How to Make Family Discipleship Stick

This is a the last of three posts in a series based on Christie Thomas’s book Little Habits, Big Faith: How simple habits can help your family grow in Jesus. In the previous post, Christie showed practical methods to build up spiritual disciplines in your family. In this post, Christie teaches us how to make those habits stick.

When I taught piano for several years after finishing university, I discovered a few things about learning an instrument that I hadn’t really noticed as a child. We all know that to learn to play piano well, you need to sit down every day and practice a bit. But as part of that, you need to master several fundamental habits that might feel overly basic or simple. You’ll learn to read a new visual language of music notes and translate that to the keyboard. (Even if you’re learning to play by ear, you’ll still need to practice enough to understand chords and key signatures and where the notes are on the piano.) You’ll practice fingering patterns and scales until your brain knows what note you’re on even when your hands are covered. Only once you have the basics down can you start adding dynamics, introducing more complex pieces, or writing your own music.

Your first little faith habits are the basics, and eventually they will become automatic. Your hands will lift to pray over your kids as they tie their shoelaces. You will buckle everyone into the van and immediately start singing your memory verse. You will tuck your child in and automatically lean over to bless them. And you will rejoice because you’ll see your family changing as these little moments accumulate.

God made our brains to love habits because these automatic responses free our brains to deal with other problems. But imagine if a committed pianist just continued to play only basic scales over and over for years. They’d be bored out of their mind, right? Similarly, when a family faith habit becomes automatic, you may begin noticing that a practice that used to delight your children now makes their eyes glaze over.

If you’ve settled into some great faith habits as a family but they’re starting to feel a little stagnant, like you’re chafing at the routine, or like your kids just need a little bit more, it’s time to get rooted.

Creating those first habits doesn’t mean we can now disciple our kids on autopilot. Now that we don’t need to spend all our energy on simply remembering to do a habit, we get to go deeper. When it’s time to root a habit, we can ask God to help us expand our Bible reading, choose a different verse to pray over our kids, or invite our kids into more intentional worship.

Linking different kinds of faith habits together will help your kids connect the different aspects of their faith and strengthen their faith journey.

Starting one little habit can grow into a strong foundation of faith for your kids. God takes our little steps and extends them, through his mighty power, into an incredible journey over time. As my kids grow, I know their faith life will look a bit different from mine, but I trust God to continue to lead me deeper as I lead them into a well-rooted faith. Eventually, they might end up leading me as well.

SO, HOW DO WE ROOT A HABIT?

This free download offers three ways to make a habit stick—and keep it meaningful.

WATCH THE VIDEO