“82% of children whose parents talk about and practice their faith in the home go on to follow Jesus as adults.” -Sarah Cowan Johnson.
Sarah Cowan Johnson is a ministry trainer, consultant, coach, and author of Teach Your Children Well: A Step-by-Step Guide for Family Discipleship. She leads seminars for parents on family discipleship to help their children walk in the way of Jesus, and she is the cohost of The People of the Way podcast. Sarah served with the Evangelical Covenant Church as the executive pastor for Sanctuary Church in Providence, Rhode Island, where she and her husband live with their two sons.
During this episode, Sarah elaborates on the following key points to help parents guide their children to have everlasting faith:
- A visualizing priorities instructions chart can benefit parents trying to manage their children’s academic development, social development, extracurricular activities, and, most importantly, spiritual growth.
- Suggestions on how parents can repurpose their day to make time for family discipleship.
- God moments are moments when you become aware that God is initiating something with your child.
- Four steps to understand and guide children when having a God moment: Identify the moment, facilitate an encounter to help your child interact directly with God, clarify their beliefs, and encourage them to practice living out their encounter with God.
- The Up, In, Out, With directional guide can help families journey through their faith:
- Up: upward to be with Jesus – that intimacy and connection with the Holy Spirit.
- In: inward to become like Jesus – our sanctification and healing.
- Out: outward actions, to do what Jesus did – demonstrate and proclaim the good news to others.
- With: “with” ward” Jesus, follow Jesus together with a community.
- According to John Westerhof’s roadmap, the four stages of spiritual development: age 0-5 – the experiential stage; age 5-12 – the affiliative stage; age 12-18 – the searching stage; final stage – adult-owned faith.
Sarah’s resources: Teach Your Children Well: A Step-by-Step Guide for Family Discipleship, website, and Twitter.
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