Creating and maintaining a Christian home takes effort - one where love is the centre and Christ is honoured, where laughter is heard and where there is reality. We will never be perfect parents or grow the perfect Christian home, but we can try.

The only absolute to a Christian home is love

Remember, apart from love, there are no absolutes in your parenting but there are thousands of ideas (Mark 12:30-31). From my own experience as a parent of three children now in their 20s and from many, many resources, talks and courses over the years I have, below, listed what I consider to be some of the top factors in creating that love filled, Christ centred home full of laughter:

What should my priorities be?

Get your personal relationship right with God initially and continually because your children will absorb this from an early age. Make faith real - talk about answers to prayer, how God has helped you during the day, let them see your tears and your failures. Victorious Christian parents can be so hard to live up to.

Love your spouse and your children unconditionally. Work out what their love language is and make sure their emotional tank is kept full.

Make your children your priority. It is time intensive and the most difficult role you will ever have but, as Rob Parsons (from Care for the Family) has said, 'on your death bed, you will never wish you had spent more time in the office.'

How to pray in a Christian home

Pray for your children right from conception. That they will come to know Jesus as their Saviour, for their life partner, for love and acceptance, for health and healing, for their schooling and peer group. Pray: 'Lord, show me how to pray for this child.' Ask Him how He made them and listen to how He wants you to pray for them. And don't forget to pray against the schemes of the enemy for your children. Schemes that seek to oppose what God has for them. 

Pray with your children. Make it fun when they are younger, for example saying 'Only those who are standing on one leg can pray.' Continue it when they are older, don't stop those bedtime prayers just because they are teenagers. 

Establish good rhythms 

Read the bible with them. Act out the stories. Which clever parent can make water gush out of a stone, or set fire to twigs in the garden once you have soaked them?

Have Sunday lunches with others from church or from outside. Model how to welcome strangers in the name of Christ. They may become the vital 'significant other' in your child's life.

Create family traditions. Build memories so that, in the future they can say, 'Do you remember when...' or 'We always...' A weekly family night is fun and will become memory filled. Together, create a family mission or vision statement.

Have fun in your Christian home

Play with your children and make a point of having fun in your Christian home. Don't get too bogged down with achievements both academic and spiritual. God loves to see all His children enjoying themselves not just the little ones.

Remember you are a role model 

Be consistent and stick to your boundaries. Model everything. Keep communication going and not just one way - listen, listen and listen some more, particularly to what they don't say. However, sometimes just say 'No,' and mean it!

Challenge your teenagers to put their faith into practice - to pray for healing for their friends, ask your teenager 'Has God spoken to you today?'

Free to love, without agenda

But don't feel guilty if your home does not grow the Christian offspring you want. You may be amazing and have done everything right but God's free will extends to all and they can choose to reject your values and beliefs. 'The responsibility for getting our kids into the kingdom of heaven is not ours. We are free to love our child, to love God and drop the agenda. It's on His shoulders' (See Keeping Faith). You may not have produced spiritual champions but you have grown that loving, fun filled, Christ centred home which has a constant open door for them.