Have you ever felt fear or anxiety about talking about the Bible or other faith topics with your kids?
Have you avoided making discipleship a focus in your home because it felt too awkward to even get started?
If you’ve been there before, welcome! This post is written with you in mind.
This post is all about how to overcome fear and actually start teaching your kids about God. Let’s dive in!
Do you need a resource to use to teach your kids the Bible? Download the NEW Attributes of God 30-Day Family Devotional!
From Awkward to Awesome: 4 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Talking to Your Kids about Faith
One of the biggest obstacles to Christian parents raising kids who also become Christians is fear.
And it’s not just one fear. It’s lots of them.
It’s the fear of doing something new.
It’s the fear that you might be bad at teaching your kids the Bible.
It’s the fear that if you try to incorporate some sort of Bible time into your day or if you try to talk about a Bible verse with your kids that it will be awkward.
It’s the fear that you won’t know enough and that you won’t be able to answer your kids’ questions.
It’s the fear that you might be perceived as judgmental or pushy, like you’re trying to force your beliefs on them or like you’re going to be pointing out all their flaws.
It’s the fear that you will try to have spiritual conversations with your kids and they just won’t be interested or won’t be able to focus on it.
It’s the fear that your kids will be the weird ones if this becomes a priority for your family – that you’ll miss out on all the fun stuff you’re currently doing and replace it with something that might feel restrictive.
I could keep going.
I think at our core, most of us can identify with several of those fears – we feel a responsibility to teach our kids about God, but we also feel a lot of negative emotions about that responsibility.
And we allow those fears to stop us from making any attempts to prioritize God in our daily lives and in our schedules.
In this post, I’m going to try to outline some strategies for you that will help you move past your fears, whatever they may be.
- First, I think it’s important that we all acknowledge our fears and actually name what they are.
- Second, we need to pray about and against our fears.
- Third, we need to start using the words “yet” and “for now” when we think about and talk about discipling our kids.
- And fourth, we need to commit to being learners alongside our kids.
Let’s talk first about acknowledging our fears and naming them.
How many times have you heard a pastor talk about how important it is for parents to actually teach their kids the Bible at home? To talk about spiritual things with them? To pray with their kids?
We’ve all heard those sermons or seen messages like that on social media, and we instantly feel convicted.
We want our kids to embrace Jesus because we have embraced Jesus. We want our kids to believe in Jesus because we believe in Jesus.
But to view ourselves as the ones responsible for helping our kids do that? No thank you, that sounds hard.
That’s why we have our kids in kids church or a small group or whatever our church offers, right? Because the church staff members are experts, and they actually know how to teach the Bible. That’s their role.
But it can’t be only their role. There are too many kids in the room with too few experts to teach them. There are too few hours actually spent in church compared to the amount of hours our kids spend at home with us.
It’s our job to explain to our kids who Jesus is and what He’s done for them.
And if that gives you an immediate sense of anxiety, you owe it to your kids to examine that and decide what fears you have about this idea of teaching your kids who God is or leading them spiritually.
Acknowledging your fears is an important step toward overcoming those fears. When you can acknowledge what exactly you’re feeling, you can begin to unravel the complex web of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that you’ve found yourself in.
You’ll be able to assess those fears and make a decision about how to target each one, or even which ones to dismiss outright.
Acknowledging your fears helps you take action. If you stop at that first thought of “No thank you, that sounds hard” and never examine it further, you fall into a pattern of avoidance. But when you list out what you’re afraid of and and face that list head on, you’ll be that much closer to taking real action.
And that’s what this first strategy is really about – taking action to start teaching our kids about God rather than leaving it to someone else.
If you don’t already have it, download the Quick Start Guide to Family Bible Time. That guide will walk you through the process of naming what’s been holding you back from really making it a priority to teach your kids how to follow Jesus. And it comes with 10 free family devotions you can use to get started having spiritual conversations with your family right away.
Now let’s talk about prayer – specifically how prayer can move you forward in teaching your kids about God.
Prayer is extremely powerful in moving us from a state of fear to a state of action.
If you’re realizing right now that you haven’t been putting enough effort into leading your kids spiritually, then prayer will help you.
