the time and space to carefully study the Bible (in ways that are age-appropriate to the many kids in the house), to deliberately and systematically pray for the things that matter, and above all, to make it clear to everyone that this is a family that sits under the word of God and seeks to depend on our heavenly Father for everything in life.

Could this be something that might work for you and your family?

Maybe this might be something that you could introduce into your family as a baby step towards regular devotions? Or maybe this might be something that could be the best-possible expression of a family fellowship gathering, which might actually have a better chance of working than other things you've tried?

I'd be keen to hear what you've tried, and whether or not this sort of thing has worked for you in the past.

Hit up the comments below, and share with everyone what you've done or tried… we'd love to learn from your experience!

For more articles from Growing Faith, subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter.
To hear about the latest books and resources from Youthworks Media, subscribe here.