Gregory Koukl: Sharing Theology with your kids

In this post, Gregory Koukl explains explains how he and his wife are applying theological content to the lives of their children in a variety of ways.

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9375

The only “youth program” your kids need

In this article, Rev. Michael Brown shares some thoughts on what he says is the only “youth program” your kids need; family worship and catechesis:

Coming to Reformed Christianity, my wife and I not only learned the sobering truth about the means of grace and what actually happens during the Divine Service on the Lord’s Day, we also learned about the vital importance of regular family worship throughout the week. Clearly, this was a practice far more biblical (and historical) than the compartmentalized, hustle-bustle of a busy week at church. The ancient paths God carved out for families to walk in long ago were new to us. We learned how he designed the family to be a worshiping unit, an entity that would engage in prayer, praise and instruction in the course of ordinary, daily life. We learned how Christian parents have the covenantal responsibility-both toward God and their children-of bringing up their little ones as disciples in the historic Christian faith. Suddenly, all those passages about training up your children began to come into color.

Read more here:

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2010/12/04/this-is-not-your-neighbors-youth-group/

Catechism: Grounded in the Gospel

In the latest Whitehorse Inn podcast, Michael Horton discusses catechism with J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett, who are about to release a book titled Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way. Like all of the WHI podcasts, it’s well worth a listen, which you can do using the player at the end of this post, or from http://www.whitehorseinn.org/.

We were inspired to use catechism after reading Voddie Baucham’s Family Driven Faith. The one we have chosen to use is a family devotional called Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, which based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It contains 6 short devotionals for each question, and as there are 107 questions, it is going to take us a while to get through! There are often times when we miss out on doing it after dinner, for one reason or another, but we are making reasonable progress and enjoying it at the same time.

I think catechism it is an invaluable method of teaching doctrine to the whole family, including ourselves. Check out the Grounded in the Gospel podcast, it’s great!

Steve