Eleven years ago, a friend casually asked me:
"Hey, Tim, what's your discipleship plan for your family?"
I remember thinking, "Huh? A discipleship plan for my family?"
"Umm, I don't know. I pray with my kids before most meals and usually before bedtime. We attend church services. Is there something else?"
I felt convicted because I had spent 12 years as a youth pastor developing discipleship plans for other people's families but hadn't really considered what that could look like in my own family.
Finding God's Ancient Rhythms
So I did what any good youth pastor would do and went on a hunt for a curriculum that would help me disciple my kids (whatever that actually meant). All I could find, though, were some pretty lame resources that were more like devotionals: a bible verse, a quick thought, and a prayer at the end.
"Is that it? Is that what discipleship looks like for my family? Just read this with them once a day or something?"
In my frustration, I asked another dad if there was a curriculum or something he used with his family and he's like, "Oh, no, Tim. Just read the Bible with them."
"Umm, ok. Which one? A kids' bible? One with pictures?"
"No, just the regular Bible. Challenge them to step up to a new level. They're capable of far more than you think they are."
So I tried that. A few times a week we'd get out the Bible and just read a chapter. At the end of it, I'd simply ask, "What stood out to you?" and we'd spend 15-20 minutes discussing it. That's it.
And it was sooo good! I mean, it sounds super simple because it is, which worked well for me. We could just sit down and pull this off pretty consistently. No prep time!
Trying a Biblical Rhythm in Our Home
But then all of this leveled up when we got to Exodus and read about the Passover. Here we saw God saying (my paraphrase), "Ok, set up your home like this... Great. Now do this, and when you do it your kid will ask this question. When he asks it, give him this answer. And then he'll ask that. Then give him that answer."
As I read it, I thought, "Oh, this feels like the kind of curriculum I'm looking for!"
So we tried observing Passover together as a family in our kitchen. At the end of it, my kids had left the table, and my wife and I leaned back in our chairs, debriefing about the experience we just had.
"What was that?!" We just looked at each other. "That was amazing!"
Our family loved it! It was such a beautiful way to immerse ourselves in this part of God's Story. It easily held our kids' attention because it involved all the senses: taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. We walked away from that experience with a deeper appreciation and understanding of God's Story.
It was at that time two of my beliefs starting to shift.
- Would God task parents with a mission as important as discipling their kids and then leave them without a plan on how to do so? No. He’s given us one and it’s better than anything a Christian publishing company could make up.
- What if the Old Testament isn’t old and worthless just because it’s labeled as, “old?” This Passover thing was surprisingly valuable as a tool to deepen my belief in God’s Story while training my kids in God’s Story.
Rediscovering Biblical Rhythms
So far, my posts have focused on topics I'm currently wrestling with. However, this is one of those topics I've wrestled with for more than a decade, and I feel like I finally reached some clarity on the life-giving impact of living according to biblical rhythms.
A few months ago, the pastor at my church asked me to teach our congregation about this. Having never articulated how I wrestled with this topic, synthesizing over a decade of tensions and experiments was a bit of a challenge, but you'll find below a video of my efforts to do exactly that.
God didn't leave us wondering how to disciple our families - He gave us a rich and meaningful rhythms that have shaped His people for generations. Perhaps the answer to deeper wrestling with our faith isn't found in the newest curriculum or latest devotional, but in returning to these ancient paths He has already laid out for us. The question isn't whether God has given us a plan - it's whether we're ready to step into the transformative rhythms He designed from the beginning of time.
