7 Ways to Raise Kids Who Love Jesus
In this modern world, raising kids to love Jesus can feel like swimming upstream. Our children are growing up in a world that moves faster and offers more distractions than any generation before them. Social media, streaming entertainment, busy school schedules, and peer influences can easily crowd out spiritual conversations and biblical foundation-building. Many Christian parents feel like they're fighting an uphill battle to pass on their faith to the next generation.
But here's the encouraging truth: it is absolutely possible to raise Christ-centered children who genuinely love Jesus, even in our busy, modern world. It doesn't require perfect parenting, unlimited time, or elaborate spiritual programs. Instead, it happens through intentional habits, consistent modeling, and creating a home environment where faith feels natural, joyful, and deeply integrated into everyday life.
Let’s see how you can do this
1. Model a Real Relationship with Jesus
Children are incredibly observant, and they learn far more from what they see you live than from what they hear you say. Your authentic relationship with Christ becomes the foundation for their understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. This doesn't mean you need to be a perfect Christian parent, but it does mean being genuine about your faith journey, including both the victories and struggles.
Living Faith Authentically
Share age-appropriate details about your own walk with Christ, including answered prayers, times when you've struggled with doubt or difficult circumstances, and moments when you've experienced God's comfort or guidance. Children need to see that faith is real and relevant to daily life, not just something reserved for church or formal religious occasions.
Let your children witness your personal spiritual practices. When they see you reading your Bible in the morning, praying before difficult conversations, or taking time for quiet reflection, they understand that relationship with God is an ongoing, practical part of adult life rather than just childhood instruction.
Be honest about your own spiritual growth and learning. When you make mistakes, apologize and talk about how God's forgiveness works. When you're facing challenges, let them see you turning to prayer and scripture for guidance. This transparency teaches them that faith is about relationship and growth, not perfection.
Visible Faith Practices
Make your spiritual life visible in small, natural ways. Keep your Bible and prayer materials in places where children can see them being used regularly. The Glory Prayer Box can be particularly helpful here because its beautiful presentation makes your prayer life both visible and attractive to curious children.
When your kids see you writing in a prayer journal, reading scripture cards, or taking time for quiet reflection with beautiful, well-organized spiritual materials, they begin to understand that relationship with God is valuable enough to invest time, attention, and resources in maintaining.
Talk about what you're learning in your own Bible study or how God is answering your prayers. Share insights from your devotional time that might apply to situations your family is facing. This ongoing spiritual conversation helps children see faith as dynamic and personally relevant rather than abstract or distant.
Your consistent, authentic spiritual practices become a powerful testimony to your children about the value and reality of relationship with Jesus. They're more likely to desire what they see bringing peace, joy, and strength to your life than what they're simply told they should want.
2. Create Faith Moments in Everyday Life
Spiritual formation happens most naturally when biblical truth is woven into ordinary moments rather than confined to formal teaching times. Learning to recognize and create opportunities for spiritual conversation throughout your day helps children see God's presence and relevance in all aspects of life.
Finding God in Daily Life
Point out God's handiwork in creation during family walks, car rides, or time spent outdoors. Help children notice the intricate design of flowers, the beauty of sunsets, or the amazing capabilities of the human body. These observations naturally lead to conversations about God's creativity, power, and care for His creation.
Connect current events, family situations, and daily challenges to biblical principles and stories. When your child faces friendship difficulties, remind them of how Jesus treated others. When they're worried about something, talk about trusting God like the characters in Bible stories who faced uncertain situations.
Turn routine activities into opportunities for spiritual conversation. Thank God for your food before meals, talk about God's provision while grocery shopping, or discuss stewardship while doing chores around the house. These connections help children understand that faith applies to every area of life.
Using the Glory Prayer Box for Faith Moments
The Glory Prayer Box can serve as your "faith moment starter kit," providing ready access to scripture cards, prayer prompts, and spiritual conversation tools. Pull out scripture cards during family dinners to read together, or use the prayer journal to write down family prayer requests and celebrations.
Keep some of the beautiful scripture cards in your car for impromptu spiritual conversations during drives to school or activities. The portable nature of these materials makes it easy to bring faith into unexpected moments throughout your day.
