Developing Your Children's Faith Through Meals ~ Shabbat



10 years ago, when our children were about 10 and 12 years old, we began a new family tradition, that of celebrating an evening meal once a week, which would be dedicated to God and signal the end of the working week and the start of our Sabbath rest. It would be along the lines of the Erev Shabbat meal which Jewish families have on Friday night but, for us, it would be on Saturday nights.

 

The idea was that this would be time for our family to rest in God's presence and talk about the things of God, not the world. We didn't keep it 'religiously'; there was always flexibility. If one or other of us had pressing engagements elsewhere then it wouldn't happen, but we tried to keep it a tradition, even through the turbulent teenage years. It was sometimes a struggle, often because I was overworked and stressed, but the prayers and the deep breaths between the various elements of the meals helped me to unwind and appreciate God's many blessings to us as a family.

 

The essential elements of the meal we have are:

• 2 white candles,
• salt in a small bowl,
• 2 loaves of bread covered with a white cloth
• a meal cooked and ready to go and
• a bottle of red wine.

 

The table is ready

There are many 'scripts' you can use, but the one we developed over the years involved several elements:

• Mother lighting the candles and blessing her family
• Thanking God for the Sabbath
• Father blessing the children
• Husbands praising their wives (this embarrassed me, but was good for me)
• Thanking God for the wine
• Thanking God for the bread
• Dipping the bread in the salt
• Talking about what God is doing in our lives

After a few years, we dispensed with the ritual pouring of water over each others' hands. we felt that this element was unnecessary for us. For the first few years, I would bake my own Chollah, but it became a bit of burden, so now I buy some really good, interesting bread. (We can't get chollah here, but we have things like olive or walnut bread instead.)

 

One of the hardest things about the weekly meal was to keep the conversation Godly. It was always so easy to want to turn our talk towards 'affairs of the world.'

 

Although this was mainly for our family, we sometimes invited others. Sometimes another family, but more often, the children's friends. Our Daughter-In-Law, Damaris, came several times, once recently being 'mother' and lighting the candles.

 

Our Shabbat meals were always looked forward to and is still something we do as often as we can. One day, I hope to have Skype up and link the Oxfordshire and Aberdeenshire families during a shabbat meal. That would be fun!

 

The end of a long week!

 

Now, Dear Daughter, I am describing what we did, not because you need to emulate this particular family tradition, but to show you one way that your family's faith could be developed through mealtimes.

 

You will surely initiate your own family traditions and whatever they are, they will be perfect for you. I'd love to hear about yours some time!

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.