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7 Ways to Engage Your Family in Pentecost Revival

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“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.” Ephesians 3:14-16, NKJV

Seek intentional time with God daily to earnestly pray for Holy Spirit empowerment to make you an authentic, contagious disciple-maker, who displays Christ’s healing love at home first. Parents are a child’s most influential role model.  Your family members will be very positively impacted & influenced by your authentic commitment and desire to become a more empowered reflector of Christ’s grace, compassion, mercy and love within your family circle. As you are empowered by the Spirit to more deeply and authentically love God, and others, in the same way you love yourself, which is what Jesus revealed with the synthesis and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:37-40)—your family will be the first to testify the Spirit-empowered, positive transformations you are underdoing.  Your reignited first love and contagious, spiritual influence will be felt and experienced by your family first. Then it will leak onto your neighbors, into your church family, and hurting, extended community with overflowing blessings. God is glorified and Jesus is lifted up when we surrender to the Spirit and allow Him to empower us to become agents of God’s healing love in our circles of influence! 

Schedule specific couple prayer time daily. This is not in lieu of your individual private time in God’s presence. Couple prayer time is a time to intentionally focus on praying for each other and for the specific relationship challenges you and your spouse are experiencing right now. Protect and prioritize your couple prayer ritual which will also deepen your emotional and spiritual intimacy. The quality of your marriage deeply shapes the faith development of your children, for better or for worse. It is easier for your children to develop faith and trust in God when their parents model God’s grace, forgiveness, commitment, empowerment, and joy in their marriage relationship. If your children discover you holding hands or embracing before, during or after this special prayer time, you may want to capitalize on this opportunity to explain Matt. 18:19,20, which says that if two people agree on earth concerning anything, it will be done by our Father in heaven. Motivate them to imagine and get excited about the Family Altar times where you will enlarge the prayer circle and include them in praying—as a family—for Pentecost Revival. 

As you pray with your spouse remember to:

  1. Pray for authentic humility to see with clarity where each one is needing a specific dispensation of Holy Spirit anointing which will result in a palpable and continuous growth in marital oneness, peace, understanding, patience, harmony, forgiveness, love and grace.
  2. Pray together that the malignant spirit of supremacy, dissatisfaction, pride, disputes and disharmony will be purged out of your marriage relationship and family circle, so that the Holy Spirit can empower you to better reflect  God’s shalom experience in your home.
  3. When parents practice God’s Grace-mindset, they create a safe and cheerful home environment for the whole family so everyone knows they are not expected to be perfect. Everyone understand that making mistakes is part of our post-fall condition. They need to be reminded that when they or others make mistakes, love and grace will not be withheld and they can practice  responding to themselves and others after a mistake, with generous grace and kind forgiveness, instead of harsh impatience, toxic shame, and dysregulated anger. 
  4. Single parents are especially encouraged to engage their precious children to join them in this Pentecost Revival in the Family invitation. A like-minded prayer partner can join you in prayer for Pentecost revival in your respective families, neighborhoods, and community networks. All the suggested recommendations can be tweaked as necessary to accommodate and include the rich diversity off all family systems.

Children are always watching, absorbing, and learning how to love God, others and themselves (Matt. 22:37-40), primarily by observing how their parents interact (their looks, attitudes, gestures, tone, and words). When kids witness their parents enjoying their imperfect lives and marriages with child-like trust, lots of grace, and a healthy sense of humor, they will learn, internalize and model their parents attitude as they mature so they can also manage their life challenges with sustainable optimism, hope-filled resilience, and an unshakeable trust in God, just like their parents did. 

  1. Good news: There are no perfect marriages or families. That’s why perfection is not the goal.  Children will learn and internalize that God is good, compassionate, slow to anger, merciful, and loving, not just from hearing their parents tell them so, but from watching their parent’s respond to each other’s shortcomings and limitations with mutual, Spirit-empowered patience, understanding and respect.
  2. Children growing up in single-parent homes are also watching their single-parent’s interactions with their ex-spouse, relatives, teachers, friends and neighbors. They are also learning how to interact in healthy ways by watching their parents interact with other adults with a Grace-mindset. 

Our children desperately need to see that Jesus is way more than a religion. Children need to know that Jesus is a loving relationship and that He longs to do life with them to bring them joy and peace. They need to learn that Jesus gifted us with His Holy Spirit when He ascended to heaven to guide us, comfort us, and live inside of us to empower us to be like Jesus. 

  1. After taking the time to personally study the role and ministry of the Holy Spirit in Scriptures, plan on creative ways to sharing—at age-appropriate levels—the stories in Bible that highlight why Jesus deployed the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, what the results were, and how the Holy Spirit continues to move today in people’s lives.
  2. When parents share real life stories of how they have experienced the Holy Spirit’s presence and guidance in their life during their own childhood, adolescence and adult seasons, it is fundamental in their children’s faith development.  When our children hear our personal Holy Spirit experiences, our children can get excited about inviting the third person of the Holy Trinity, into their own lives. They can begin to anticipate how the Spirit may speak and direct them personally.

