We need kids as much as they need us. Our children are a vital part of the Church - Jesus wants to reveal Himself to us, spur us on, and encourage our faith through our children. We have much to learn from them. Jesus said so Himself when He invited us to become more like children in our efforts to be a relationship with Him. For example, Jesus invites us to "come as we are." Kids are great at this, but we tend to try and clean ourselves up a bit before coming to the Lord. 

In the last few episodes, we've moaned and sympathized with one another over the challenges of prayer and how adding kids to the mix amplifies those challenges. But this week on the podcast, we want to take a look at why we should press on in prayer even in the midst of the challenges. There are some deep and lasting benefits that come from building a habit and culture of prayer in our homes. 

"I can think of nothing great that is also easy...prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world." - Tim Keller

Prayer is difficult. I don't know many people who feel that they are very good at it. We already struggle with prayer on our own and now we are supposed to lead our kids in this thing that we struggle with ourselves? For the next two episodes, we're talking about the struggles, challenges, and obstacles of prayer and how they are amplified when we try and pray together as a family. 

"I can think of nothing great that is also easy...prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world." - Tim Keller

Prayer is difficult. I don't know many people who feel that they are very good at it. We already struggle with prayer on our own and now we are supposed to lead our kids in this thing that we struggle with ourselves? For the next two episodes, we're talking about the struggles, challenges, and obstacles of prayer and how they are amplified when we try and pray together as a family. 

We all want to protect our kids. And we all want to see them have victory and success in life. A big part of our job as parents is to prepare our kids to live well in a broken world full of danger. On today's podcast, we are going to talk about how building a culture of learning helps us protect our kids and prepare them for victory as they grow into young adults. 

We are big fans of memory work and discovery in learning together as a family, especially when it comes to learning God's Word together. But the truth is that memory work and accumulating knowledge isn't enough! It's a great place to start, but our kids need someone to help them go deeper as they get older and start to process the things that they've learned. On today's podcast, we're going to talk about the things your kids simply won't learn on their own. 

Do you like to hear writers talking about how their songs? Then this episode is for you!

We're off-roading this week! :) Before we released our most recent family worship album called "God of Generations," Emily and I recorded an (at the time) exclusive podcast for some of our most faithful online families to help introduce the songs and share a little bit of our hearts and the scriptures behind the new songs. We've decided that we want to release these old podcast recordings to all of you as we walk through our Six Pillars of Family Worship. The song we are featuring today and talking on the podcast is called "Day and Night" and it fits perfectly in our current theme of "Learning Together." This song comes from Psalm 1 in which David writes about delighting and meditating on the Word of God. Emily wrote this song with some friends and this episode is packed with some tasty behind the scenes insights into this song and the verses that inspired it. You're not going to want to miss it!

What if you have kids in the house that don't understand. Infants? Toddlers? Maybe it's best to wait to start family worship until after the kids get a little bit older? Or what if you don't even have kids? Today, we want to give you four good reasons for why we think you should totally go ahead and read the Word to your infant/toddler. We'll dive deep into some long term fruit that comes from being intentional about family worship time no matter what your family looks like today. 

We don't want to overcomplicate things, simply reading the Bible together is a wonderful thing to do. However, if the goal is to really help gain understanding, to share our joy, and to spur interest in God's Word then it might help to think about HOW we read the Word out loud. Stale reading often leads to bored listeners. There is no need to put on a show or overly entertaining, but the reading of God's Word together CAN be engaging and interesting. And the way we read the Word out loud can assist us and help make our times together more fruitful and beneficial for all. 

As we continue to talk about the importance of developing a culture of learning in our homes, we wanted to touch on some of the benefits of reading to our kids. Reading the Word to our kids is the priority, but we think it's awesome that God has revealed Himself largely through the written Word because there are so many advantages and benefits to reading together in general. As parents, we get the chance to help our kids not only discover themselves, God, and the world around them but reading together also gives our kids the opportunity to process with us. Providing us some of the best moments to shepherd our kids.