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Generally within a congregation you will find many families that teach Bible class, hold meetings in your home or have people over frequently, participate in “work days” at the church building, help with the weekly church bulletin, etc …
With the arrival of new children, it’s been a little hard to get back into the rhythm we had pre-adoption. My husband serves as one of the deacons for the local congregation we attend, so we participate in home Bible studies, in addition to any number of things our family might be called upon to do. Today, I explained to our newest arrivals that by being a deacon, Daddy is a helper, and by extension, we’re helpers, too. The children were really excited at the prospect of being “helpers” and I anticipate that we’ll shortly be back to full throttle in church activities.
Ideas for serving as a family:
Hospitality: Having people into your home is a great way to serve others as a family. The children can help prepare and serve the meal with age-appropriate jobs. Additionally, it allows them a way to learn more formal table manners, and helps them get to know new people in a safe setting.
Cleaning the church building: I create the weekly church bulletin and when we go to the building to copy it off, my oldest son straightens the hymnals in the pews, and picks up any stray papers, etc. Since arriving home with the new children, hubby dashes out to copy off the bulletins sans the kids, but this would be a good activity to re-introduce.
Volunteer: I’ve looked for opportunities to box groceries for the local food bank, or something similar, but generally they have certain age restrictions. We’ve done some charitable knitting (I taught my son to knit, and he and I taught hubby how!), and my son remembers visiting nursing homes with us as a toddler!
Give: At the congregation my children attending prior to the adoption, the kids collected change for the local children’s home, and to purchase Bibles for children in foreign countries. She was very proud of this effort and while we were there for the finalization, showed me the wall where they pasted up paper Bibles to represent all the Bibles they were able to send! Children can clean their closets and their toy boxes and donate usable clothing and toys they’ve outgrown, to benefit other children in need.
Serving others as a family helps give meaning to the sermons they hear at services. Putting those words into action help children to think of others, and makes for concrete application of what might be abstract concepts.
All children can do something, and, like my children, will usually get excited at the thought of being “helpers”!
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I love that you get your kids involved in charitable work. It is often therapy without the therapy! I had an idea id like to share with you and your readers. I have 8 children making it hard to donate much time away from home. You can be a friend of CASA by helping to promote CASA, setting up booths at events, making coffee for their meetings, or stuffing stockings at Christmas time. As foster and adoptive parents we know the importance of having CASA and to keep giving our children a voice. You can vist the CASA web site at
http://www.nationalcasa.org
Thanks for the suggestion, yestheirmine (cute screen name, BTW!). CASA is an awesome organization and one I had always wanted to volunteer for personally as an advocate, but never had the time for. You are right, though, you don’t necessarily need to serve as an advocate in order to help!