This past Sunday the Cathedral Youth hosted their annual Kick Off Meeting, where youth and parents come together to celebrate another year of ministry together, and learn what is in store for the upcoming program year. During our parent focused portion of the event (where youth break off to take part in name-games and icebreakers) we discussed faith practices at home. Here, we talked about what prayer or spiritual practices we had learned at home from our families as children, and what those lessons have meant to us throughout our lives. We also talked about what it meant to set time apart for prayer or spiritual practices, especially as we all lead busy lives.
The idea to have this conversation with the youth parents came to me as I was preparing for the Kick Off event, and at the same time looking at how the hecticness of my own life had pushed family time for prayer to background of my life. As my husband, Drew, and I sat down for another dinner in front of the television I wondered, “how might we be missing a chance to commune with the Holy before, and even during, our meal?”
As a child I learned to pray before meals and before bed. Before every meal my family and I would sit down to dinner, bow our heads, and say “Bless this food to our use, and us to your service…”, adding in our own petitions before handing the prayer up to God. And, before I went to bed every evening I prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep, pray my Lord my soul to keep…”, also adding my own petitions before handing the prayer up to God. These practices formed my relationship with prayer, and my deep desire to continually stay in relationship with God through prayer, whatever form that might be.
One of the comments during our parent meeting focused on the fact that as their children were young, it was easier to find time to pray with them, but now that they are growing older, becoming more busy, and even more independent it is harder to find that time. I believe this to be true for myself as well. Although I do not have children, I once was a child, and as a child it did seem easier to pray. I was not as busy and I had the instruction of my parents to guide me. But as I have grown older, and more independent, now I feel more than I ever, I need that time for prayer, not only by myself, but with my family as well.
While we learn much about faith and spiritual practices in church, home is where we make space to truly allow those practices to take root. The household, throughout generations, has been the space where is truly formed, nurtured, and passed on. These practices very often become the foundations for our faith lives (adapted from: www.buildfaith.org/home-practices/). The same prayers my family taught me as a child I still use today, although in varied forms. And the importance of prayer before meals and at the end of the day was something I have held onto since then.
As our lives move through different seasons, and as we continue to change and grow, so do our prayer lives. The same prayer I was taught as a child, although very formational and important to my spiritual life today, may not serve the same purpose they once did. It is important that we continue to reassess our spiritual practices at home, and see where the Spirit is calling us to change, move, and to grow as we continue to invite the Holy into our homes and our family lives. What we teach our children, what we practice in our homes, forms who we are as spiritual beings, for it is where we spend much of our time together. As we move into this new season of Fall, I invited you to join me in re-assessing our prayer and spiritual practices with our families. How might we invite the to more fully commune with us in our homes?
