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Making God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home
Like the priest, parents represent God to their children. They are religious educators just by being parents. Making God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home is filled with ideas to help Orthodox Christian parents become effective priests and religious educators in the home. Greatly revised and expanded.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 18, 2020
"We are rearing children whom we don't know, and who will never know us." T.S. Eliot
Although this book was written during the 1970s, I think its points are as valid today as they were at the time the book was first published. Orthodox Christianity and its sacraments are timeless, but in the eyes of a generation that prizes novelty even over utility even to the point of neomania and faddishness, anything seeming from the past or the ancients is worth discarding. We face a generation of children who, if not filled with good things from the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, will have that void filled by others with the 3 isms ---- narcissism, materialism, and nihilism --- in whatever various quantities a particular child's personality and social circle trend toward.
So the challenge for an Orthodox parent trying to raise their child in the faith is to make the Church's sacraments, teachings, traditions, and practices relevant, meaningful, and understandable to them. As Fr. Anthony points out, you can't rely upon the Church to do it for you --- and I would point that goes for anyone desiring to raise their child in any faith ---- the Church gets one hour a week on the average via Sunday School. You've got much more.
So this book provides a lot of great ideas for teaching and involving one's kids into the life of the Church --- such as with the Divine Liturgy, Nativity, Lent, Pascha, etc. I have to admit that I felt a little guilty -- it's got many great ideas, but ones I'm not doing that I'd wish I'd thought of. But I don't think that's the way to take this book. Use the ideas outright, or modify and adapt them based upon how your kids are. After all, we need to know our kids better than anyone and should!
As a collateral benefit, having recently joined the Orthodox faith, I found it did also more fully explain some of the Church's traditions and practices that weren't covered quite as thoroughly during catechism --- which I appreciated.
If I could make one improvement to the book, I think it would be great if an updated edition of it could be produced. Fr. Anthony tends to work from the premise that both parents are cradle Orthodox ---- when in today's Church, it's far more likely that the parents themselves may be new converts, or that one parent, for whatever reason, is handling the spiritual development of the kids. I also think that more guidance would be great on the influence of social media as far as its role in children's lives.
Overall, however, this is a highly useful book that I will be referencing as I look for ways to better raise my children in the Orthodox Christian faith, and highly recommend it for other Orthodox Christian parents aiming to do the same.
Although this book was written during the 1970s, I think its points are as valid today as they were at the time the book was first published. Orthodox Christianity and its sacraments are timeless, but in the eyes of a generation that prizes novelty even over utility even to the point of neomania and faddishness, anything seeming from the past or the ancients is worth discarding. We face a generation of children who, if not filled with good things from the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, will have that void filled by others with the 3 isms ---- narcissism, materialism, and nihilism --- in whatever various quantities a particular child's personality and social circle trend toward.
So the challenge for an Orthodox parent trying to raise their child in the faith is to make the Church's sacraments, teachings, traditions, and practices relevant, meaningful, and understandable to them. As Fr. Anthony points out, you can't rely upon the Church to do it for you --- and I would point that goes for anyone desiring to raise their child in any faith ---- the Church gets one hour a week on the average via Sunday School. You've got much more.
So this book provides a lot of great ideas for teaching and involving one's kids into the life of the Church --- such as with the Divine Liturgy, Nativity, Lent, Pascha, etc. I have to admit that I felt a little guilty -- it's got many great ideas, but ones I'm not doing that I'd wish I'd thought of. But I don't think that's the way to take this book. Use the ideas outright, or modify and adapt them based upon how your kids are. After all, we need to know our kids better than anyone and should!
As a collateral benefit, having recently joined the Orthodox faith, I found it did also more fully explain some of the Church's traditions and practices that weren't covered quite as thoroughly during catechism --- which I appreciated.
If I could make one improvement to the book, I think it would be great if an updated edition of it could be produced. Fr. Anthony tends to work from the premise that both parents are cradle Orthodox ---- when in today's Church, it's far more likely that the parents themselves may be new converts, or that one parent, for whatever reason, is handling the spiritual development of the kids. I also think that more guidance would be great on the influence of social media as far as its role in children's lives.
Overall, however, this is a highly useful book that I will be referencing as I look for ways to better raise my children in the Orthodox Christian faith, and highly recommend it for other Orthodox Christian parents aiming to do the same.
July 25, 2011
What an inspiring little book! It's easy to read because it's broken into many brief chapters--perfect for a busy mother of young children. It is filled with good ideas for incorporating the Orthodox faith into daily life at home. Many of these things are well established practices in our home, but there are plenty of other helpful suggestions therein which have inspired me to develop for our children an even richer environment of faith. Within this book is also contained encouragement for the weary parent, which is much needed during the moments when we lose sight of what we're really doing.
