faith

Filling the Home with Praise: Sing Hymns, Songs, & Spiritual Songs

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Filling our homes with praise to the Lord through song directs our hearts and our children's hearts to the One True God. As mothers, we can teach our children to make melody in our hearts to the Lord. It creates attitudes of thanksgiving and an environment of joy as we think upon the Lord.

When considering what songs to sing we need to be prudent in examining what the verses are really saying. Some seem good, but teach bad doctrine. Some seem uplifting, but are man-lifting, not God-lifting. Some songs are about achieving a moving feeling, but true songs of worship will be about glorifying God.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ”
— Colossians 3:16

If we are going to make melody with our hearts to the Lord it is important that our words and meditations are truthful about Him and His ways. Words mean things so it matters what we sing.

We teach a lot of hymns to our children, written by faithful, intellectual people of God. 

I wanted to pass along some hymns and songs that we love to sing with our children.

Favorite Hymns:

*note, I found classic versions of these hymns on YouTube to show the melody and lyrics. We honestly sing most of our songs without the music. I'd say we sing A Capella, but don't want you to think we are having a Pentataonix concert in our kitchen. ;) You can find more contemporary versions.

Memorizing Scripture and Doctrine with Song

Dana Dirksen is a musician with a heart for children to learn scripture and doctrine. She has many albums with easy fun tunes to help children (and their parents ;) memorize the Word and Truth.

“It is our prayer that this music will work in the minds and hearts of your children so that they can daily hear the great truths from Scripture. We want them to learn about their God and how he cares for them; we want them to learn to love him more.”
— Dana Dirksen

Hospitality: Learning to Engage in Meaningful Conversations

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Hospitality is an opportunity to bless others by showing them value as image bearers of the Lord. We get to serve people through provision of a basic need: food (yes please!) and through another way: sharing the truth and encouragement of the Gospel.

Hospitality is all about showing folks Jesus. I have a simple recipe for hospitality: food + meaningful conversation = hospitality. It doesn't have to be overboard or complicated. Invite someone over, serve them something to eat, and encourage them.

Check out Episode 11 of the SPFPodcast to learn more about a biblical view of hospitality!

One thing we've used in our home to get the ball rolling on meaningful conversations are napkin questions to get all guests involved. These little questions written on napkins give every guest the opportunity to share and be known in a welcoming way. And it's fun!

Check out this video to learn more!

Get free questions for your conversation starters!

Get 40 free questions to help practice meaningful conversations in your home.

Memorizing Scripture with Your Kids

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The Word of God is a living and active gift telling us the glory of God and His great rescue plan for us through Jesus Christ. The Word is a lamp to our feet, it exposes the yuck of our hearts and how to be made clean, it gives us instructions, encouragement, promises, and grows our knowledge of the One True God.

His Word is vital to live a flourishing life for us AND our children.

In Deuteronomy we are commanded to teach God's Word to our children so they might know Him, obey Him, and follow Him. It is our responsibility to teach our children and we have the opportunity to dazzle them with the glory of God through His Word and Truth every day.

Learn More About How To Memorize Scripture with Your Kids

Listen to Episode 9 of the She Proves Faithful podcast for truth, tips, and resources on getting Scripture into your home and hearts. The show notes also include an abundance of resources!

www.sheprovesfaithful.com/podcast/episode9

Ideas for Scripture Memory

  • Make it part of your daily routine to memorize or review Bible verses
  • Talk about verses you've memorized during the day to instruct and encourage
  • Pray scripture together before bedtime
  • Hang verses in the kitchen to review at meal times
  • Make up songs to help verses stick in young (and older) minds

Two Free Resources to Start Today!

Here is a simple verse to start or continue your scripture memory adventure: Ephesians 4:32

  • Print off the free printable verse and hang it up!
  • Talk about WHY we can be kind and forgive - because Jesus forgave us FIRST!
  • Learn the little ditty (in the video below or on the podcast episode 9) to help commit the verse to memory

Other questions to ask:

  • Why is it important to be kind to one another?
  • What does tenderhearted mean?
  • Why do we need forgiveness from God?
  • When it's hard to forgive someone what can we remember from this verse to help us?
  • Who can you be kind to today?
Start or grow your Scripture memory adventure with this FREE printable verse.

Start or grow your Scripture memory adventure with this FREE printable verse.

Memorize Ephesians 4:32 with this Song!

Check out our little song and hand motions that helped us commit Ephesians 4:32 to memory.

Listen to the SPF Podcast to hear more!