Gather together to read and study about the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) and all the other Bible texts that refer to the specific work of the Holy Spirit.  Many children, and even some adults, don’t have a clear notion of the nature and role of the Holy Spirit in our spiritual growth and development.  As children learn slowly and deliberately the characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit, great discussions can bloom that will help each family member anticipate and be transformed by the continuous work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Help the children see that this list of beautiful characteristics should not utilized to harshly criticize, condemn or judge one other. Children can be taught that everyone is at different place in our growth journey with God. They will learn the importance of daily and constant prayer to encourage each other to pray that these characteristics will continue to grow and flourish in the lives of every family member. As children see their parents daily surrendering their minds and hearts to the Holy Spirit, they will be compelled to do the same and will join their parents in wanting to better reflect the loving character of Jesus at home and everywhere else. 

Following are a few ideas to jumpstart your own creative juices: 

  1. Have each family member take a turn at reading, then process together what it could actually look like when their minds and hearts are totally surrendered to the Holy Spirit. 
  2. Be creative in the ways your family prays. Talking to God with open hearts can become a highlight for families if long, repetitive prayers are avoided, every member is included, and a variety of methods are used to keep prayer-time meaningful and relevant for everyone.
    •  Pop-corn prayers are one way to deploy short, spontaneous, one-sentence prayers with your family. Everyone, no matter the age, or experience with praying in public, can participate.
    • Each family member can be encouraged to arrive to Family Alter Time with a written (or mental) list of 3- 5 things they are grateful to God for, that given day. Expressing gratitude to God daily during Family Altar Time is an empowering practice that will instill a gratitude-mindset which will result in a more optimistic perspective and attitude which will foment stronger mental health, spiritual health, and relational health which will nurture empowered resilience. 
    • Family members can be split into diverse smaller groups, for example praying in pairs and changing the groups daily or weekly; or the parents can take turns praying individually with each child. Allow the Spirit to help you keep family prayer time a joyful and practical anticipated moment. 
  3. Print out a custom-made, Family Prayer List (put your Last name on the print-out, i.e., the “Johnson’s Family Prayer List”) with each family member’s name and what their specific prayers are for the month or quarter. Make photo copies for each member to pin up in their room or carry in their back-backs so they can remain mindful of praying throughout the day, not just during Family Altar Time. Older children may prefer to take a pic of the Family Prayer List to have on their cell phones. 
  4. Text your children reminders that are praying for their specific prayer requests. You can add short Bible promises that will remind them that God loves them and is with them all day long.
  5. Include your children’s friends and their family members names, and your neighbors’ names on your Family Prayer List. 
  6. Keep track of all Family Prayer Requests and how God answered those prayers. Include all the ways God responds:
    • The “Yes, I’m granting you this petition because it is good for you” answers  
    • The “Wait, not yet” answers
    • The “No, I have better plans for you” answers

This is a great way to teach our children that God does listen and care, but, that He won’t grant us a “yes” to a prayer request that is not for our current or eternal good. Having these open-hearted prayer response conversations is a great way to help our children understand how much the Father loves them, even when He can’t grant them what isn’t good for them in the long run. 

These cards will let the people in your circle of influence, know that you and your family are making time every day to pray and ask God’s Spirit to enable them to also be experience more peace, joy and harmony in their respective family circles. When you deliver your cards, you can ask them if there is something else they would like your family to pray for. If you children are older, you can also send ecards or custom designed (or simple) text messages inviting them to text you any prayer requests that may come up during the year. 

Then ask each family member to imagine and then write out (a great way to get them to start a personal prayer journal) how they will know when their prayers have been answered. Then ask them to think about how they might see that their prayers for the Holy Spirit’s revival in their family has been answered. For example: 

  1. I will know that the Holy Spirit is moving in Dad’s life, because I will see that dad… (example:  doesn’t lose his temper every time mom gets home late…)
  2. I will know that the Holy Spirit is moving in Mom’s life, because I will see that mom…
  3.  I will know that the Holy Spirit is moving in our parent’s marriage, because I will see that mom and dad… 
  4. I will know that the Holy Spirit is moving on (sibling’s name), because I will see that (sibling’s name) … 
  5. I will know that the Spirit is moving in me, because I will notice that… 

When our children—no matter what their age—become eye witnesses to the healing, transforming work of the Holy Spirit in their lives and in the lives of their family members, their faith and trust in God will grow exponentially and they will become joy-filled, gracious and loving disciples of Jesus. They will, by God’ grace, not be able to contain themselves from sharing the Holy Spirit  miracles they will continue to witness in their homes, churches and communities.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all JOY and PEACE in believing, that you may abound in HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Rom.15:13, NKJV