You only need a few minutes to add these practices to your family’s very busy schedule.Faithful Families equips you to create each exercise in your home. You have all the training you need!Faithful Families’s practices are simple, containing step-by-step instructions and materials lists. Each practice also contains variations to accommodate different family situations as well as notes to ensure success. Here are just a few of the faith practices in Faithful Families: Bedtime BlessingMorning InspirationChristmas & Easter TraditionsBirthday TraditionsCeremonies for the First Day of School and Getting a Driver’s LicenseAlternative ways to pray such as prayer beads and a prayer walkAncient spiritual practices like lectio divina and the labyrinthAnd many more! There are over 50 practices in all. Traci Smith Traci Smith spent nearly two decades helping families find meaningful connections in living their faith together. She is the author of three Chalice Press books: Faithful Families, Faithful Families for Advent and Lent, and Fatihful Families for Lent, Easter, & Resurrection. She pastors a congregation in suburban Chicago. Faithful Families Creating Sacred Moments at Home Add family faith moments to your daily routine with little or no prep, and share meaningful spiritual experiences with your children! Traci Smith, a pastor and mother of three, offers ways to discover and develop new spiritual practices as a family, whether you're a new seeker or a lifelong follower. Faithful Families is brimming with more than 50 easy, do-it-yourself ideas for transforming your family’s everyday moments into sacred moments By Traci Smith Foreword by Rachel Held Evans Smartphone Prayers When I was in the beginning stages of promoting the first edition of this book, I had the opportunity to present the ideas in the book at the Faith Forward conference, an annual conference for imaginative and creative children’s and youth ministry leaders. If you ever have the chance to attend, I highly recommend it. At that conference I learned a version of this very special prayer from Lilly Lewin, who calls herself a curator of “free range worship.” The thing I love most about this practice is how it uses the smartphone as a tool to bring focus to the prayer rather than seeing it as a distraction. I often hear parents ask, “How can I get my teen off of his/her phone?” This practice teaches how to use technology in service of spiritual practice rather than against it. Designed for Ages 10+ Materials Smartphone with at least 15 minutes of battery life remaining (preferably one smartphone per participant) Time Investment: 5–10 minutes How To: 1. For this practice, one family member will act as the leader, and others will be participants. Rotate who serves as the leader in order to give everyone a chance to participate in the prayer. 2. The leader will call everyone together and explain the Smartphone Prayer. Say, “This prayer moves through five different activities on our smartphones. Each is one minute long. I will tell you what to do for each activity and then start my timer. When the timer rings, look up at me and listen for the next mission.” 3. Go through the five missions as follows, making sure the leader sets his/her timer after each instruction and calls everyone back together before presenting the next mission: • Minute One: Go to your text messages and take a look at the last five people in the recent messages, whether they are people you text regularly or people you don’t know at all. Take this minute to pray for each of the five people listed there. • Minute Two: Go to a news app or website and take a minute to scroll through the headlines. Pray for what jumps out at you as a prayer need this day. • Minute Three: Go to the notepad and spend this minute typing out whatever comes to mind: praise, gratitude, confession, or requests to God. • Minute Four: Go to your favorite social media site and spend this minute praying for the people who come up on your feed during this minute. • Minute Five: Go to your photos. Take this moment to scroll through the most recent twenty or so photos. What prayers come to mind? Lift them up to God now. 4. Follow up: After the five-minute prayer is over, take a couple of minutes to talk about the activity together using one or more of the following questions: • Was there anything surprising or unusual that you heard from God when you were using your cell phone to pray today? • What was the most important prayer that came through today? • How can we incorporate this attitude of prayer as we use our smartphones throughout the week? • In your opinion, does technology draw us closer to God or farther away? Talk a little about your opinion. Notes • Though this practice aims to use technology as a tool for fostering and encouraging spiritual practice, I still strongly encourage the practice of turning off or unplugging from electronic devices. The Lenten fasting from technology practice in chapter 2 is appropriate for use year round. All of the practices in Faithful Families can be enhanced by putting technology away while the practices are enjoyed. Certain practices are particularly suited for putting technology away. Variations • This practice is well suited to become an “add on” practice to other practices in Faithful Families or a part of a daily family or individual routine. Try running through the Smartphone Prayer for five minutes before dinner, and then putting phones away for the remainder of dinner. For another variation, start the day with the prayer as a reminder to not let the phone dictate the day. • Instead of using one phone per person, use one phone per family. • Add different elements to the prayer that incorporate other often used apps on your smartphone.
✔ Author(s): Traci Smith
✔ Title: Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home
✔ Rating : 4.7 out of 5 base on (206 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0827211228
✔ ISBN-13: 9780827211223
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Faithful Families by Traci Smith
Beata Shepard
The plot twists were executed masterfully. I was left gasping at every unexpected turn, and the suspense kept me on edge throughout. Bravo to the author for keeping me guessing.
Virginia Savage
The world created in this book was unlike anything I've ever encountered. The author's imagination knows no bounds, and I was completely mesmerized by the fantastical setting.
Tasha Cobbett
The author's ability to evoke a wide range of emotions through their words is truly remarkable. I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the entire book.
