How I Lead My Children In Worship

One of my favourite things about home education is having the time in our school day to include worship and prayer to our God. This is a significant part of our morning and one that I try not to let slip. If we do go a day or two without it, we cannot wait to get back to it!

I remember reading a devotional by Jeannie Fulbright several years ago that said this:

If I could tell moms only one thing that would help their homeschooling, 

having regular morning devotions would be it. 

Truly, nothing else has blessed our homeschool experience more.

(You can read the entire post here: First Things First)

I could not agree more. Having time in the mornings for time in the Word, prayer, worship and being in the Father's Presence is crucial to everything else we do and really, to who we are. We have learned and are learning to wait before Him (not always patiently), to press in to what He wants to say to us. And we have learned and are learning to hear His voice.

I thought I'd share what we do because I have had a couple of moms ask, out of curiosity or out of wanting some encouragement to do something meaningful with their own children.

We start out reading a chapter from the Bible. We do not always go in order, from Genesis to Revelation, but we happen to be doing so at this time. I pray and ask what book God wants us to read and hear from Him. Right now we are in Leviticus and I am reading it from The Message version. 

Then there are two email messages that I receive on a daily basis and I usually read both of those aloud to the children. The first one is The Spirit Of Prophecy by Bill and/or Marsha Burns. The second one is The Elijah List by numerous prophetic ministers from several different countries. Both of these emails are FREE. SOP comes Monday through Friday. The Elijah List is every day.

If there are any reports from our friends in Kenya, we read those, as well. If not, we continue on with our journal. I record items under the titles "Prayer" and "Thanksgiving", as well as any dreams anyone had the night before. (It's a great idea to document dreams, especially if you think they have a prophetic significance.) Our journals have served as a tremendous tool in reminding us what God has done in our lives and the lives of those we have prayed for, how He has spoken to us in specific situations and in showing us the themes that were present in the past. It is a great practice to look over our journals at all the "Ebenezers" (from 1 Samuel 7, meaning "the stone of help" which signifies a symbol of remembrance for how God provided, intervened, came to our rescue) and give Him thanks and praise for who He is and what He has accomplished.

After we record items under our "Prayer" and "Thanksgiving" categories, I turn on my Pandora app on my phone and we listen to several different worship songs, anywhere from 3-10.  I just click through until I find something that is fitting. It's just personal preference. We take time to focus on Jesus and worship Him. This can involve dancing, raising our hands, bowing before Him, sitting, lying on the floor, etc. 

There is no formula. 

Our goal is to worship Jesus and focus everything on Him and to be led by the Spirit in doing so. I truly believe this is the most important thing I can teach and lead my children in (and yes, academics are important to me, but I believe that being in God's Presence, praising Him and hearing from Him are crucial to daily living).

And then after we have spent a little time (or a great deal of time on some days) in worship and praise, we pray. Sometimes we are just voicing what we have written in our journal, other times we are just listening. Sometimes I just encourage the children to speak out whatever the Spirit puts on their hearts, which may be something we have discussed and written down, or not. 

One of the biggest things the Father has taught me, and the children, in turn, in the past 10 years or so is about spiritual warfare. I'll leave that subject for a whole other post, but we are very aware that speaking our prayers, our decrees and our declarations are a form of standing with the Father and against the enemy. We also speak directly to the enemy in our offensive strategy against him. We give praise to God and we stand firm against the devil. This is something we are given the opportunity to practice over and over. I consider these practices to be basic life skills and again, crucial to daily life.

I just want to close by saying that even though I am writing this from a homeschool mom's perspective does not mean that I think moms whose children are not homeschooled cannot or do not lead their children in worship. 

In fact, I'd love to hear from you. What does your worship and prayer time with your child/children look like? 

Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship,

for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord.

Psalm 85:15