Sermonette: Let's Huddle Up in Faith! Part V

Over the past weeks, I’ve shared about a simple five-step nightly faith practice called FAITH5.

FAITH5 is a nightly ritual that helps families grow closer to one another and to God, one night at a time. All that benefit and it only takes just a few minutes! Each night at bedtime, families “Huddle Up” to check in. Here are the five steps of the FAITH5 Home Huddle:

1. SHARE your highs and lows

2. READ a Bible verse or story

3. TALK about how the Bible verse might relate to your highs and lows

4. PRAY together

5. BLESS one another with the sign of the cross

Over these eight weeks, we are delving deep into the blessing that comes from each of the five steps of FAITH5. This week, we consider step four – PRAY for one another’s highs and lows.

Each night, following the sharing of highs and lows, families open their Bibles and read from God’s word. Then they ask the sometimes hard, but always important question, “What is God trying to say to us through this Scripture verse?” Once you have wondered aloud together and sought God’s wisdom, we move on to step four, which is to pray.

Step four involves praying a short but specific prayer for each person, offering thanks for their high of the day, and then asking the Lord’s help for them with their low of the day. Dr. Rich Melheim, creator of FAITH5 states, “Step four provides parents an opportunity to teach their kids a valuable stress-busting skill. In laying down all their worries before the Lord in prayer, children are taught, one night at a time, that they can rest in the One who created them and is on duty all night long.”

Doing FAITH5 just before bedtime helps children sleep more peacefully, having committed their concerns to God. Melheim adds that praying about problems right before bed invites the Holy Spirit to work in your child’s subconscious mind and provide solutions while they sleep.

Helpful Tips:

Take turns leading the prayer or write a family prayer together. Ask everyone to pray for the person on their right. End with the Lord’s Prayer or your own traditional bedtime prayer. Offer the names of those on your church’s prayer list. Out of ideas? Google “evening prayers” being sure to add each person’s individual highs and lows before closing in Jesus’ name. When we raise our children in a home where we daily turn to God in prayer with the best and worst of our days, we model for them a life of trust in God’s goodness and provision.

So, that is step four. Simple and powerful. Consider huddling up with your family tonight to share steps one through four of FAITH5. You might learn something about your child’s life and heart. You might be encouraged by God’s word. And you will certainly find solace in laying all your cares before God in prayer. Commit to it for seven days and see what happens. What do you have to lose? Time? No. Your time is not lost or wasted. It is invested, invested in God’s preferred future for your family.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 - And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

To learn more about FAITH5 Home Huddles, go to http://www.faith5.org