Deuteronomy 6: 7 (NLT)

“Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.”

In other words, teachable moments show up anytime, anywhere and as parents, our responsibility is to be alert and sensitive to both the nudge of the Holy Spirit as to the opportunity at hand, and also to keeping a listening ear for a God inspired answer.

I cannot overstate the importance of our attentiveness to God’s response rather than just to what might pop into our minds as a possible point of dialogue with our children.

In addition, I believe we seldom carry the conversation during our teachable moments into that stage of engaging where we intentionally refer to what the teachable moment shows us about God’s character.

Remember, there’s a big difference between our opinions and references to God’s attributes. Most important in this is that we, as parents, know God’s Word for ourselves as our Timeless Resource.

Psalm103:7, tells us that God revealed His character to Moses and His deeds to the people of Israel.  Remember Character and Deeds!!  Verse 8 reminds us that, “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.”  Verses like these are the kind we must know as well as we know our abc’s, so we have them as a ready resource in teaching our children not just about God’s deeds, or the usual Bible stories they hear – but that they would also come to know who God is – what He is like in His interaction with us.

Let’s make this more practical with an illustration from our son’s life.  Joshua was two when we moved to Hawaii, and one day when my husband and I were out snorkeling in a very deep part of the ocean, we looked up and saw our son in his orange life jacket bobbing up and down on the water!   The adults, in whose care we had left him, as the small sailing craft was tied up alongside the dock, had not noticed or heard when he fell over the trip wire and into the ocean.  Thankfully God, whom Psalm 121:3-4 says, ‘never slumbers nor sleeps’, saw every detail and sent Joshua’s personal angels to protect and save him from a tragic early death.  Talk about a teachable moment!  There were various ways we, as his parents, could have responded, including getting angry at the neglectful adults who had not kept their promise to us to watch our son.  We could have just told Joshua

a)    how fortunate he was that he didn’t drown = fact

b)    how important it is to always wear life vests when on water craft = fact

c)    we could have told Joshua that God sent angels to protect him = fact

But how much more important for him to know God better through this experience, as we assured Joshua of

d) God’s Trustworthiness = His Character

by teaching him what the Bible says about God’s Protective Nature as He tells us in Psalms like121 and Psalm 91, to name just two of multiple such references.

We further reinforced the teachable moment by reminding our son of the song he had been learning that week in Pre School called Jehoveh Jireh, which speaks about sending angels to take care of us.

Let’s look at another example ~ not quite as dramatic as the other, but none the less significant from our everyday lives.  As a family, we had been learning about sharing God’s love for people in practical ways and we felt He had whispered to us to make some cookies for our new elderly neighbors.  However, when we knocked at the door, our sweet smelling snicker doodles in hand, we, both parents and children were shocked when the door only opened a crack and a voice said, “Go away – we don’t want any – we don’t trust strangers!”

Again, our teachable moment could have just involved a set of facts:

a)    People all respond differently to acts of kindness

b)    Older people can often be overly cautious etc.

But the important aspect of the conversation with our kids was when we talked about how the situation could teach us about God and His perspective based on His Character.  With our children, we could read in the Bible from the familiar passages in 1Corinthians 13, for example vs. 4 “Love is patient and kind” and 1 John 4:16:“God is Love and all who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.  So as we waited patiently for further opportunities with our elderly neighbors, we learned about God’s attributes of Patience and Love even as we learned with God’s help to apply these in our own lives.

In closing, let me just add, as Deut.6:7 reminds us that some of the best teachable moments come around bedtime when stories are being told or incidents during the day recalled.  I used to love to ask my children right through their elementary and teen years, “Is there anything good or bad, sweet or sad that happened today that you would like to talk and or pray about?”

May all your teachable moments be led by and responded to by the Holy Spirit, who loves to ‘guide us into all truth’. John 14:17

Carol A. Kauffman

• Human development and God’s design for healthy parenting and family life
• Strategy for working with pre-teens
• Models of youth ministry
• Motivating children and youth in praise, worship and intercession
• Creativity in all aspects of youth ministry
• Biblical worldview as it relates to children and youth
• Discipling families
• Understanding ourselves and others through personality types, love languages, etc.
• Foundational principles and values of King’s Kids International (KKI)
• Expressions of KKI with the four phases: CARE, Reach, Discipling and Mobilising
• … and much more!

Click here for more information!

Thus we are hosting a KKI USA Leadership Training Workshop in Cambridge on Aug 1-6, with Dale and his wife Carol coming from Hong Kong to facilitate the content of this week.

Nearly all of our KKI USA leaders will be here, along with leaders from church-based KK teams and others very interested in this ministry.  We will hear what God is saying to KKI internationally, get further equipped regarding God’s heart and purposes for children, youth and families, and seek Him together about His specific words to/plans for KKI USA.