May God have mercy on us as we put our hands to the great task of spiritually nourishing our children!
May God have mercy on us as we put our hands to the great task of spiritually nourishing our children!
March 5, 2018
This is a lovely book with short chapters that make it easy to read a little at a time. The book gives many good ideas for living out our Orthodox faith with our families, and it also challenges us as parents to do the best we can with the important task God has given us - teaching our children. We need to love them unconditionally, be fully present in their lives, spend time with them, be approachable, and most importantly, give them a true picture of God, that will cause them to love their heavenly Father.
June 2, 2013
A practical little book on bringing the church into the home and your everyday life.
March 28, 2026
While this book was written during 1970’s many of the points are very valid today.
We face the next generation being addicted to vaping among other things, materialism, AI, being babysat by tv or tech, narcissism and other things rather than children whose focus is on the Lord and the commandments or Orthodox Christian way of life. Instead of children being filled with good things from the Lord many don’t know Him at all. Children are more focused on their peers rather than God or knowing His love for them which is so important.
This book provides great ideas for teaching children the life of the church and that of the Orthodox Litugical Calendar eg. Commemorating Saint days, celebrating name days, Divine Liturgy, Lent, Pascha, Nativity etc.
This book explains the Orthodox Christian Churches traditions and practices really well which I found quite helpful in learning more about them which I didn’t know before. I do feel that an updated version of this book would be more valuable as many people these days are converting to Orthodoxy rather than being a cradle Orthodox (born Orthodox) also it’s not always both parents converting which this book doesn’t discuss. While it is ideal that both parents do convert not all of them do.
This is a beautiful book which I will continue to refer back to for ideas and better ways to raise my children. I love the idea of a weekly family meeting to discuss things in the family, any problems family members are facing and the liturgical calendar of the church.
I’d recommend this book to any Orthodox Christian who is a catechumen, Cradle Orthodox or a convert.
We face the next generation being addicted to vaping among other things, materialism, AI, being babysat by tv or tech, narcissism and other things rather than children whose focus is on the Lord and the commandments or Orthodox Christian way of life. Instead of children being filled with good things from the Lord many don’t know Him at all. Children are more focused on their peers rather than God or knowing His love for them which is so important.
This book provides great ideas for teaching children the life of the church and that of the Orthodox Litugical Calendar eg. Commemorating Saint days, celebrating name days, Divine Liturgy, Lent, Pascha, Nativity etc.
This book explains the Orthodox Christian Churches traditions and practices really well which I found quite helpful in learning more about them which I didn’t know before. I do feel that an updated version of this book would be more valuable as many people these days are converting to Orthodoxy rather than being a cradle Orthodox (born Orthodox) also it’s not always both parents converting which this book doesn’t discuss. While it is ideal that both parents do convert not all of them do.
This is a beautiful book which I will continue to refer back to for ideas and better ways to raise my children. I love the idea of a weekly family meeting to discuss things in the family, any problems family members are facing and the liturgical calendar of the church.
I’d recommend this book to any Orthodox Christian who is a catechumen, Cradle Orthodox or a convert.
May 22, 2018
This was a good book. It was very helpful for my research project. I imagine it would be very helpful for parents although I will say I found it to be a little less organized than Blueprints for the Little Church.
There was also a rather embarrassing mistake when they recounted the story of Les Misérables, except the story was closer to the plot of A Tale of Two Cities, except it wasn't quite the plot of A Tale of Two Cities either. It doesn't damage the didactic point they made by recounting the story, except the source of the story was wrong. Maybe only I care about this, but Les Mis and ATOTC are two of my favorite books. I intend to write the publishers about it so hopefully they can get it fixed for the fourteenth edition (I read the thirteenth).
There was also a rather embarrassing mistake when they recounted the story of Les Misérables, except the story was closer to the plot of A Tale of Two Cities, except it wasn't quite the plot of A Tale of Two Cities either. It doesn't damage the didactic point they made by recounting the story, except the source of the story was wrong. Maybe only I care about this, but Les Mis and ATOTC are two of my favorite books. I intend to write the publishers about it so hopefully they can get it fixed for the fourteenth edition (I read the thirteenth).
January 6, 2026
Sometimes hard to find but q must buy old school orthodox book that you can read and enjoy, yet reach for weekly as a reference book. I use it 1,000 times a year. A must have for converts and the “cherry on top” for cradle. Hands down my most loved and used orthodox book as a mom.
August 6, 2007
Rather useful ideas and suggestions, but this book seemed to skim over the surface of things. I think examples or stories of how things worked when implemented would have been a good addition to the structure.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews