I am an Oklahoman by birth, a Texan by current living situation, but claim the world as my playground.I love to travel and hope to someday soon take our family on adventures to far off lands, where we can share God with others and experience all the wonders He has created.
I am a mother of 5 crazy, homeschooling children ages 10 & under, wife to an amazing man, and daughter of the King of the Universe!I enjoy reading, making my kids laugh, cooking, all things natural, learning to play guitar and dusting off my piano skills.One day I hope to run again, but until then I’m learning patience.
Playing Hide and Seek is one of the funnest games for kids. But what if we added a twist and created a game with prayers? A game where others get blessed, but don’t know by whom? This is the Secret Agent Prayer Game!
Praying Like Secret Agents
To explain how to be a prayer secret agent, grab this month’s free Family Time Training Activity called Secret Agent Prayers.
It’s perfectly explains how there is a time and a place for everything and that includes prayer.
Sometimes, we pray publicly where others can hear and sometimes we pray secret agent style!
The Blessing of a Secret Agent Prayer
Knowing that someone has taken the time to pray specifically for you is one of the biggest blessings in life. But keeping that prayer anonymous can be difficult and a LOT of FUN!
First we start with praying about for whom we should pray?
God knows who needs extra blessings and prayers today. So let’s ask Him.
God, you know you needs extra prayers today. Who can I send a prayer to today?
Whomever comes to mind, write a prayer for them.
You can also write a prayer for someone you might see that day or someone who has blessed you!
Here are some ideas:
Parents
Siblings
Grandparents
Other Family Members (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc)
Teachers
Neighbors
Workers from businesses you frequent
The person who is on the street corner
Missionaries
I had each of our four older kids whisper into my ear who they chose to pray for so that the others wouldn’t know.
Now, write out the secret agent prayers!
Writing out prayers is a wonderful gift both for the writer and the recipient.
Sometimes, asking a child to write out a prayer might make them freeze. If you need, prompt them with your own words or let them copy these words onto their own paper.
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”
Numbers 6:24-26
It’s fantastic if your kids will write it in their own handwriting. It shows an extra level of care that one took the time to personally write the note. But if they can’t write yet, let them color and add their own flair to the written prayer.
This should be something fun and enjoyable, so if writing is a sore spot for kids, then find a way to allow them to personalize it. Maybe, clip out letters out of a magazine and allow them to glue the letters onto a page.
One of our kids, jumped up and down excitedly asking if s/he could include a picture drawing with the prayer. Whatever gets them excited to pray for someone else is great! Let is be as simple or intricate as they are willing to create.
Most importantly, include who it is for BUT do not sign the prayer with your name!
Remember, it’s a secret agent prayer, so they will be blessed without knowing who did it.
Time to Deliver our Secret Agent Prayers
Now, it’s time to put on your secret agent hats and deliver the prayers. This might take some extra thought.
You want to deliver the prayer without the recipient knowing who it’s from. It’s ok if they find out but then it’s not a real secret agent prayer.
How to deliver your secret agent prayers?
Tape a secret agent prayer to a neighbors door or car window.
Send the prayer in the mail.
Slide it inside your friend’s locker at school.
Place it on your teacher’s desk.
Slip it into a book that the person is reading.
Write a prayer on the mirror so others will see it with the shower steam.
Hide it in a lunch box or a cereal box.
What other ways can they think of?
Interestingly enough, a couple of our kids chose to pray for people who we cannot deliver a letter to at the moment. For example, one wanted to pray for a homeless lady s/he gifted something to a couple of years ago. Another wanted to pray for their great-grandmother who has already passed. We talked about how even though we can’t deliver a physical prayer to them, we can still pray to God who will use that prayer for his glory.
Teaching our kids to pray anytime about anything is the most important lesson to gift them!
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:18
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Family Time Training activities help us teach our kids and grandkids how to live out what the Bible teaches. Get access to all their activities that can be done in 20 minutes or less by becoming a Family Time Total Access member.
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I love to use these activities when my kids have a question and I’m not quit sure how to explain it in a way that will stick. These activities help biblical concepts stick in their minds for years!
Be encouraged by these Family Time Training Activities as well!
I am an Oklahoman by birth, a Texan by current living situation, but claim the world as my playground.I love to travel and hope to someday soon take our family on adventures to far off lands, where we can share God with others and experience all the wonders He has created.
I am a mother of 5 crazy, homeschooling children ages 10 & under, wife to an amazing man, and daughter of the King of the Universe!I enjoy reading, making my kids laugh, cooking, all things natural, learning to play guitar and dusting off my piano skills.One day I hope to run again, but until then I’m learning patience.
As a mom of 5, our Bible Time has looked different over the years. The last two years we have settled into a pattern that I am loving and the kids seem to do well with too. Since a friend asked what Bible time with our kids looks like, I decided I would share and hopefully encourage you in your Bible time too!
I posted a sweet picture of our 3rd child on Instagram and Facebook prepping the table for our Bible Time mid-morning snack. I am always amazed at how God’s word delivers exactly what we need to hear. On this particular day, we needed to be reminded that we are each invited to feast with God, but in order to do that we need to put ourselves and our excuses to the side.
What Our Bible Time Looks Like
1. It’s Flexible
We try to have our Bible time daily, but that doesn’t always happen. I would say at the moment we are running at a 90% success rate. We typically have Bible time around mid-morning, once all the kids are awake. We have one late sleeper. Since we homeschool, we can be flexible and I really enjoy it.
So sometimes we have our Bible Time at mid-morning, sometimes during lunch, and sometimes we have it at night over dinner with their dad. And other times we do it before heading off to bed.
Again for us, being flexible is key. Every day looks different, but most days, we have it mid-morning.
The location is flexible too. Many times we gather together in the living room, sometimes at the kitchen table, other times on the back porch while they snack and draw with chalk, and sometimes on the school room floor while they are putting puzzles together.
As long as they are paying attention and not causing a distraction, then I will allow them to color, play with legos, or color when I read longer passages.
2. Start with Songs & a Chant
Once the snack has been prepped and my precious daughter, who loves to present the food prettily has done just that, we start to sing. First, we sing the Books of the Old Testament, then the Books of the New Testament.
Then we pat the Bible while we sing the “B-I-B-L-E” song and add “YIPPEE!” to the end. It just makes it more fun!
Then, before I open to the passage we are reading for the day, I say/chant the following:
The Bible is the Word of God. Everything in it is true. It tells us all about how much God loves YOU!
Now, that our kids have heard it so often they, I pause and they fill in what I underlined above. Often times, they race to see who can say it the fastest. Sometimes, they finish before I can even start.
Recently, I also started asking if both the Old and New Testament go together or if they should be kept separate. I want our kids to understand this is one seamless story. We can’t just pick up in the New Testament and think we will understand what’s going on. We need to know what the Old Testament says to get a complete picture and understanding of the Bible all together.
3. Fuel the Soul & the Body
I typically present a snack along with our Bible time. This is for a few reasons:
#1 – It helps them gather together. My family eats several times a day. For some the mid-morning snack is what they call second breakfast and they will always come running when food is available. #2 – They are eager for me to start. Mainly, because they are not allowed to start eating their snack until I have started the Bible lesson. #3 – This keeps their mouths closed so they can listen better. When you have 5 mouths that like to give commentary, it’s a nice treat to be able to keep them engaged and listening.
4. Now, it’s time for the Bible lesson.
Several years ago, I became convicted about what we were reading for our Bible lessons. At first, I was using children’s bibles. They were ok, but they left out all the good details and even many of my favorite stories.
I believed that it was a good thing to read the whole Bible in it’s actual context to our children, instead of just working on surface details. God is in even the smallest details and I didn’t want them to miss out on his amazing ways by skipping what He has deemed important to share with us.
Of course, I remember praying about this and thinking,
“God, there are some parts that aren’t really rated G but your word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It is good for teaching and rebuking and our family really needs to be taught, so as we come to the parts where I want to cover their ears, please help me explain it to them in a way that honors you and teaches them how to love you.”
And what God started teaching us was truly amazing!
Now, I will say, that I may wait to read over Song of Songs until their married. That book just might be a marriage gift to them. It’s a great book, but obviously still praying about that one! LOL!
Using a Chronological Bible
We started reading the chronological Bible, which was fantastic for me too. I wanted our kids to understand the timeline of the Bible. I remember being so confused as a kid and an adult about what happened when, so the chronological Bible allows us to read the Bible as one whole story instead of a bunch of little stories.
We have had many wonderful conversations around stories that I may have skipped over had it not been for asking God to help guide our conversations and their hearts.
It was just like the Holy Spirit gave me the words and helped me out.
We read the passage then talked about how God created marriage with Adam and Eve. Anything outside of what that relationship looks like is wrong. We don’t have to talk through every wrong situation and I didn’t even point out the details after reading over it. We simply reflected on that if we know what God is wanting us to do, anything outside of that isn’t following His ways.
One of my older son’s favorite stories is when the ground opened up and swallows Korah alive. Now, that’s a story that definitely speaks to many things, especially how to react in a situation when you don’t agree with the leader God has appointed and how to handle your anger.
I can’t help but think about the richness our kids would have missed had we decided to hang back and wait to expose them to God’s word until an appropriate age. What age is that any way?
Using the Timeline
Every now and then we have to pull out my favorite timeline to figure out when someone lived or what time period an event happened. I love to be able to place the Bible timeline along with what we learn in history, because surprise – it’s all part of the same history!
When we pull out the timeline, I’ll remind our kids that they too are part of this timeline. They are just as important as the people that we read about in the Bible. God has a calling for their lives too. He wants them to share God with others and encourage others in their faith just like those in the Bible encourage us to follow God too.
Reading through the New Testament
Reading through the Chronological Bible with kids takes a looong time. We still aren’t finished!
Sometimes we will read one little passage and discuss it. Other times we will read pages and pages. It just depends on their temperaments at the time and where our conversations take us.
We made our way up past Job and past the conquering of most of the Promised Land. We read through the teachings in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, some of which are hilarious!
Then, I decided to jump to the New Testament. We read all of Acts and now we are reading Luke! LOL!! We totally got that backwards, but that’s ok. I love reading Acts, so we will probably read it again after reading Luke. Then go back to the Old Testament.
I love reading the New Testament in light of the Old Testament because pretty much every principle mentioned in the New Testament can be found in the Old. So we like to talk about the similarities and see the points Jesus makes about each topic.
Family Time Training
We also like to throw in some Family Time Training Activities. They have a free activity every month. But they also have an activity vault filled with activities on almost any Bible subject you might want to delve into and help your kids understand.
5. We Pray
We tend to close out our bible time with kids in prayer. It is a good time to practice letting the kids pray. Allowing them to think of things they are thankful for and who we can pray for, provides glimpses into their hearts. It even lets us hear what they picked up from the Bible lesson that day.
These are the things we do during in our Bible time with kids. Some days go exceptionally well and the discussion flows and other days they are eagerly awaiting when they are excused. But what is important is that they are hearing God’s word. They are being trained to listen to it, absorb it, and talk about it. They are hearing the truth so they will know how to fight the lies with the truth.
Each time you choose to sit down with your child(ren) and study the Bible, the devil will not like it. He will try to make it not worth your time and wish it was just over and done with, but take heart! Getting God’s word into the souls He created is so worth it. When it seems like a struggle, know goodness will eventually come from those moments! May God bless you as you dig into His word with His children!
I am an Oklahoman by birth, a Texan by current living situation, but claim the world as my playground.I love to travel and hope to someday soon take our family on adventures to far off lands, where we can share God with others and experience all the wonders He has created.
I am a mother of 5 crazy, homeschooling children ages 10 & under, wife to an amazing man, and daughter of the King of the Universe!I enjoy reading, making my kids laugh, cooking, all things natural, learning to play guitar and dusting off my piano skills.One day I hope to run again, but until then I’m learning patience.
In a culture that is centered on doing whatever is right in one’s own eyes, teaching our kids how to knock sin out of their lives is of the highest priority.
Preparing to Knock Sin Out
Before we can even begin to knock sin out of our lives, we have to start with the basics.
What is sin?
Who sins?
What does sin do?
Who is the only One who knows how to knock sin out of our lives?
Family Time Training’s “Knock Sin our of Our Lives” script lays the foundation to make this activity not only fun but packed with a powerful spiritual punch!
Learning How to Knock Sin Out of Our Lives
Warning & Interesting Unplanned Lesson
I love how these activities spark conversation around the topic but also open us up for lessons we never intended to learn. It’s like God is using this opportunity of studying his word to show us areas that we didn’t realize needed extra attention and helps us all grow in the process.
Using the Bible passages given in the “Knock Sin Out of Our Lives” activity, it was easy for the kids to answer and understand what sin is and that everyone has sinned.
When we listed off a few Bible characters and asked how they sinned, my kids were able to list these off too.
HOWEVER, when we asked them to list some of their sins, this was a little more difficult. The majority of them kept wanting to list off the sins of one of their brothers and sisters. It suddenly struck me how much of a discipline it is to look into our own hearts and ask God to reveal our own sins to us so we can confess them.
It does no good for us to point out other people’s sin, when we are not willing to even look at ourselves and see what sins might be keeping us away from God.
We have a rule in our house: “Don’t tattle, talk to the person.”
This falls very much in line with Matthew 18. We are to talk to each other and encourage each other on their walk. But we are supposed to not just focus on what sins are in others lives without dealing with the sins in our own lives. (Matthew 7:3-5)
This was a great bonus lesson that happened while learning how to knock sin out of our lives! I wanted to warn you about it ahead of time just in case your kids try to start pointing fingers at others as well.
The “Knock Sin Out of Our Lives” Activity
This “Knock Sin Out of Our Lives” activity was sooooo much fun! My kids wanted to do it over and over again, which provided ample opportunities for them to repeat the main points of what we learned and how we knock sin out of our lives! We probably spent 20 minutes enjoying this activity.
Did you hear my daughter singing at the end, “I’m with God! I’m with God!” Love their little hearts!
Using Total Access to Help Fill our Lives with Jesus
There are a lot of spiritual concepts that are difficult to understand. That is why I love using Family Time Training’s activities to help make the abstract more concrete through their scripts and activities.
With a Total Access online membership, I can quickly search for the activities based on age, topic, or Bible story.
Coupon Code Just for Creating a Great Day Readers!
Use the code CGDFAM518 to get a 10% discount on a Total Access Membership now through Tuesday, May 15!
Total Access only opens a few times a year and will only be only through May 15. Don’t miss your chance to have access to these great activities all summer!
What spiritual lessons are you looking forward to teaching your kids this summer?
I am an Oklahoman by birth, a Texan by current living situation, but claim the world as my playground.I love to travel and hope to someday soon take our family on adventures to far off lands, where we can share God with others and experience all the wonders He has created.
I am a mother of 5 crazy, homeschooling children ages 10 & under, wife to an amazing man, and daughter of the King of the Universe!I enjoy reading, making my kids laugh, cooking, all things natural, learning to play guitar and dusting off my piano skills.One day I hope to run again, but until then I’m learning patience.
God’s a God of order, He doesn’t create messes…or does He? When we allow God to take up full residence in our hearts He just might make a perfect mess in our lives!
“A place for everything and everything in it’s place.” This cliche is true for many things except for God.
A better motto in regards to God’s place in our lives should be more along the lines of:
God’s has a place and his place is in everything we do.
Wait a sec…doesn’t the Bible have a similar motto?
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’…
Luke 10:27
But how often do we find ourselves living a 24/7 Worshipful life?
Do we hold up our hearts to God on Sunday and then bench Him in our lives the rest of the week, living a life that won’t honor him? (Think Judas) Or do we truly want to walk with Him all week but just mess up and deny him entrance into part of our lives sometimes? (Think Peter before the rooster crowed.)
Do you see what I mean when I say the answer to this question may be painful? But then again it may make your heart sing! Either way the answers will give us insight into how we can better worship Christ throughout our daily lives and help our children learn to do the same.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Family Time Training’s 24/7 Christian Activity
With this “24/7 Christian” activity, your kids will start to see how God can create a perfect mess of their lives. It all starts by helping them figure out how to prioritize our lives. What’s most important? Who should we put first?