The visual appeal of the Glory Prayer Box materials also helps capture children's attention and interest. When spiritual resources are beautiful and well-presented, children are naturally drawn to them rather than seeing them as boring or irrelevant.
3. Make Prayer a Family Habit
Establishing consistent family prayer times helps children develop comfort with talking to God and understanding prayer as a natural part of daily life. The key is finding rhythms that work with your family's schedule and making prayer engaging rather than burdensome for children of different ages.
Creating Sustainable Prayer Rhythms
Choose specific times for family prayer that you can maintain consistently - whether that's first thing in the morning, before meals, or as part of bedtime routines. Consistency helps children know what to expect and makes prayer feel like a natural part of family life rather than an unusual or special occasion activity.
Keep family prayer times appropriate for your children's attention spans and developmental stages. Younger children might participate through simple, repetitive prayers or by drawing pictures of their prayer requests. Older children can take turns leading prayer or praying for specific family members or situations.
Allow children to pray out loud in their own words, even when their prayers are simple or seem repetitive. Hearing their authentic conversations with God helps you understand their spiritual development and gives them confidence that God hears and values their communications.
Making Prayer Interactive and Engaging
Use visual aids, prayer journals, or objects to help children focus during prayer time. The Glory Prayer Box provides excellent resources for this, including guided prayer prompts, beautiful journals for recording prayer requests and answers, and scripture cards that can focus family prayer around specific themes or Bible verses.
Create prayer traditions that children anticipate and enjoy. You might have a special prayer journal where family members write requests and later note answers, or designate certain days for praying for specific people or causes. These traditions help children see prayer as meaningful and effective rather than just routine.
Encourage children to pray for others outside your immediate family - friends, teachers, missionaries, community leaders, or people facing difficulties. This helps them understand prayer as a way to participate in God's work in the world and develops compassion for others.
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4. Immerse Them in God's Word
Regular exposure to scripture helps children develop biblical literacy, understand God's character, and learn to think from a Christian worldview. The goal isn't just knowledge acquisition but heart transformation through encountering God's truth in age-appropriate ways.
Family Bible Reading Strategies
Read the Bible together as a family, even if it's just a few verses at a time. Choose age-appropriate translations or children's story Bibles that make biblical narratives engaging and understandable for your kids' developmental levels.
Focus on understanding and application rather than just getting through a certain amount of text. Ask questions about what the passage teaches about God's character, how the biblical characters responded to challenges, or how the principles might apply to situations your family faces.
Make Bible reading interactive by acting out stories, drawing pictures of biblical events, or connecting Bible characters to your children's experiences. Children remember and internalize scripture better when they engage with it actively rather than just listening passively.
Scripture Memory and Application
Choose key verses for your family to memorize together, focusing on scriptures that address common childhood concerns like fear, friendship, honesty, or trusting God. The Glory Prayer Box includes beautiful scripture cards that are perfect for family memory work and can be displayed around your home as reminders.
Help children apply biblical principles to real-life situations they encounter. When they face challenges with friends, remind them of verses about kindness and forgiveness. When they're worried about something, talk about scriptures that address trusting God and His care for us.
Create connections between Bible stories and your children's current experiences. When they're facing something difficult, remind them of biblical characters who faced similar challenges and how God helped them. This helps children see scripture as relevant and encouraging rather than ancient and disconnected from their lives.
5. Serve Together as a Family
Serving others as a family helps children understand that faith is meant to be lived out through love in action. When children participate in helping others, they experience the joy of giving and begin to understand how Jesus' teachings apply to practical life.
Finding Family Service Opportunities
Look for age-appropriate ways your family can serve together - volunteering at food banks, visiting nursing homes, helping neighbors with yard work, or supporting missionary families. Choose activities that allow children to participate meaningfully rather than just observing adults serve.
Start with simple acts of service that can become regular family habits. This might include making meals for families with new babies, sending care packages to military families, or adopting a local family during holidays. Regular service helps children see helping others as a normal part of following Jesus rather than an unusual or special occasion activity.
Connect your service activities to biblical teaching about love, compassion, and caring for others. Before and after serving, talk about how your actions reflect Jesus' love and how God uses families like yours to care for people in need.
