The dinner table holds many fond memories from my growing up years. After we’d eaten dinner as a family, we lingered around the table. Sometimes we sang. Sometimes we talked about current events. Occasionally I’d subject my sweet family to a fifteen minute history lesson on the causes of the Battle of Hastings. (I’m so glad they love me!)
As we children grew older and our schedules got more hectic, dinnertime became even more special. I remember unwillingly dragging myself away from the table because I simply had to go study for a test.
In our hectic culture, it’s getting more rare for families to eat dinner together each night. According to a recent Gallup poll, only about a quarter of Americans with children eat dinner together daily. Almost one quarter eat three dinners or less together per week.
Even more sad is that the average parent only spends 38.5 minutes in meaningful conversation with their children per week! (A.C. Nielsen Co.)
38.5 minutes isn’t nearly enough time to nurture a soul and shape a worldview.
In the Bible, the table is where much of the worldview-shaping in a family takes place. The table is a place for teaching, for feasting, for fellowship. When the Psalmist painted a picture of a blessed man, he described his children “as olive plants round about his table.” (Ps. 128)
My desire is that as my children hit their teenage years, they find it as hard to pull away from our table as I did from my parents’.
But a table the family loves to linger around doesn’t just happen. It takes work, time, and lots of love.
Building our family culture is part of our calling and making the most of mealtimes is part of that building process.
- Start meaningful conversations. Take turns sharing about your day, tell what you’re grateful for, and ask questions. Teach your children to listen and ask questions too.
- Make the meal beautiful. This is one my mom was so good at! She often pulled out a pretty tablecloth, lighted a candle, and made a centerpiece. Even for simple meals, the food looked aesthetically pleasing. I remember her adding green beans to the meal at the last minute because “the meal has too much brown and orange in it.”
- Learn together. Memorize a poem together or take turns sharing new things you’ve learned. As they get older, encourage them to share about what they’ve learned in school or discovered themselves.
- Teach about food. What better time to teach your children about different kinds of food and the benefits of eating good fresh food, than while sitting around the table!
- Tell stories. There are few things my children love more than a family story. I have also started telling the stories of the Bible to them at breakfast. My five and three-year-old love it, even though I’m generally reading straight from the pages of the Bible. Not only does telling stories at breakfast mean that they’re sitting nice and still, we don’t let a busy day crowd out the Scriptures!
- Treasure meals together. I am so blessed to have a husband that is such a good example in this. Even when he’s incredibly busy at work, he makes great efforts to come home and eat with us. Sometimes I don’t do as good of a job. If I really want my children to treasure mealtimes, I need to lead by example and treat time with them around the table as more important than getting the dishes done efficiently.
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