Help Adults Create Christmas Traditions in Their Families

Written by Beth Taylor

It does not take much effort to observe what trouble families are in today. The church has a wonderful opportunity to guide, nurture, counsel, mentor, encourage, and challenge adults to teach and lead in their homes.

How much stronger families would be if parents would assume their God-given responsibility to raise children in the reverence and admonition of the Lord? Verses like Deuteronomy 6:4-7 and Judges 2:10-12 make parental accountability come alive.

Christmas is a natural time for family worship and Bible study experiences, as together family members remember the birth of Jesus. Adult leaders can help maximize those opportunities for families.

Lead Children to Understand the First Gift at Christmas
A simple worship time planned by children at bedtime on Christmas Eve can gives boys and girls a sense of the real significance of Christmas.

Our family has the tradition of a Christmas Eve service, started when one of our children was in Children’s Sunday School. The project the third-grade children put together was a family Christmas Eve service. The service consisted of singing a carol, reading Luke 2, making a list of things for which to be thankful, and praying a prayer. With the order of worship came a decorated Styrofoam® square with a candle in the middle.

Our younger children were pleased when they were old enough to assume the responsibility of reading Luke 2, mispronounced words and all. Now our four children and their families have carried this tradition to their families.

Establish Daily Times of Family Prayer and Bible Reading
It is important for the family to read the Bible together and to pray. Mealtime is an important time to say thank you to God for all His good gifts. Little things like holding hands to say the blessing make prayertime at the table special. Our family says a prayer no matter where we eat. Often grandchildren remind you of traditions, as a little hand reaches for yours at the local fast-food restaurant.

Bedtime prayers, remembering all the ways God has has taken care of us that day, are another way to experience prayer. Often children share ways they “messed up” during the day. Such sharing becomes a good time to discuss how to improve and to learn more about God’s forgiveness.

Adults and children can learn Bible verses together. Play a game in the car in which you begin a verse and ask who can finish it. Put a Bible verse to music and sing it together. Say a verse at mealtime before the blessing; everyone can say the verse together or each person can say a different verse. Give a word, challenging everyone to think of a verse with that word in it; often the search leads to a concordance.

Ideas for Adult Leaders to Use to Coach the Teaching of Values
Children learn to value other people partly by observing ways adults care for one another. Special birthday celebrations makes each family member feel important and help other members learn to do for others. Daddy dates with daughters, even preschoolers, and special events for Moms and sons, even teenagers, are celebrations. Mother’s Day breakfast in bed with children fixing the meal or a scavenger hunt for Father’s Day presents make Moms and Dads feel special. When children help neighbors with a special project without complaining, they are developing attitudes about ministry.

Sharing household responsibilities helps get the work done every week as well as lets children know that a family who shares the load can do more work and do it more easily. Let family members choose from a list. Everyone in our family learned to cook a meal. Especially fun was when one young son made chocolate chip cookies and cereal.

Church attendance was important in our family. We sat together on Sunday morning. Going to church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night were never choices; that is what our family did. Other times were choices. These long-practiced traditions helped when teenagers want to do something else.

Adult leaders can find out what preschoolers, children, and youth are doing to put into practice the Sunday School lesson during the week. Consider meeting with age-group leaders to create a family calendar for the month, with several activities for each week for the family to work on together. Suggestions would grow out of the Bible truths taught on Sunday.

How great for a family to have ideas to think about, to ask God about, to practice, and to do during the week. Such a focus can change an attitude, a habit, a thought, an action, a life. Family has meaning past and present. If the church family can help the individual family understand God’s plan for families and how to live in that plan, how strengthened our families would be! How improved our world would be!

What traditions can you guide your adults to create for their families?

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