FAITH5

Last week, while on Facebook, I came across an article posted about FAITH 5.  After reading it, I was intrigued.  So much so that the very next day, I went to Scott's Parable to buy Dr. Rich Melheim's book entitled, "Holding Your Family Together - 5 Simple Steps to Help Bring Your Family Closer to God and Each Other."  Lengthy title, isn't it?  Especially for something as simple as five steps.  

The idea behind FAITH5 is a bedtime routine that helps boost faith by helping children to feel loved, valued, and heard.  It is a time of sharing, reading the Word, talking together, praying, followed by a blessing.  FAITH5 is not just beneficial for children of all ages but also for parents as it helps create a close-knit family.  

The FAITH5 follows the following steps:

Step 1: Sharing highs and lows of the day - I often put it in terms of the best part of your day and a not so happy part of your day, when I am sharing with my kids.

Step 2: Read a Bible verse or a Bible story together.  At first I thought this might be complicated to try to figure out which Bible verse or story to read but I should not have doubted God's direction.

Step 3: Discuss how your Bible verse or Bible reading might apply to what you have shared about the highs and lows from the day. Allowing God to speak into your life and the life of your child(ren). What a blessing! As children learn to problem solve based on God's Word and also see that all blessings come from Him.

Step 4: Pray for one another’s highs and lows. Thanking God for the blessings experienced in the day and also asking God to direct their path in dealing with the difficult situation they may be going through. It allows children to leave their concerns at the feet of Jesus so that they can sleep peacefully. One thing I haven't done yet that Melheim's suggests is to leave a quiet time of meditation to allow the Holy Spirit to work.

Step 5: Bless one another before turning out the lights. This blessing will reinforce a sense of security; a reminder that they are loved by you and God as they drift off to sleep. This is something I have done every night with my kiddos. I always say, "Sweet dreams. Sleep tight. I love you, my prince/princess. Good night." Often the kids will now repeat it back to me to say good night. So cute. I would like to begin implementing a Bible verse into this. Perhaps the verse that I chose for each of them as a theme verse before they were born.

It seemed simple enough for me to try. And I think that is why it works; because it is so simple. It only takes 10 minutes at bedtime. I have not read the book yet (I seem to have a number of books on the go right now) but I am excited to read it and dig deeper into how FAITH5 can be implemented.

Supposedly, Melheim also suggest beginning this bedtime routine with a fun pillow fight to help reduce stress and tire them out before settling into bed. I think that the kids would love this!

The first night that I tried the FAITH5, I was amazed at the sharing that happened with both Jaret and Kirra.  I did it separately with each of them at bedtime and they were both able to come up with a highlight from their day as well as something that bothered them in their day.  I loved having the opportunity to chat about these with them.  I remember Pastor Ian once talking about how at bedtime he would ask his children how their heart was.  It was a marker for him to help reinforce the love he had for them and to also right any wrongs that may have been to again show love.  The first night with Kirra, I needed to make things right as I had raised my voice with her earlier and this had hurt her feelings.  So an apology was necessary on my part.  But, it allowed me to model an apology and ensure that her heart was good.  For Jaret, it was dealing with a boy at school who was not being so kind to him.  As Jaret and I talked about some possible solutions to the problem, he felt better about the situation.  As we prayed, Jaret even prayed that he would be brave to know how to stand up to this boy.  And of course there were blessings that were shared that we could thank God for.  I also loved how Jaret took the lead in finding a few Bible verses to share and it made my heart proud to see him find the exact Bible verse he was looking for in his Bible.  We were able to discuss it and apply it to our highlights and low lights of the day.  I felt so blessed that first night to be able to try FAITH5 and see how easy it was and yet how meaningful and powerful it was.  We have been doing it regularly for the last week and I am excited to see the growth that we all experience as we continue to make this a part of our routine, especially as I read the book and gain more insight from Melheim.   Bedtime routines are one of my favourite parts of the day because it means cozy, cuddle time from my favourite, little people!  This will just be an added bonus.

"Train up a child in the way that he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6

I would love for you to try it out with your family.  Let me know how it goes.  Leave me a comment - I love comments!