Kyle & I look forward to a regular date night each month. We have become creatures of habit, tending to pick the same venue every time. And if you know Kyle at all, he likes change and trying new things, so for us to settle on the same location every time means it beats out all the others. Ha!
One of our rules of thumb on dates is we try to connect without the conversation revolving around work and kids. It's like getting to know each other all over in these little spaces of time together. We often take the John Delony Questions for Humans cards or ask Chat GBT to give us different date night questions to ask each other. It's really fun and we end up having the best conversations.
We recently wanted to challenge ourselves and do the Rachel Cruze/John Delony Dream Session Questions, which for the record, truly does take a whole getaway weekend like they suggest. We started at dinner and we only got through a few questions in our time together.
We started off with some basic questions:
In the discussion, we both landed on the same topic. We both wanted devotion time and prayer in our home with our kids to be more organic and natural, and began articulating what that would look like especially now bed times have become divided with the older and younger kids. We didn't just want to exhibit a storybook devotion time any longer now that our kids are maturing. We want to help guide them and give them a compass into something larger.
Our biggest fear is we didn't want this to be a "religious" thing to do, but instead one that was more relational and grounded.
One of our favorite times of the day is around the dinner table. If you know my husband, he is all fun and nothing in life can be boring with him in it, so our times around the table is his time to showcase all the fun. One of our latest favorite theme nights around the table lately has been playing the "Price is Right" and "Guess the Number." It's truly a family event at our dinner tables.
Landing on this idea, both of us began to think on one of our favorite seasons around a dinner table. Our all time favorite was any time we sat with our Small Group at the Dinner Table of Helen & Grant's home. There were so many seeds planted in that two years that still carry over into our lives to this day.
We had been in small groups before, but this one was different. When the meal ended, we didn't get up and move to the other room for the discussion part of the evening. Instead, we would divvy out dessert and carry over to questions and sharing life. It turns out that the discussions usually went deeper than those groups where we had moved to the living room for the discussion portion. Discussions at the table became the most meaningful.
What if the same were applied to our home? Small group nights around the table.
We picked out 2-3 of our unhurried nights of the week. Halfway through dinner, Kyle pulls out a section of the Bible and reads the passage. Our first night we picked the "Fruits of the Spirit," but we plan to move through a book of the Bible at a time.
Chat GBT was super helpful in picking out corresponding passages for the kids to take turns reading and asked specific questions to apply and reflect the passages that were age appropriate for them to think on and answer.
After reading, each child went around the table to share a worry, request, or gratitude that was on their heart and we wrote them down in a journal. Starting prayer with Daddy, ending with Mommy, each one of us would pick a request off the list to pray for the other. (A few passed on praying the first time.) Hearing their sweet prayers pray for another sibling around the table was one of the most precious things to treasure in my heart.
Ryan passed praying around the table at first, but by the time we finished dessert and started to get up. He said he wanted to pray for Tyler and he did his own prayer, which I thought took more courage since everyone was back in their own discussions around the table.
It's interesting how food brings connection and people together. It seems to be the core of hospitality. Jesus was found on many occasions breaking bread or preaching and then feeding the people when they were with him. I think to the time after His resurrection when He came to the shoreline, seeing His disciples, He called to them and made breakfast for them. [John 21: 1-13].
It doesn't have to be any different for our kids. It doesn't have to be a show or presentation. Our kids just need to see us sharing life on life and how we embrace Jesus in it. Something as easy as sitting down, eating dinner together, listening to the Bread being broken.
"Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." -Acts 2:46
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