This week, I am talking about family mealtime traditions . . . finding routines that help make our mealtimes together more meaningful. I’ve talked about lighting candles, table talk, keeping a gratitude journal, using a manners candle, and saying a prayer. Another routine we have during our mealtime is to take a moment for a short scripture reading.
We do a bible reading because, in addition to it being a part of our faith tradition, we also want to reinforce the character development of our kids through scriptures. Mark has really fond memories of his mom reading scripture at the table and he feels like it really helped he and his siblings to be more kind to each other. We were floundering a bit trying to figure out how to identify the most relevant passages, and were shopping around for some kind of a notecard system when I dicovered goTandem. It’s a free app for daily bible reading that you can customize to deliver relevant verses to you each day. Bingo!
GoTandem allows you to personalize what verses are delivered based on your own spiritual needs. I customized my account with my family in mind (right now, we’re especially working on self-control). It allows you to set it up to send verses and encouragement as many times as you want throughout the day. I have it set up for twice a day, and then we read the verses together. I love that it’s on my phone, and that it does the work for me of finding relevant readings for me. (You can see a video of how it works here.)
I realize that not everyone shares the Christian faith but I think reading a bit about character development is a great practice during family meals. For some secular resources for short readings, check out Poems to Learn by Heart, a fantastic book of classic poems compiled by Caroline Kennedy, or The Children’s Book of Virtues. But if you are looking for a simple, easy way to find great scriptures for either yourself or your family, give goTandem a try. You can find their app in the itunes store or on google play.