First I wrote out God, Family, Others and You on note cards and had each child put them in order of most importance.
Then we grabbed some watercolors and a canvas and head outside for the activity. You can use plain paper for this activity but I had an extra canvas in my art closet and decided this would be great to keep hanging in our school room.
Each child had an opportunity to paint one of the areas of our lives.
It’s a wonderful visual of how we can choose to keep God separate from other areas of our lives OR we let Him into each section. The “you” section starts to fade away and God becomes prominent in every part of our lives. When we become a “24/7 Christian” we are giving Him the opportunity of creating a perfect mess in our lives!
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
I am an Oklahoman by birth, a Texan by current living situation, but claim the world as my playground.I love to travel and hope to someday soon take our family on adventures to far off lands, where we can share God with others and experience all the wonders He has created.
I am a mother of 5 crazy, homeschooling children ages 10 & under, wife to an amazing man, and daughter of the King of the Universe!I enjoy reading, making my kids laugh, cooking, all things natural, learning to play guitar and dusting off my piano skills.One day I hope to run again, but until then I’m learning patience.
We know that every good gift comes from God and the gift of kindness is no exception.
Kindness makes our heart smile. It gives us warm fuzzies. Receiving kindness makes us want to give kindness too!
Kindness Cookies
That’s where these fantastic kindness cookies come into play. You see, this month’s Family Time Training Activity, “Kindness”, is not just a one day activity. It’s about intentionally creating the attribute of kindness in kids and adults of all ages. (Truly, even we as adults need this reminder in our lives…like during rush hour traffic.)
This Kindness Activity includes:
The Kindness Activity Script, which has all the Bible verse references and important thoughts to share during the activity.
Act of Kindness Worksheet, which include great acts of kindness ideas.
Act of Kindness Calendar, which is used to show which acts of kindness you’ve completed.
Click here to download this month’s FREE activity!
The idea is to write the Acts of Kindness ideas provided in the worksheet on slips of paper and even brainstorm your own, then choose one of these each day to fulfill. An extra fun way to choose your Act of Kindness for the day is by turning it into a Kindness Cookie, which of course looks like a fortune cookie.
Don’t miss the end of this post, where we share how else we used these Kindness Cookies.
Making Kindness Cookies
I found this easy to follow video tutorial by Red Ted Art that shows you how to make paper fortune cookies. I used these fortune cookies and put our Random Acts of Kindness inside each one. This way the kids will take turns each day choosing a brightly colored Kindness Cookie that will reveal one way our family can focus on being kind.
Our next to youngest got to choose the first Kindness Cookie, because without prodding, he helped his sister clean up water that was accidentally spilled on the floor.
Going Beyond the Activity
There are so many ways that we can implement the ideas given in this “Kindness” Activity. One idea that popped to mind was to fill these Kindness Cookies with what we love and appreciate about somebody else. Giving the gift of recognition is sweet!
Our girls, along with one of their friends, filled out the slips of paper that go inside the cookies, ran to their fort, and gifted them to each other. The anticipation grew as they picked up each cookie, gently pulled out the slips and read the kind words written about each of them. Of course, their mile-wide smiles expressed what the kind words meant to them.
There are so many people in our lives who do not know how much we value them. We will one day speak of how wonderful they were at their funerals but why not take a few moments while it still matters, to share with them the jewel of a person they are? Make a batch of Kindness Cookies that they can enjoy and be encouraged by over the next several days or month.
However you choose to use the Kindness Cookies, we know that you will not only make someone else’s day a little brighter but you will delight God with your kindness.
An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. – Proverbs 12:25
Prayer over Your Heart
Part of the prayerencouraged in the script is to…
“pray that God would give you a kind heart like His.”
How beautiful is that?
Lord, we humbly come before you now. We want to serve you with all our hearts and want to serve others too. Help us open our hearts to you and see the opportunities you put before us, so that we can cheer others up with our kind words and actions. May we lay down our hearts so that you can pluck out the selfish nature that lies within it and allow you to mold our hearts to express your attributes including the attribute of kindness. In the One who displayed your kindness and love by stretching out his arms on the cross for us – Amen!
