D-1: Jesus Calls

In order for our children to find God's purpose for their lives, to make Him their hub and central focus from which all other things function, they must first understand that He called them to be disciples.

I picked up a book called Story Thru the Bible which provides stories and discussion questions around a myriad of key learnings and lessons in the bible.  Kids learn by stories and repeating stories, in fact, they really love to tell stories.  Just the other night my daughter had a new, sweet friend stay the night for the first time and our dinner table was filled with stories.  Emma would tell a story about our dog and then her friend would tell a story about her dog and then grandma's dog and then the stories morphed into things about family life and vacations.  It was an insightful way for them to get to know each other and the events that took place before they came into each other's lives.  There are details in stories that change the listeners perception and this provides the opportunity for kids to learn many things from the same story while committing the story to memory.  How cool would it be if our kids moved through life telling the stories of God?  Radical, as a dear friend of mine would say!

So I began a discipleship journey with my kids and what follows is a synopsis of lesson one: Jesus Calls.  So we begin in Luke 5:1-11.  This passage is the point in scripture where Jesus calls Simon Peter, James and John to be His disciples.  A brief overview: Jesus was teaching the crowds and so many had gathering he had to get into a boat (Simon Peter's boat) and cast out a little way so more people could see and hear Him.  When He finished, He came ashore and told Simon Peter, James, and John to put their nets out again.  They had previously experienced a bad day of fishing and were doubtful as to why to repeat a previous failure, but they put their nets out and came up with a huge catch, so much so their nets were tearing. Then, Jesus calls them to follow Him and they leave everything behind and follow Him.

I asked my kids a lot of questions about the story, many from the Story Thru the Bible book itself.  Through the questions we were able to dive into the detail of the story.  Here is a sampling:
-Why were the crowds following Jesus?
-Why would He get into the boat?  Who's boat was it?
-Do you think Simon Peter was concerned about his boat?
-Had Simon Peter had a good fishing day?  What do you think he thought when Jesus asked him to put his nets back in?  Did he doubt?
-What does 'leave everything behind' mean?  What if Daddy had to do exactly that?

A fun discussion ensued, we even talked about the size of the Sea of Galilee.  We circled back to discipleship, what does it mean to be a disciple?  We each have a 'discipleship journal', so we opened them and wrote what the kids said it meant to be a disciple.  They said we show God's love and care, we read the bible, and we commit love actions, which is our family's umbrella for the fruits of the spirit in action.  Fruits of the spirit led me to John 15.  If we are to be disciples and commit love actions to show the world we are disciples, we have to get our nourishment from God.  Just as we need food and water, the branch of a plant needs the center, or the vine, to feed it.  We cannot grow to be disciples without spending time getting food from the vine.  We drew a picture of a branch, vine and soil in our journals and talked about Jesus being our vine and source.  We wrote John 15:5 in our journals as our memory verse.
"I am the vine; you are the branches,  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing."

In closing, each of my kids retold the story of Jesus calling the disciples and then we retold it again throughout the week.  I shared with them two more scriptures that underscored what we had talked about, they wrote their locations in their journals and we talked about what they meant in terms of being disciples of Jesus.
2 John 1:9: "Anyone who does not remain in Christ's teaching but goes beyond it does not have God.  The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son."
Proverbs 27:19: "As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person."

What a sweet discussion!  Be real with your kids, it is not easy to be a disciple.  But we know and believe that God is our vine and we must train ourselves to find our source there, in Him.  I want people to see Jesus in my children, I desire for them to live in His peace and joy regardless of what situation they are in, so I will persevere in discipling them and look for times He provides to talk to them about the topic of being a disciple.  They are tasked with looking at their journal each night to remind them that Jesus called them.

I would love to hear from anyone who tries this!  What did your kids say?  Did God move?  He will, you know!

By His Grace