Let's Huddle Up in Faith! Part IV

Over the past weeks, I’ve shared about a simple 5-step nightly faith practice called FAITH5.

FAITH5 is a nightly ritual that helps families grow closer to one another and to God, one night at a time. All that benefit and it only takes just a few minutes! Each night at bedtime, families “Huddle Up” to check in. Here are the five steps of the FAITH5 Home Huddle:

1. SHARE your highs and lows

2. READ a Bible verse or story

3. TALK about how the Bible verse might relate to your highs and lows

4. PRAY together

5. BLESS one another with the sign of the cross

Over the span of eight weeks, we will be delving deep into the blessing that comes from each of the five steps of FAITH5. This week, we consider step three – TALK about how the Bible reading might relate to your highs and lows.

Each night following the sharing of highs and lows, families open their Bibles and read from God’s word. Then comes perhaps the hardest of the five steps – talking about what God might be telling us through the Bible reading. How might this ancient text actually be relevant to my life? How might God’s living word bring life to me this day?

This is the step where God’s holy text meets our real-life context.

Why is it the hardest step? Because most of us were not taught to think this way, to wonder in this way. Most of us, in well meaning Christian education classes, were taught to listen to the pastor or Sunday school teacher tell us what God’s word means. They are the experts and we are not, so they are the ones to interpret the Bible for us.

I am not contending that teachers and pastors are not called to interpret Scripture. They indeed are. But I am contending that pastors and teachers are not the only ones who can or should. Anyone who seeks the Lord will find the Lord.

So huddle up in faith seek the Lord through talking about the Bible. Knock, ask the questions, wonder together as a family. Seek God regarding your highs and lows. And then be amazed at the wisdom of your children. Be amazed at the ways in which Scripture actually does speak to your daily life. Be wowed by God’s interest in and provision for you in his word.

Here are some practical tips:

Unpack the verse a bit. What does it mean in your own words? What words stick out to you? What images or words or memories or thoughts come to your mind? Read it again. Take turns reading it out loud. Take one minute to ponder it before sharing. Ask God in the silence of your heart to reveal something to you. Then share it with those who love you most.

When we raise our children in a home where we daily turn to God’s word, and then talk about that word, we raise kids to know that God is intimately connected to them and all the things that happen to them on any given day. Rather than Scripture being something that sits on our shelves, something that rarely connects to our lived experience, Scripture becomes the source of comfort and guidance. God’s love is experienced in our daily lives, and God’s nature learned one verse at a time.

So, that is step three. Two more blessed steps to come in these next weeks. Consider huddling up with your family tonight to share steps one through three of FAITH5. Commit to it for seven days and see what happens. You might learn something about your child’s life and heart, and you will certainly be encouraged by God’s word. And really, what do you have to lose? Time? Nah. Your time is not lost or wasted. It is invested, invested in God’s preferred future for your family.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 - And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

To learn more about FAITH5 Home Huddles, go to http://www.faith5.org.

Note: This is the fourth article in an 8-week series.