Treasuring God in our traditions

I just finished reading Noel Piper's book, Treasuring God in our Traditions. I pushed myself through the first 30 pages, but after that I took a lot of notes.

We are always teaching our children, whether we mean to or not. Our children come to believe that whatever is repeated regularly has significance. [Our brains learn through repetition – that's why God told us to] "Talk of [God's words] when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." (Deut 11:19) (p34-35)

We are training our children both intentionally and unintentionally. We need to make sure we aren't leaving the important things to happenstance. We know it's crucial that they become familiar with God, our Heirloom and our only hope for real life. We yearn for them to love and trust and follow Christ. It would be foolish just to wait for them to learn that by chance. We must plan to reflect God and teach about Christ in the repeated events of life. (p37)

The specific 'truth jewels' we lay in our children's hands will, we pray, be stored in their heart's treasure chests; and the gems will be protectively surrounded by packing material, the wad of impressions, feelings, and assumptions they've picked up, both consciously and unconsciously, of who God is and what it means to be a family. The factory for that packing material is our everyday lives. Our 'everyday' traditions are the purposeful, significant activities that we do most frequently and regularly, the things that give shape to a day and a week… We are packing our children's hearts with unspoken understandings about life. (p38)

The rest of the book is full of practical ideas to implement traditions in your family. She talks about daily traditions and holiday traditions - all aiming towards pointing people to Christ. It's a good read, and I bet you would take lots of notes about traditions to carry out in your home - and why traditions are so important.

You can check it out at the library or order a copy from http://www.desiringgod.org/ for $10. Or read it online:

Chapters 1-4 (24.8MB PDF)
Chapters 5-8 (36.2MB PDF)
Chapters 9-10 and Appendix (24.6MB PDF)