Multi-site Family Devotions: A Neat Idea for Parents of College Students

Sometimes it is neat to hear true stories from the trenches of family life.  My friends Karl and Beth Kurz just entered the empty nest.  Amazingly they took intentional faith talks to a new level even as their family is growing farther apart geographically.  I thought their idea was interesting and asked them to write about it. Here’s the story in their own words…

By Karl and Beth Kurz

The importance of leading our family spiritually has never been underestimated by Beth and me.   Our children knew their parents’ priority of loving, serving, and worshipping the Lord in our home.  It entered into everything we did…our music, our activities, our finances, our ministries, our quiet times, our prayers, and our conversations.  We believe family devotional times are vital to the spiritual health and growth of a family.  However, we never had “regular” family devotions as a part our spiritual leadership model for our family.  Our desire was that our children would see, feel, and know our family’s devotion to the Lord every day of their life…and that our family’s devotion was a lifestyle not just a scheduled event.   We have often taken advantage of teachable moments and have some priceless memories as a family talking about God, worshipping Him together and discovering how to apply His Word to our everyday lives.  We have also emphasized spiritual traditions to continue to grow and challenge us spiritually.

We have dearly loved and treasured growing spiritually with our children; however, we have now entered a new stage of life that some people call it the “empty nest!” All three children are in college and living away from home.   Each of us now has activities which take us in many different directions.   We are all taking paths that seemed to lead us further apart with distance now separating us more and more often.  We rarely have the entire family together for laughter, sharing, and fellowship.   I decided now was time for a regular family devotion!  Since all of us were in different places – we set up an account for conference calls.  We have our family conference call every Sunday night at 10:15 p.m. 

It is such a wonderful way to begin our new week.  We visit for a while and then I share some scripture and thoughts.  We each share prayer requests which usually correlate to our upcoming week and then we close in prayer. The time allows us to continue to grow in God’s grace as a family as we share, talk, and pray for each other. I thought our chance for family devotionals had come and gone…but then came to realize that now was the best time ever to begin a regular family devotional.  A time of blessing, growth, love, and caring for our family that I hope will continue to years and years to come.

Brian’s note:

With technology like skype and i-chat you could even do this face to face.  What a neat idea.  Thanks Karl and Beth.