Other Things To Do Besides Bible Reading During Family Devotions

While reading together from the Bible should form the crux of what you do in family devotions, it’s more than okay to include other things or to even occasionally branch out into other resources. There are three areas to consider:

Prayer - Family devotions are the perfect time to include your children in corporate prayer. You may establish a set pattern, such as Jonica Suver wrote about in her post, where you pray for each other’s needs. You may pray for wisdom in applying the truth you learned about in that day’s reading. The prayer requests of your church or others you know may be what you pray over. Or you may just leave prayer time open to whatever seems right at the time, going with the leading of the Holy Spirit. Praying before or after you read from the Bible is a natural addendum to the family devotion.

Singing - We’ve been sporadic, at best, with singing during our devotion time. I know some families regularly include it, which I think is awesome. Some of our family members find themselves either musically challenged or disinclined to lead raising a joyful noise, but we have been known to pull a hymn book out and try our hand at it. The problem comes when my husband, who is musically talented and inclined, tries to get the rest of us to harmonize. What emanates from that room is nothing short of teeth-grating and ear-jarring, and usually results in more giggles and eye-rolling than a sweet sound unto the Lord. Nonetheless, we will occasionally include some traditional hymns in our devotions. There are any number of hymnbooks available on Amazon for you to check out.

We have also used recorded music to sing along with, most of it contemporary, which is where our particular taste lies. We have used CDs from the Songs 4 Worship collection, as well as those from the WOW Hits anthology. Having a general selection allows us to choose what we want, especially if it’s a favorite or fits in particularly well with the topic at hand.

Christian Books - From time to time we have branched out to other study materials. We’ve always viewed family devotion as not only a time for worship, but a time for developing godly character in our children. All of it glorifies God. We have read mostly nonfiction books, biographies of saints and martyrs usually, but have on occasion read a fiction story. Just as with Bible study, we ask questions, engage our children in discussion, and integrate the reading with biblical application of God’s Word. We never stay too long away from the Bible, but these diversions add interest and enrich our family’s study, especially when we read about the faith under struggle of other Christians. I’ll post articles on some of the books we’ve used in future writings.