Growing Wiser

Growing by fasting!

Getting started

Help your family to be active this week with three fun sessions:

  • Involve everyone – anyone can lead!
  • Adapt for your family
  • Encourage each other
  • Challenge yourselves
  • Don’t exercise if it causes pain

Share family.fit with others:

  • Post a photo or video on social media and tag with #familyfit or @familyfitnessfaithfun
  • Do family.fit with another family
Warm up 512

Day 1: Warm-up

Knee tag

Compete in pairs. Try to touch your opponent’s knees as many times as you can in 60 seconds while you protect your own with your hands and body position. Change partners and try again.

Now go further and try to touch everyone else’s knees while protecting your own.

Play Video

Rest and talk together.

What is the longest time you have gone without eating?

Go deeper: When in your life have you been most devoted to God?

Move 512

Day 1: Move

Basic plank

plank trim

Put hands and feet on the ground and keep your whole body straight like a plank. Support your weight on your elbows.

Hold for 20 seconds and rest. Repeat one more time.

Go easier: Keep the same technique from your knees (instead of your toes).

Go harder: Hold plank for 30 seconds.

Challenge 512

Day 1: Challenge

Story wall

Perform a wall sit together for one minute. Lean back against a wall with feet shoulder-width apart. Slide down until your knees are bent at right-angles. Keep head and upper body against the wall.

While sitting on the wall, share a fun story or something good that has happened. Don’t show your suffering. Smile and have fun together.

Rest for 30 seconds and repeat.

Play Video

Go easier: Reduce wall sit to 30 seconds.

Explore 512

Day 1: Explore

The reason for fasting

Read Matthew 6:16-18 from the Bible.

Jesus assumes His followers will fast from time to time as part of their prayer and devotion to God. While fasting is a good practice, we need to have the right motives.

Take turns to ask the question “Why do you… (sleep, shop, play sport, and so on)?”

Why did Jesus give these instructions on how to fast?

Traditionally, fasting is going without food, but it isn’t enough to just deprive ourselves of food or sleep. We must also devote ourselves to God and worship Him.

Chat to God: Going without something is a way to check our priorities. Pray that God will reveal what you can go without for a time. Use this to deepen your relationship with Him.

Play 512

Day 1: Play

Hold the laughter

Sit in a circle. One at a time try to make the others laugh without touching them. For example, make faces, tell jokes, and so on. The goal is not to laugh. After two minutes, or if someone laughs, change roles until everyone has had at least one turn at trying to make people laugh.

Play Video

Adaption: If someone in the family is vision-impaired, tell jokes or stories instead of making faces.

Health tip

Eat well.

Warm up 512

Day 2: Warm-up

Move to music

Put on some favorite music. Repeat these moves until the music ends:

  • 10 running on spot
  • 5 squats
  • 10 running on spot
  • 5 squats with hand clap above head
Play Video

Rest and talk together.

In what ways do we change our faces for others to see?

Go deeper: Why is the way we look important?

Move 512

Day 2: Move

Up-down planks

up down planks_1 900

Start in the plank position on your elbows and toes with your body in a straight line. Shift your weight and press up so you are supported on your hands – left hand then right hand. Then go back down to elbows.

Do 10 repetitions and rest. Do two rounds.

Play Video

Go easier: Keep the same technique from your knees (instead of your toes).

Go harder: Increase the number of rounds.

Challenge 512

Day 2: Challenge

Hot seat

One person holds a squat while everyone else does 30 jumping jacks. Rest for 20 seconds and then tap out to the next person.

Do four rounds.

Play Video

Go easier: Reduce the number of jumping jacks or the number of rounds.

Explore 512

Day 2: Explore

The way to fast

Read Matthew 6:16-18.

These verses remind us that if we choose to fast and go without something, we are not to wear gloomy faces and make it obvious. We can hide our motives from others, but not from God.

Take turns to demonstrate a feeling or emotion by using just your face.

How might we use our faces or appearance to hide what is in our hearts?

Chat to God: Discuss and agree on something your family can go without, and for how long. Pray that God would use this time to strengthen your connection with our Father who sees in secret.

Play 512

Day 2: Play

Bocce adapted

Find a ball to use as a ‘jack’ and three pieces of paper per person. Crumple the paper into balls and mark each set of three with a different color. Make a start line on the floor and roll the ‘jack’ away from you. The aim of the game is to get your balls closest to the ‘jack’. The balls must be thrown in the air, not rolled. With feet behind the line, take turns to throw one ball at a time. The winner is the one with the most balls closest to the ‘jack’.

Bocce or bocce ball is a sport of the Special Olympic Games which is for children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Play Video

Reflect: What was difficult about this game? Did you need a lot of strength to win? In life, victory often comes when we learn how to control our strength.

Health tip

Eat well.

Keep a supply of healthy snacks for your family such as fruit, nuts, and seeds.

Warm up 512

Day 3: Warm-up

Wheelbarrow and inchworm

Wheelbarrow: Work with a partner. Walk 10 meters then swap places.

Inch worm: Bend at the waist and place your hands on the floor. Walk your hands out until you’re in a plank position with a flat back. Then walk your feet as close to your hands as you can.

Repeat for 10 meters. Do three rounds.

Play Video

Rest and talk together.

Talk about times you have heard people make public announcements.

Go deeper: What makes an announcement believable?

Move 512

Day 3: Move

Mirror planks

mirror planks 790

Work in pairs. Get into a plank position facing a partner. One person in each pair will be the mirror and will need to copy everything the other one does. Hold each plank for at least 20 seconds. Rest and repeat. Have fun.

Play Video

Go easier: Keep the same technique from your knees (instead of your toes).

Go harder: Increase the time you hold each plank.

Challenge 512

Day 3: Challenge

Plank and lunge challenge

Work with a partner. While one person is in a plank position the other does lunges. Change places after 10 lunges on each leg. Do four rounds.

Go easier: Do five lunges on each leg.

Go harder: Add weights to your lunges.

Explore 512

Day 3: Explore

The result of fasting

Read Matthew 6:16-18.

Take turns to stand on a chair and announce one thing you will be doing today. Most times we don’t need to announce what we’re going to do – we just do it!

Jesus makes it clear that those who fast should do it quietly and secretly.

What does Jesus promise to those who fast for the right reasons?

Chat to God: Think of a need in your community that requires consistent prayer. Make it a focus of your prayer this week in spaces you create by ‘going without’.

Play 512

Day 3: Play

Family competition

Which family member can do the following?

  • Longest jump from standing position
  • Longest time standing on one leg
  • Longest time without blinking
  • Say your full name in one breath
  • Dribble a ball for the longest
  • Longest plank or squat

Make up your own. Have fun!

Tip for parents

Give each of your children and teens simple jobs with responsibilities. Make sure it is something they are able to do and then praise them when they do it!

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