Documenting Service Through Prayer
Use the Glory Prayer Box Journal to document your family's service activities and pray for the people you're helping. Write prayer requests for families you're serving, note ways you've seen God work through your service, and record children's observations about how helping others makes them feel.
This documentation helps children see service and prayer as connected activities and creates a record of how God has used your family to bless others. Over time, these records become encouraging reminders of God's faithfulness and your family's participation in His work.
Encourage children to pray specifically for people you've served, maintaining connection and care beyond the immediate service activity. This helps them understand that service is about relationships and ongoing care rather than just completing good deeds.
6. Surround Them with Faith-Filled Influences
The people and media influences in your children's lives significantly impact their spiritual development. Intentionally surrounding them with positive Christian influences helps reinforce the biblical values you're teaching at home and provides additional support for their spiritual growth.
Building Christian Community
Connect your children with quality youth programs, Sunday school classes, and Christian mentors who can speak into their lives from perspectives other than yours. Different adult voices sharing the same biblical truths help children understand that faith is not just a family preference but a larger community reality.
Develop friendships with other Christian families whose children can become your kids' friends. When children see their peers living out faith authentically, it normalizes Christian values and provides social support for making godly choices.
Choose age-appropriate Christian media - books, music, movies, and online content that reinforces biblical values and presents positive role models. This doesn't mean avoiding all secular entertainment, but it does mean being intentional about including content that supports your family's spiritual goals.
Prayer Support for Community
Use the Glory Prayer Box notebook to maintain prayer records for the people who are investing in your children's spiritual development - pastors, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers, and Christian friends. Teach your children to pray specifically for these individuals and thank God for their influence.
Create prayer cards for missionaries your family supports, allowing children to pray regularly for specific people who are sharing the gospel around the world. This helps children understand that faith is global and that they can participate in God's work through prayer even when they're young.
Document answered prayers related to your Christian community, helping children see how God works through the church and other believers to provide care, guidance, and support for families like yours.
7. Make Faith Fun & Creative
Faith doesn't have to be serious and solemn all the time. Joy is an essential part of the gospel, and children are naturally drawn to activities that are engaging, creative, and fun. When you make spiritual activities enjoyable, children develop positive associations with faith that can last throughout their lives.
Creative Faith Activities
Incorporate music, crafts, drama, and hands-on activities to bring Bible stories to life. Act out biblical narratives, create art projects related to scripture, or write songs about Bible verses your family is learning. These creative activities help children engage with spiritual truth through multiple senses and learning styles.
Celebrate biblical holidays and Christian traditions in ways that are meaningful and enjoyable for your family. Create special traditions around Easter, Christmas, and other significant spiritual occasions that help children associate faith with joy, celebration, and family connection.
Use games, puzzles, and interactive activities to teach biblical principles. There are many excellent Christian games and activities available, or you can create your own family versions of familiar games that incorporate scripture memory or biblical knowledge.
The Glory Prayer Box as Creative Tool
The Glory Prayer Box is specifically designed to make faith activities tangible, beautiful, and engaging for the whole family. The attractive presentation makes children excited to participate in prayer and spiritual activities rather than seeing them as boring obligations.
Use the various materials in the Glory Prayer Box for different types of family spiritual activities. The journal can be used for family prayer requests, spiritual artwork, or recording insights from Bible reading. The scripture cards can become memory game materials or discussion starters for family devotions.
The visual appeal and quality of the Glory Prayer Box materials communicate that spiritual activities are valuable and worth investing in. When children see beautiful, well-made spiritual resources, they understand that faith deserves attention, care, and appreciation.
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Conclusion
Raising children who genuinely love Jesus is ultimately about creating a home environment where faith feels natural, joyful, and deeply integrated into every aspect of family life. It's about modeling authentic relationship with Christ, making spiritual conversations normal parts of daily interaction, and providing positive experiences with prayer, scripture, and Christian community.
Remember that spiritual formation is a long-term process that happens gradually through consistent, loving investment rather than through perfect parenting or dramatic spiritual experiences. Your children are watching how you handle challenges, how you treat others, and how you prioritize your relationship with God. These everyday observations often have more impact on their spiritual development than formal religious instruction.
