Everyone I know feels maxed out on their schedules and with the commitments they already have. Yet we are all living with a rhythm that provides one of the most valuable and reoccurring opportunities for discipleship in our families: Family dinner.
What if your family dinners could be re-tooled and repurposed with a new intentionality that made them more fun, more focused and a perfect way to naturally disciple your kids and your selves? Let me show you some things that Team K (my family) and I have learned. [Click Here to get my Leading Your Family & Community on Mission eGuide to help you get started.]
What You May Be Missing Out On…
➤ A daily chance to reconnect with each other
Mealtime is the most amount of concentrated time and the #1 way we have to connect with our family members each day and throughout the week.
➤ Opportunities to speak and show grace to one another other
Family dinners are the perfect time to create and pass on traditions. Memories are made and patterns of trust and character are developed at the table.
➤ A way to experience God’s provision and generosity
Stop thinking you have more important things to be doing like homework, or TV, or chores. Stopping to rest and reconnect is modeling your belief that God is good and generous to your kids. And sharing a meal with others is sharing God’s provisions and generosity with them; you become a conduit of his grace.
➤ A daily chance to reconnect with God
Our dinner times offer up natural rhythms for prayer together and they’re also are a prime opportunity to teach and talk about God and His Story. Many in our community have used the Story of God for Kids as a natural and fun way to experience the Story as a family during meal times.
➤ Ways to include others into your family rhythms
In Team K it became a coveted thing to get invited over to one of our family dinner nights. Who in your life, our in your kid’s life (if you have children), may be waiting and dying for an invitation to a simple, yet profound meal with your family? [clickToTweet tweet=”Who may be waiting or dying for an invitation to a simple, yet profound meal with your family?” quote=”Who may be waiting or dying for an invitation to a simple, yet profound meal with your family?”]
➤ Your best opportunity for discipleship as a family!
Family dinner night is the easiest and most effective way to internationalize discipleship within your family. It really is. It’s the time when you go after the heart, not the actions!
Here are 7 Tips for making family dinner nights great:
- Pick 1 – 3 nights per week and stick to it!
- Take turns picking the meal. Mom, Dad, each of your kids…
- Make the pre-game a warm up for dinner: everyone has a role to play
- Agree that these times will not be about problem solving or discipline.
- Go after the heart!
- Create an atmosphere of fun, celebration and discovery. Laugh a lot!
- Start with prayer… and end with prayer
Watch this clip of me teaching more on this in my 7 Moves to Missional Course.
To learn more about the 7 Moves To Missional Course and receive notification when registration opens next, please click here.
Please leave me your thoughts and suggestions as to your best family dinner night traditions. What has worked best for you forming others and discipling through meal time?
