If you want your family to be more spiritual, you’ll need to prioritize your spiritual time together. This means setting aside specific amounts of time during the day to practice and/or discuss your beliefs. Prayers before bedtime, meals, or the work day are a great place to start, but there are other ways, too.
These five simple tips will help you build a familial routine that includes spirituality and prayer. Prayer helps bring families and people together, providing a ticket to higher spiritual experiences and appealing to our nature as humans to seek out higher powers. Let’s look closer at some of the ways you can incorporate spirituality into your family’s daily routine.
1. Pray At Bedtime
One of the simplest ways to ensure spirituality on a daily basis is to say prayers before bed. This doesn’t have to mean only with your children, either. You can say prayers before bed for adults with your significant other, a sibling, or even a grandparent. Bedtime prayers aren’t strictly limited to children!
Before bed, you can be thankful for all of the great blessings you’ve experienced during the day and have to look forward to in the coming days and months. Did you get a new promotion? Did you make it home on time for dinner? Is everyone in good health and happiness? These are certainly things to be thankful for. Practicing gratitude can make you a more humble, empathetic, and caring person.
You don’t have to focus on just the big things, either. There’s a common misconception that you should always be thankful for big changes or opportunities, and while that’s true, don’t forget small wins. Maybe you made more money than usual this month. That’s something to give thanks about! Or maybe your car hasn’t had a problem in many months even though it’s old and beaten down. That’s also a win to be thankful for. You can pray about anything, and be grateful for anything as well.
2. Pray Before Meals
The practice of praying before a meal goes back centuries. In fact, early Christians and even Hebrews would pray before and after a meal. You can pray to be thankful for the bounty of food before you, or just to bring more spirituality into your family and home. You could say a blessing, ask for good health and nourishment for your meal—the possibilities are endless.
You don’t have to say any specific prayers before meals, but some common Christian variations are:
“Bless us, Oh Lord,
and these thy gifts,
which we are about to receive,
from thy bounty,
through Christ, Our Lord.”
and
“For food in a world where many walk in hunger;
For faith in a world where many walk in fear;
For friends in a world where many walk alone;
We give you thanks, O Lord.”
If you practice another religion or spiritual path, you’ll likely have your own variations. As long as you’re praying at least once before the meal, you’ll increase the level of spirituality within your family every time you eat.
3. Make Sure To Schedule Family Time
Many families don’t set aside time to talk with one another. In the age of social media, electronics, and smartphones, it’s becoming less and less common to find families that truly bond. The way we communicate with each other has a huge impact on the strength of our family and community bonds, and social media has changed everything when it comes to communication.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re scheduling family time at least a few times per week. That way, you can catch up with what everyone is doing and get to know your family members a little better.
Family time is also the perfect time to discuss spirituality. Maybe there’s a story you’ve really been wanting to tell your children, or you want to talk to your teenager about their own spiritual beliefs. Family time can be a quick twenty minutes in the evening or an all-day affair, it’s really up to you.
4. Organize Games
Integrating spirituality in the family can be also done with different fun activities. Your children will appreciate the unique approach and your open-mindedness to spiritual life. There are many fun activities and outdoor games for youth groups you can organize and include in your daily life. Dedicate just once a week or so and see how the fun games can make it easier and pleasant to incorporate spirituality. The games will provide your family with both spiritual and physical pursuits and they will surely be grateful to you.
5. Use A Prayer Reminder App
Sometimes, you just forget about your spirituality in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and that’s ok. That’s why there are Prayer reminder apps available to help remind you to pray. You can also find things like meditation, mindfulness, and gratitude apps if you follow a different spiritual path. These will help send you notifications throughout the day with prayers you can say, friendly reminders, and other things to keep your spirituality blooming.
Not sure about prayer reminder apps? Try using a calendar instead. Your phone likely has a calendar app pre-installed, and you can usually set reminders and events within the calendar and get a notification when it’s approaching.
6. Connect With Others Over The Web and Social Media
Social media is something of a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it’s detrimental to relationships because it can cause feelings of isolation, depression, and more. On the other, it’s helpful, because it allows us to connect with a greater number of like-minded people—even people that may not be in our general vicinity.
There are hundreds of prayer and spirituality groups online that you can join and participate in. Connecting with others can expand your spiritual family and bring your family members into a new experience akin to going to church or some other spiritual gathering. It’s also good for social distancing!
Keeping Your Spirituality
It’s sometimes difficult to keep up your spirituality in our fast-paced world, but keeping your family together may depend on how often you come together under the unity of your faith. Remember that healthy families have good communication and set aside time for each other! Use this time to discuss issues and to bring spirituality into the discussion as well.
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