Giving Your Words: The Lifegiving Power of a Verbal Home for Family Faith FormationSample

Believing words

Sarah, our first child, went through a time of doubt and uncertainty about God in her tweens and early teens. She was not leaving her faith as much as wondering if it was leaving her. As Sarah shared all of her doubts, Sally simply listened with an open heart before responding, “Sarah, questioning your faith is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re asking the same questions that thoughtful people have always asked about faith. I just want you to know that I will believe in God for you right now, as long as you need me to. And I will pray for you.”

Later, Sarah would tell Sally how thankful she was that she hadn’t condemned her unbelief. It was, in fact, her mother’s vicarious belief and confidence that carried her forward into faith again. Sally’s words of faith helped Sarah find her faith.

The believing words you say and give to your children will help form and inform their developing faith. When we talk about faith and believing with a child, the words we say to them will mean much less to their immature understanding than to us, yet hearing those words is no less important to their developing spirits.

Words are the fuel of faith formation. Many parents, though, practice faith formulation—relying on formulaic methods and materials to indoctrinate their children with Bible knowledge. We always taught that the real goal of Christian parenting should be faith formation—providing an atmosphere and environment in your home in which your child’s faith can grow naturally and produce spiritual fruit. Creating a rich and varied verbal atmosphere is one part of a holistic and non-formulaic approach that will result in family faith formation.

The words you say and give to your children add to the soil of their hearts in which faith can grow organically. That was the point of Jesus’ parable of the sower, where He describes the “good heart” as the “good soil” in which the seed, which is the word of God, can grow. The more ways that your children hear you talking about faith and believing, the more spiritual organics the soil of their hearts will contain in which their faith can grow and produce fruit. The words you say and give to them, even if just passively received, will help form and give words to the richness of the hope that God has provided in the words of Scripture and in the person of Christ.