If you’re realizing right now that you have been letting fear and anxiety and potential awkwardness stop you from having spiritual conversations in your home, then prayer is what you need.
You can take whatever fear you have, and you can give it to the Lord.
You can literally say those words – “God, I don’t know what to do about it, I know I need to do something, and I’m giving it to You. Please help me.”
And He will help you.
My favorite story in the Old Testament is from 2 Chronicles 20. In that chapter, three armies come up against Jehoshaphat, who is the king of Judah at the time. He gathers the people and he prays this amazing prayer. And at the end of it, he just says, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” Other translations say, “We don’t know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.”
God comes through and they win the battle without ever even having to fight. It’s a really great story, but the part that I have always gone back to is this prayer.
There are so many situations in my life that I don’t know what to do about, and it’s not often that I pray the way Jehoshaphat prayed.
What if you took the fears that you feel toward trying to teach your kids about God and raising them in a godly way and instead of slipping into avoidance, you prayed about it?
What if you made it a focus of prayer for yourself for as long as it took?
I know that if you do that, God will help you.
Now let’s talk about using the words “yet” and “for now” when we think about and talk about discipling our kids.
Even if you’ve named the things you’re afraid of or the things that make you hesitant to prioritize actively leading your kids spiritually, and even if you’ve committed to praying about those things, you might still feel some hesitation.
And this is where the words “yet” and “for now” come in.
I’m going to show you what I mean.
- I tried bringing up God with my kids and it felt super awkward … for now.
- Memorizing Scripture is important, but it doesn’t feel natural … yet.
- My kids aren’t interested in talking about God with me … yet.
- My kids think the Bible is boring … for now.
See how those little words can bring big changes and even hope to you as the person who is trying to figure this all out?
“Yet” and “for now” are small but mighty additions to work into your thinking about this stuff. They will be the lifelines you need to keep going when it gets hard.
Finally, let’s talk about being learners alongside our kids.
If you are not currently in the habit of having any sort of spiritual conversations with your kids, or you feel like the conversations you’re having need to go deeper, then this is new territory for you.
You do not have to be the expert. You can be a Christian who is learning alongside your children.
Yes, you’re probably further ahead in your faith.
But that doesn’t mean you have to be the furthest ahead you can possibly be before you start teaching your kids what it means to follow Jesus, what it looks like to follow Jesus, and why they should follow Jesus.
And honestly, viewing yourself as a learner takes some of the pressure off, doesn’t it?
Someone who is a learner can say, “Hmm, I don’t know. Let me look it up and get back to you on that.”
Someone who is a learner can say, “Hey, I remember telling you how to handle a situation in this way, but I’ve been reading the Bible and now I think I should have told you something different to do.”
Someone who is a learner can try one way of incorporating the Bible into their daily routine and feel the freedom to make changes if it’s not working. The same freedom applies to how that person goes about teaching their kids about God.
Someone who is a learner knows that not every day as a spiritual leader to their kids is going to be an A+ day, and they keep at it anyway.
If you allow yourself to be a learner who keeps at it until it becomes less scary and more natural, you’ll get it done.
Ok, let’s go over those strategies again.
- First, acknowledge your fears and actually name what they are.
- Second, pray about and against your fears.
- Third, start using the words “yet” and “for now” when you think about and talk about discipling your kids.
- And fourth, commit to being a learner alongside your kids.
Take Action to Teach Your Kids the Bible (Even If You Feel Fear About It)
We’re going to wrap up with an action step you can take today.
Today’s action step is to grab that Quick Start Guide to Family Bible Time or grab a piece of paper and jot down what things worry you about trying to teach your kids about God. Whatever your fears are, just get them out on paper.
Then I want you to write out an answer to each of them.
So for example, if you write down that you’re afraid it’s going to be awkward, maybe the answer you write out for it is that “it’s too important not to try, even though it might be awkward.” Or your answer to that might be “it won’t be awkward forever, just at the beginning.”
I would absolutely love to know what ends up on your list and what you write out as answers to push away those fears! Just drop it into the comments on this post.
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Do you need a resource to use to teach your kids the Bible? Download the NEW Attributes of God 30-Day Family Devotional!