Family Corner

This month’s practice we are intentionally praying for those around us.

Here are the supplies you will need:

• A “Tree” - could be a branch, a cut out of a tree, or even a mural on a wall.

• Bunch of leaves cut out of thick paper or sticky notes, and somewhere to keep them in.

Instructions:

Invite your family members to write prayer requests on the leaves. (Should be something specific with a timeframe if possible)

Set aside time to pray for these requests as a family. You can pass out the leaves to each member or pray together as a family.

As prayers are answered, stick the answered ‘leaves’ on to the tree. Each answered prayer, no matter how small, should to be celebrated!

When prayers are not answered in the way we asked, stick the ‘leaves’ on the base of the tree. Trust that God is meeting your family in their disappointment and invite your family members to share their feelings directly to God.

Continue to watch the tree grow and once a year remove the ‘leaves’ from the tree and read the prayers together. Thank God for answered prayer through the year.

What Would Jesus Do?

This month’s practice we are allowing the scripture to challenge us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

Here are the basic steps to this challenge:

• Choose a timeframe for the challenge. Day or Week or the whole month!

• As a family have a conversation about how Jesus lived. Questions like: “What was he like?”, “How did he treat others?”, “What did he do?”

• Pick one specific way this week to live and do what Jesus did based on scripture.

Here are some ideas from scripture:

Love someone others reject (Luke 19:1-10)

Talk to someone about God (John 4:1-26)

Pray for someone’s healing (Mark 10:46-52)

Take care of someone’s needs (Matthew 14:13-21)

Serve someone unexpectedly (John 13:1-17)

Forgive someone (Luke 23:33-34)

After the challenge timeframe is completed, have a conversation with everyone about what they did, what it was like, and anything they learned from this challenge.

Special God Time

This month’s practice we interact with God tailored to our unique personalities.

Here are the basic steps to spending special God Time:

• Choose the calmest time in your daily routine.

• Decide on a timeframe ahead of time. Consider starting with just 5 minutes, especially with little ones.

• Open the time in prayer. Explain that we are going to take some time to spend with with God. It can be whatever shape or form aside from anything disruptive.

• The goal is simply for each person to enjoy time with God.

• Set the timer for the decided timeframe, put on some worship music, and attempt to have everyone spend time independently.

• When time is up, invite everyone to share what they chose to do, and, for older kids, anything they learned about God.

Imaginative Prayer

This month’s practice we ask the Holy Spirit to inspire our imagination as we interact with God.

Here are the basic steps of imaginative prayer:

• Before beginning, pick a scene from the Bible—preferably, one with a bit of action in it.

• Explain to your child what you’d like to try: “We’re going to read this story about Jesus, and then we’re going to imagine what it would be like to be in the story.”

• Begin by praying to the Holy Spirit to help you “enter” the scene. Then, observe sixty seconds of silence.

• Prayerfully read the text once or twice with your child.

• Spend several minutes silently imagining the scene in detail or help act out the scene for your younger kids.

• Finally discuss what they imagined.