Cultivating a Missionary Heart in Your Family

Something that God has been really impressing upon my heart is to train up my children to have a heart for the nations. With me being so compelled to spend my life working with those who don’t have access to the gospel, I want my children to be excited and ready to share in that same dream. Kids are such an amazing way to bridge cultural and language gaps, because they love, play, and make friends in a way that adults can only dream! They bridge gaps. That's why it's so important to spur a love for people in them!

How to Cultivate a Heart for Missions in Your Kids

What I try to do daily is to set aside specific time with my children to read the Word and pray for the nations.

Read the Word

If you're just starting out, reading one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is a great place to start! The gospels are all about Jesus' life, character, and ministry. It shows His heart, His character, and what's important to Him. He is our example, and the more we know His heart, the more ours is changed to be like His. The more we see His love for people and experience that love, we naturally start to love others like He does.

Pray for the Nations

When we pray for others, we experience God's compassion and love for them. We pray because God hears us, but also because prayer changes our hearts. One thing that seems to motivate my kis is to have my son pray for the boys of the country, while my daughter prays for the girls. Doing this is also helping them relate to what other boys and girls’ lives are like and start having an understanding of the state of the world, and help them comprehend a life that is truly in poverty. I really want to develop in them a heart of compassion, because when I look at Jesus’ life, that’s what I see. There are so many times when, before a miracle or a healing, it says that Jesus was moved with compassion. As Jesus followers, I think this is the same for us; when we are moved with compassion through God’s compassion, we are compelled to act, not look the other way or wait for someone else to do it.

We also receive regular updates from missionaries in different parts of the world. Reading their stories, encouraging them, and praying for them together as a family is a great way to bridge the gap between here and there, and grow a love for missions.

Thank God For Who He is and What He's Done

We then choose a worship song, which usually turns into a lot of worship songs, to praise God who loves these people and is the only solution to the circumstances they face. He is their only hope! There is something incredibly powerful about worshiping God, and declaring that He really is able to move, to overcome, to bring lasting change, and to declare His heart, His character, and His promises over those who don’t know them.

Exposure

One of the best ways to help your kids grow a heart for the nations is to expose them to other cultures. The more you can spend time with people who are from other nations, enjoy their company, eat their food and learn about them, the more you'll naturally grow a love for the nations in your kids. It's hard to love and be passionate about something abstract, but when they're in front of you, in your living room, it's easy to love them!

Resources to Help Your Family Grow a Heart for the Nations

• Prayercast.com is one of my very favorite resources. It gives a visual of each country and helps it come alive. Each country has what they call a “prayer cast,” a 3 to 4 minute video of the country, while someone, I believe from that nation, prays over it. It allows us to agree with them in prayer, and at the end of the video it has a few bullet points on specifics to pray for.

• Joshuaproject.net is a great resource to learn about unreached people groups, and ways to pray for them. While it's not geared specifically toward kids, they offer free, printable prayer cards with pictures and facts you can put on your fridge or prayer board.

• Window on the World. Window on the World is a kid version of Operation World. It shares facts about different countries, stories of kids from that country, and ways to thank God and pray for their needs.

• book from Court...

• Christian Heroes: Then and Now from YWAM Publishers is a series of books written on Christian missionaries. Written for ages 10 and up, these stories show the life of missionaries, the lessons they learned, and how they shaped history and nations with the love of Jesus.

• Exploring Countries and Cultures. If you're a homeschooling family, My Father's World has an amazing year-long curriculum called Exploring Countries and Cultures that inclues daily Bible lessons, world geography, a science unit that teaches about ecosystems around the world, art and music from around the world, inspiring read-alouds, and so much more. Plus, they give 50% of all profits to Bible translation projects around the world!