Family Devotions

Occasionally on a Sunday I will talk about family devotions. The Reavely family's "Bible Times" consist of reading a chapter of Proverbs, working on a memory verse and praying together.

We have been reading a chapter of Proverbs every day for two years. We are talking about what we might do in 2007 to give us a break from Proverbs. After two years the kids are often finishing the proverbs after I start them. Often we'll talk about some event or attitude we've experienced that connects with what we are reading.

Our memory verse program we really like. It exposes us to verses that we frequently use and that help us with our attitudes and our faith. The program is called "Fighter Verses" from Desiring God ministries. I recommend it to everyone, whether they have family devotions with kids or not.

When we pray together we try to keep it from being too repetitive. It is very easy to get into a rut and merely mouth the same words time after time. So, to keep things on fresh we mix it up. We have "Missionary Monday" when we pray for missionaries, "Two-fer Tuesday" when we pray for two people, one in the family and one outside our family, "Whatever Wednesday" when we pray for whatever we want, "Thankful Thursday" when we go around the circle several times saying one thing we're thankful for, and "Family Friday" when we pray for people in our family.