When our church first started 10 years ago, we met in the evenings because we did not have a building of our own. We would use another church’s building and hold our services on Sunday nights. Our children were very young at the time and we wanted to make sure they learned Sunday mornings were to be set aside for the Lord, so my husband instituted “Family Church.”
Family Church was a time when the four of us would come together and sing some worship songs together, usually dancing around the kitchen floor, and then we would sit down for a Bible lesson. Because Sam and Laura were 3 and 5 years old at the time, we knew we had to come up with fun, interactive lessons.
We were trying to teach them about staying under the covering of God by obeying His commands. We had them stand on one side of the kitchen side by side and told them they could not move more than one step away. We took a bucket of wadded up paper balls and told them the paper balls represented bad things the devil wanted to throw at us and we started throwing them at the kids by the handfuls. We were pounding them. They were rolling on the floor with laughter before we finished. We sat down and talked about how the paper fight was fun but getting hit over and over by things from the enemy would not be fun. However, if we remain in God’s Word and do what He says, then He is a shield for us, a protective covering.
We gave them an opened umbrella and told them it represented the covering of God. We had them stand in the same part of the kitchen covered by God and then we threw the whole bucket of paper wads at them again. This time nothing hit them. They sat giggling behind the umbrella shouting out “You missed me!”
We had a fun time in Family Church that day and my children have never forgotten the valuable lesson of staying under the covering of God and His powerful Word. The Psalms are full of verses that tell us about God’s protective shield. Psalm 3:3 says “But You are a shield around me, O LORD; You bestow glory on me and lift up my head.” Psalm 5:12 says “For surely, O LORD, You bless the righteous; You surround them with Your favor as with a shield.” And one of my personal favorites Psalm 119:114 “You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in Your Word.”
When we feel ourselves getting pelted by the trials and struggles of this world, we need to pause and ask ourselves “Am I under God’s umbrella of protection? Am I standing behind His shield?”