We live in a culture that glories in the novel. The latest and the newest are prized as the best. We are always looking for the next new thing and as a result many churches are always chasing after that next new thing. After all, if the novel is prized then shouldn’t we use it to learn the faith.
But I don’t think that’s the most effective way to learn the faith. I believe that it is the old ways that are actually far more effective in training up our children.
Here is the problem. The old ways are almost completely opposed to the new and the novel.
The new ways are exciting, seemingly always fresh. The old ways are, in a lot of ways, repetitive and seemingly old hat. But here is the secret. There is a steadfast perseverance in the repetitive that you won’t find in the novel.
One of the things I’ll always remember about my Dad is his steadfast repetition. He woke up at the same time every morning. He ate the same thing for breakfast every morning with only slight variations. He worked the same job for 30 years and only changed jobs when the company he worked for went out of business. That may seem dull to some, but he provided for our family. I didn’t understand it then but I do now. His steadfast repetition was a faithful love that we could rely on. Now, with the change of jobs he doesn’t have to wake up at 4:45 am.
There’s nothing thrilling about that. But that repetitive steadfast man could be counted on by his family in any circumstance that came our way. And he’s the same way today.
Rather than seeing this repetition of life as something that is boring we should view it as a faithfulness that will bear fruit you won’t get from always attempting to do something new.
Our Family Worship
Our family devotions are a lot of repetition.
- We pray the Lord’s Prayer together.
- We recite the Apostle’s Creed. Sometimes one of the kids does it, sometimes we do this together.
- We sing a psalm or a hymn.
- When learning a new psalm we talk about what it means very briefly. This is usually done one stanza at a time. We use this time to talk about Christmas during Advent. We read other passages of Scripture together and talk about them as well.
- We sing the psalm we’re learning if we’re learning one. If not we skip this step.
- We discuss and sing the Catechism. (Catechisms is a memorized question and answer. The most famous example is likely, “What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”)
Now, if you examine that list there is nothing really that is new or novel in it. And, there’s a lot of repetition. But why would we choose to do that?
I have a few answers to that right now. These are the reasons that my wife and I discussed most concerning our family worship. It is very likely that as the years go by we will have more. But for now, there are only a few.
It’s The Way That Children Learn
Our society has moved away from this concept in a lot of ways. There are stages in the development of a child’s brain that makes repetition massively important.
Dorothy Sayers lecture “The Lost Tools of Learning” explains this very well.
My views about child psychology are, I admit, neither orthodox nor enlightened. Looking back upon myself (since I am the child I know best and the only child I can pretend to know from inside) I recognize three states of development. These, in a rough-and- ready fashion, I will call the Poll-Parrot, the Pert, and the Poetic–the latter coinciding, approximately, with the onset of puberty. The Poll-Parrot stage is the one in which learning by heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age, one readily memorizes the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere accumulation of things. The Pert age, which follows upon this (and, naturally, overlaps it to some extent), is characterized by contradicting, answering back, liking to “catch people out” (especially one’s elders); and by the propounding of conundrums. Its nuisance-value is extremely high. It usually sets in about the Fourth Form. The Poetic age is popularly known as the “difficult” age. It is self-centered; it yearns to express itself; it rather specializes in being misunderstood; it is restless and tries to achieve independence; and, with good luck and good guidance, it should show the beginnings of creativeness; a reaching out towards a synthesis of what it already knows, and a deliberate eagerness to know and do some one thing in preference to all others. Now it seems to me that the layout of the Trivium adapts itself with a singular appropriateness to these three ages: Grammar to the Poll-Parrot, Dialectic to the Pert, and Rhetoric to the Poetic age.
Our children are 4 and 6 years old. They would be within the realm of what she calls the “Poll-Parrot” stage. It is a stage where learning is relatively easy and fun. Memorizing things is incredibly easy as well, especially in comparison to later in life.
