The Beginning     of Our Family Devotions

Our family devotions started when Hui Meng had to fulfull an assignment as part of her Master of Arts program at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Hui-Meng Wong
Box #1720
Course 752
Activity 2

A Summary of Our Family Devotions
My husband, Alan and I tried to have family devotions at least once very two weeks with our two preschoolers, Yipeng (4-year-old) and Yizhong (3-year-old). During the family devotions, Alan or I would tell the Bible story which is then followed by a short prayer time.

Our theme for the semester was character studies of people in the Old Testament. We used the Gospel Light Sunday School curriculum as a guide. We also used pictures from the “Word of Life” series.

In each devotion, we tried to make it interesting and we got the children involved in the story in different ways. The following is a list of topics covered during our devotions

1. God chooses Gideon
   
   We put tiny bits of paper (for grain husks) on trays for the boys to shake. This was done to show them how grains were normally winnowed in contrast to the way Gideon did it.
   
   
2. God helps Gideon
   
   We got trays filled with water for the boys to lick like dogs and bowls filled with water for them to bend down and scoop up the water with their hands. In doing so, we were trying to show them how Gideon’s men drank the water.
   
   
3. Samson, the strong man
   
   We used many long strips of paper stapled to caps for the boys to wear so that they can pretend to be Samson with long hair.
   
   
4. Samson and Delilah
   
   We put strings around the boys as we describe the Philistines tying up Samson.
   
   
5. Hannah’s prayer
   
   Alan acted as Hannah and showed how she prayed without making any sounds.
   
   
6. Samuel listens to God
   
   We let the children act as Samuel and they responded the way Samuel did. We used the example of Eli’s loose discipline of his sons to show them the necessity of parental discipline.
   
   
7. The fate of Eli and his sons
   
   Alan set up tents for the “Holy of Holies” and used props for the inner court and outer court, the table of showbread and the altar. The children pretended to be the high priest going into the “Holy of Holies” which they thoroughly enjoyed because they were inside the tent. Then Alan showed them how Eli fell backwards and died.

Overall, we are glad that the children enjoyed the sessions. We tried to keep the stories brief because of their short attention span. We found that the children enjoyed the participation most and that they could remember some of the things they’ve learnt. We were especially happy that the boys look forward to the family devotions and they were excited to get involved in the story. We hope to continue making Bible stories interesting for them in our future family devotions.

Remarks from grader: Sounds like you had a great time with this. I’m glad you chose this project.