Be sure to catch the full lesson and panel from this session of DadU led by Wes Butler (Director of Family Ministry) along with Nate Graybill and Chris Sims.

SUMMARY

As we seek to be faithful to our God-given role as the primary disciple-maker in the life of our children, faithfulness includes an obedience to the commands of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 to TRAIN our children in the truth of God's Word. In this passage, we see that our efforts to TRAIN our children are to be done in 3 ways:

• PURPOSEFULLY (". . . teach them diligently . . .")
• PERSONALLY (". . . to your children . . .") and . . .
• PERPETUALLY (". . . when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up . . .")

Reggie Joiner in his book, Think Orange, provides a helpful lens through which to view our discipleship opportunities throughout our day.

This type of discipleship can only be accomplished by God's grace and built on the foundation of our own faith that we MODEL for our children daily, as we discussed here previously.

CALL TO ACTION

As we seek to put these principles into practice, here are a couple of ways you can take a small step of obedience:

1. Family Discipleship Plan -- Continue discussing your Family Discipleship Plan, this time focusing on the TRAIN section. Questions you'll want to ask as you process this section would be things like, "What is our plan for spiritual training in this season of life?", "Who are our kids and what are their unique strengths and weaknesses that we see and want to consider in our training?", and "When are the times of day we have opportunities to redeem for spiritual training?"
2. Watermark Kids & Student Resources -- Make a point this month of utilizing the Watermark Kids and Student ministry resources made available each and every week. These resources provide simple, lay-up discipleship moments for you to use at home, unique to each life stage: Preschool Blog, Elementary Blog, Wake (6th-8th grades) Curriculum, and the Shoreline App (9th-12th grades). (TIP: You can subscribe to receive the Preschool and Elementary blog in your inbox HERE)
   

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES MENTIONED

Bible Reading:

• The Jesus Storybook Bible
• The Action Bible
• The Action Bible Study Bible (ESV)
• The ESV Student Study Bible

Scripture Memory:

• Seeds Family Worship (Scripture set to music) -- available on iTunes, Spotify, etc.
• Fighter Verse App

Prayer:

• Pray the Word Podcast