We see this with our children. We sometimes have to break up fights between the kids at the table because they both want to recite to us “The Lord’s Prayer”, answers from the Catechism, or the new portion of the “Apostle’s Creed” we’ve been working on. They are desiring to show us what they’ve learned. And, even though we have to deal with the heart issue of cutting each other off and being rude, it is a joy to see them wanting to learn and memorize these great truths.
It’s not easy. The kids don’t always want to do it, but they are learning the great truths of the Faith. And, this great amount of repetition will lead children to know truths that they work out and make their own in later stages of their development.
This morning my heart was warmed as our son prayed for us by reciting the Lord’s Prayer because when Jesus’s disciples asked how to pray He gave them that prayer.
It Gives Hooks To Hang Great Truths On
My daughter asked me, seemingly randomly, where Jesus currently is. Well, she already knew the answer but didn’t know that she knew the answer. Our conversation went like this.
Lydia: Daddy, where is Jesus?
Me: Lydia, Jesus was crucified, died…. (I paused to see if she could get to the answer herself)
Lydia: and was buried; He descended to the dead. On the third day He rose again; He ascended into Heaven….
Me: Alright Lydia, where is Jesus now?
Lydia: He’s in to Heaven. (It was humorous to hear her say “in to”, so I just had to leave it here.)
Me: That’s right Lydia, you’re so smart.
I immediately praised God that we had been doing all of this repetitious work with the children day after day. Other similar instances have occurred with questions such as “Why can’t we see God?” which were answered from Catechism questions and answers. It’s just been absolutely beautiful to see the ease with which these great truths are discussed because of the previous work done in our Family Bible Studies.
It’s Good For Adults As Well As Children
It’s not as if we dig into all of this Scripture, sing psalms and hymns together, discuss great truths of God’s Word together and get nothing out of it. I have found myself enjoying and valuing this time more than I do anything that I do any Scripture reading that I do on my own. There is just something special about meeting as a family and doing this together.
I have memorized whole chapters of Psalms through our singing. I have caught myself singing them to myself throughout the day and I’m immediately caught up in what the song is about. At times, the catechism questions and answers are beneficial as I’m thinking through a topic. It ends up being as beneficial for me as it is my children.
I also find myself having to know the material better because I am teaching it to a 4 and 6-year-old. Have you ever thought about how well you have to know something in order to bring it down to the level of a 4-year-old. I know from experience that you have to master it better than when delivering it to an adult. This takes some mental work.
It Places Our Christianity In History
New and novel is oftentimes not good. And, as far as a belief system goes, I don’t want to be new and novel. Creeds have been used from the earliest days of the Church. Catechisms are very old…tried and true. Jesus sang the psalms when He was a little boy and on through adulthood. The Apostle’s Creed itself was in usage in the 300’s. It places us firmly in that ancient stream of Christianity.
It also places our faith itself in history. Look at the words of the creeds and you will notice that they are a statement of events in history. Both The Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed discusses Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrection in history.
In both ways this repetition roots us in something much older than ourselves. It roots us in the historic faith that is called Christianity. We are learning truths that have been learned for 1,000’s of years. We are also reciting these truths in ways that have been stated by millions of believers for nearly 2,000 years.
My children may not feel the significance of this yet. But one day, God willing, they will.
Repetition Seems To Be The Best Way For Us To Fulfill God’s Command To Parents
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. – Deuteronomy 6:5-7
Parenting is a massively important task in the Scriptures. Activites like Catechesis, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and Creeds have been used a lot through the ages. And the reason is simple. We are to be people who speak with our children constantly about God and His Word. We are to be teaching diligently, and at all times. This structured repetition gives the ability to teach truths and speak on them throughout the day as we reference the great truths that have already been memorized.
Trusting God All The Way
This is a tried and true method of teaching our children the faith, but I can hear the voices in my head of those people who think we’re crazy for this.
To this I answer only that my wife and I are trying our best to be obedient to God’s Word in how we raise our children. And we trust that God will one day give them new life and regenerate them so that they will take hold of these great truths. We are going to raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord and trust in God to bring them to Himself.
R. Dwain Minor
Leave a Reply