Teaching Faith in Unplanned Moments: Lessons From the Margins
I was standing at the kitchen sink washing carrots for dinner when my second-grader walked up and asked if Jesus ever got scared. She had a grape in one hand and a permanent marker smudge on her forehead and she asked it the way you'd ask if it was going to rain. No buildup. No context. Just a seven-year-old with a theological question in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.
I turned off the water and I sat down on the floor right there in the kitchen. The carrots could wait.
I used to think that teaching faith meant sitting my children down at a specific time with a specific manual and a specific lesson plan. I had charts and I had schedules and I had the kind of well-intentioned determination that lasts about three weeks before real life catches up with you. And when the formal lessons fell apart I felt like I was failing them spiritually.
But I've been learning something different over the last few years and I think it might matter to someone else who's also holding a half-washed carrot wondering if they're doing enough.
The honest version is that the most significant spiritual conversations in my home have almost never happened during the scheduled time. They happened in the car on the way to practice and at the edge of the bed after the lights were out and right there on the kitchen floor with the water still running in the sink.
Teaching Faith in Unplanned Moments
The car is where most of our real conversations happen and I didn't plan it that way. It just turns out that fifteen minutes of side-by-side silence with a view of the clouds is more conducive to a real question than sitting at a table with a lesson manual and four competing needs for attention.
I have had discussions about the Atonement in the minivan that I couldn't replicate in a classroom. The teenager asked me once while we were stopped at a red light whether Heavenly Father actually forgives everything or just the small stuff. That question came from nowhere. It also came from the kind of quiet that only happens when you're not trying to make something happen.
My middle-schooler asked me about prayer after a baseball game he lost. We were sitting in the parking lot and he had his glove in his lap and he wanted to know why some prayers feel like they get answered and some feel like they bounce off the ceiling. I don't have a perfect answer for that one. But I told him what I actually believe instead of what I thought I was supposed to say and he nodded and we sat there for another minute before we went inside.
"And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord."
Those words from the Doctrine and Covenants come to mind a lot when I think about these moments. They don't say teach your children about prayer during a thirty-minute block on Tuesday evening. They say teach them to pray. To actually do it. And the doing happens whenever and wherever life puts a question in front of you.
Integrating Gospel Living Into Daily Family Routines
Here is something I noticed about my third-grade classroom years ago that applies perfectly to my kitchen table now. The best learning never happened when I was standing at the front of the room delivering a lesson. It happened during the transitions when a student asked a question that had nothing to do with the worksheet. It happened at recess when one kid said something that made another kid think. The formal instruction was important, but the margins were where the real growth happened.
I see this same pattern in my home where the formal moments matter and we say prayers and we read scriptures and we try to have family council on a semi-regular basis. But I have stopped measuring my success as a parent by how well those formal moments go. I measure it more by whether my children feel like they can bring me their hard questions in the middle of washing carrots.
I wrote about some of this before in Unplanned Discipleship: The Gospel in Your Daily Family Life and I've also wrestled with the tension between formal lessons and real life in Messy Home Evening: Finding Peace in Imperfect Discipleship. Because I keep coming back to the same realization. The gospel doesn't need a time slot. It needs room to show up.
How to Teach Gospel to Children in a Busy Home
If your house is anything like mine there is no such thing as a quiet hour for formal instruction. There is always someone who needs a snack or a shoe tied or a question answered about why the sky is blue. And I have spent too many years feeling guilty about that.
Here is what I'm learning instead and I think it matters for anyone else who feels like the busy parts of life are getting in the way of the spiritual parts. The busy parts aren't obstacles to spiritual teaching. They're the material.
The toddler falls and scrapes her knee and I help her clean it up and I tell her that Jesus knows what it feels like to hurt, and that right there is a gospel lesson. If we're running late for school and I stop to say a prayer in the car because I need help staying calm, that is a gospel lesson. When I lose my temper and then I go back and apologize and I tell them that I'm trying to do better because of the Savior, that is a gospel lesson too.
They don't look like the lessons in the manual. But they are the ones my children will remember.
I have also started paying attention to the bedtime prayer in a different way. That moment right before sleep when the defenses are down and the real questions come out. My second-grader told me once that she prays for the birds every night because she thinks they get lonely. I could have corrected her theology. Instead I said that I think God loves that she thinks of the birds and she fell asleep with her hand in mine.
The Teachable Moment in Conflict
Sibling arguments are exhausting and I have had more of them than I can count. But I have started noticing that some of the most honest conversations about repentance and forgiveness happen in the ten minutes after a fight when the tears are still fresh.
I don't launch into a lecture. I sit down next to whoever lost the argument and I ask what they think the Savior would want them to do. Usually they already know. They just needed someone to sit with them while they remembered.
It doesn't always work. Sometimes they are too mad to hear anything and we go back to separate rooms and try again later. But I have stopped treating those moments as interruptions to my spiritual teaching. I treat them as the teaching itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I can't find time for formal family scripture study every day?
Try noticing the feeling of your spiritual moments instead of focusing on the format. A single verse shared during breakfast can be just as nourishing as a full session around the table. The Lord works through consistent small efforts and He still shows up when the schedule doesn't cooperate.
How do I know if my children are learning without structured lessons?
Look for it in how they treat each other and in the questions they ask. Spiritual growth is slow and quiet and it shows up in the margins of life more than it shows up in a measurable lesson format. If they are wondering about God and they feel safe enough to ask you about it, the learning is happening.
How do I turn a sibling conflict into a spiritual moment without making it feel forced?
Wait until the emotions cool down and then ask a simple question instead of giving a lecture. Something like how do you think the Savior would feel about this. Or share a story about a time you struggled with the same thing. Your honesty will open a door that a lecture never could.
What if I feel like I'm the one who needs to grow most before I can teach my children?
Most of us are standing exactly there and that's okay because the beautiful thing about this approach is that your children will learn more from watching you try to grow than from watching you pretend you already have it figured out. Tell them when you're working on something and let them see you pray for help when you need it. That's the teaching they'll remember.
I finished washing the carrots eventually and I put them in the salad bowl and I called the kids for dinner. The second-grader's question about Jesus being scared came back to me later that night after she was asleep. I still don't know if I gave the right answer. But I know I sat down on the floor and I took her seriously and I think that might matter more than having the perfect thing to say.
with love, Melissa