Five Resources to Grow Your Child’s Relationship With God

The tagline for this blog should really be “parenting is hard” because I say it so often.

But if you’ve been a parent for more than five minutes, you know that I’m right.

Parenting is hard.

There are a million different ways to do things and there’s no guarantee that the way you choose is the right way.

And not only are we tasked with raising our children to do necessary life skill things like not biting their friends and balancing a checkbook, but we are also responsible for their spiritual growth.

We are literally responsible for our children’s eternity.

*Cue weight of the world being added to my shoulders.

But our mission with the Fishbowl Family website has always been to help you in your own spiritual journey as well as helping you to lead your family well.

So we’ve come up with five essential resources to help grow your child’s relationship with God.

So without further ado, here are five things to help your kids grow their relationship with Jesus.

 

1. Family Service Projects

Are you worried about raising selfish, entitled children?

Join the club.

In our experience, the best way to prevent kids from being self-absorbed is to teach them to serve others.

That’s what Jesus modeled in His ministry and that’s what we’re trying to model for our kids.

There is no better way to teach your children to serve than to actually serve together.

This list of 39 Ways to Serve with Your Kids is a great starting point for making service a family habit.

 

You can’t grow your child’s relationship with God accidentally. 

It has to be done deliberately. 

This is a great place to start, and none of the projects cost over $2.00!

We keep this list hanging on our fridge and my kids LOVE checking off the projects as we do them.

For details on each project, check out our 3 part series: 39 Ways to Serve with Your Kids.

If you’re already a subscriber, you can download this list from our free printable library.  If you’re not subscribed to our mailing list, fill out the form below, and we’ll send you the password to our FREE printable library.  It has this Family Service Project checklist along with tons of other great freebies. 

 

2. Family Devotional

Finding time to do a family devotional is hard because everyone is busy.

That’s why we love Marty Machowski’s family devotional series Long Story Short and Old Story New.

This post, Five Resources to Grow Your Child’s Relationship With God, contains affiliate links for your convenience.  That means that if you make a purchase, we’ll receive compensation at no additional cost to you.  Read our full disclosure policy. 

They only take ten minutes a day, five days a week, and they are good.

They are designed for the whole family, and they present the Gospel in a way that helps preschoolers to teens to parents grow in the knowledge of Christ.

These books are filled with thought-provoking questions that will get your kids talking.

And while this is our favorite devotional for our family, there might be a better devotional for your family.

Check out our post The Best Devotional for Your Family to read about 6 other devotionals you should consider for your family.

And if you’re worried concerned about how to actually do a family devotional, we’ve got you covered.

Read our post, How to Actually Do a Family Devotional for actionable steps and tips to create an awesome habit for your family.

Diving into the scriptures together as a family will help grow your kid’s relationship with God by leaps and bounds.

 

3. Scripture Memory Songs

Kids are like sponges; they soak up whatever is around them.

 It’s our job to make sure their absorbing good stuff.

 Seeds Family Worship makes it easy and fun for families to memorize scripture together.

 Their songs are upbeat and much less annoying than any other scripture memory songs.

But the best thing is that they are word for word scriptures.

So when your kid memorizes one of these songs, they’ve actually memorized an entire verse of the Bible!

A CD (or digital download) with 12 songs is only $9.97.

Additionally, their website is full of free resources.

Check out Seeds and get ready to hear your kids singing scriptures as they play around the house.

And if I’m honest, I’m singing the songs with them because that’s just mom life.

But I’d much rather be singing verses from the Bible than the Calliou theme song which gets stuck in my head all. the. time.

And we don’t even watch Calliou.

Related Post: How to Teach Kids to Memorize Scripture

 

Sermon Notes Sheet

Teaching kids how to behave in “big church” can be a big job.

A sermon note taking sheet can help.

 We designed this free sheet to be detailed enough to keep older kids focused and simple enough to keep younger kids engaged.

But if you think your kids aren’t quite ready for this sermon note taking sheet, check out our free 40 sheet bundle of scripture coloring sheets. These coloring sheets are also great to help kids memorize scripture!

A parent’s expectations of behavior go a long way to influence how children behave.

By expecting children to sit still and follow along with the sermon, parents are showing their children that they believe them to be smart, calm, and capable.

For more tips on helping kids sit still through church, check out our blog post 4 Ways to Help Kids Sit Through Church. 

If you’re already a subscriber, you can download this list from our free printable library.  If you’re not subscribed to our mailing list, fill out the form below, and we’ll send you the password to our FREE printable library.  It has this Family Service Project checklist along with tons of other great freebies. 

 

Kid’s Bible

This resource is, by far, the most important one.

I love devotionals, songs, and cute printables as much as the next parent, but nothing compares to the Bible.

 Getting your child a Bible that is written on their level, and then taking the time to read it with them is the most important thing you can do to grow their relationship with God.

The Bible is intimidating.

The Adventure Bible series makes it a lot less intimidating.

It’s like a parent read through the Bible with their child and wrote down the answers to all their kid’s questions and bound it together with good artwork and an easily readable text.

These Bibles give kids from toddlers to teens (and their parents) easy access to the scriptures.

Related post: The 9 Best Bibles for Every Stage of Life.

And while everything in this list of resources to grow your child’s relationship with God is great, none of them are the best.

You are.

You are the best resource to grow your child’s relationship with God.

And while that may seem like a totally daunting task compared to simply reading a great devotional with them and baking brownies for the neighbors, it is a job that God has and continues to equip you to do. 

Following the model of Jesus is undeniably heartbreaking, overwhelming, and gut-wrenching, but it is also simple – love God, love others.

And modeling those two simple truths day in and day out for our children will show them how to have an amazing relationship with God. 

What is your favorite resource to help grow your child’s relationship with God?  Did it make our list?  Tell us in the comments!

WANT TO REMEMBER THIS FOR LATER? PIN 5 RESOURCES TO HELP GROW YOUR CHILD’S RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD TO YOUR FAVORITE PARENTING BOARD!

 

 

Related Posts

39 Ways to Serve With Your Kids

The Best Devotional for Your Family

How to Actually Do a Family Devotional

The Best Devotional for Boys

The Best Devotional for Girls

The Best Devotional for Moms in the Trenches of Motherhood

How to Teach Kids to Memorize Scripture

4 Ways to Help Kids Sit Through Church Without Electronics

9 Best Bible for Every Stage of Life