New 30-day Catholic summer challenge helps families grow in faith at home
Parents and their children are being encouraged to stay rooted in the faith during the summer months by taking part in the 30 Days to an Intentional Catholic Summer program from Spirit Juice Kids.
Spirit Juice Kids is best known for its YouTube Channel, Juice Box, where it creates faith-based content for children, specifically targeting 3- to 6-year-olds.
With the mission to “make kids fall in love with Jesus,” the team at Spirit Juice was inspired to create a simple program that could be implemented into a family’s daily routine and foster intentional time spent with God.
The free version of the summer program includes a daily reflection, a simple prayer, a family activity, and a Juice Box video.
The theme for the program is focused on the domestic life of Jesus — which include topics such as holiness in ordinary days, trusting God in uncertainty, obedience, and hiddenness, and building a domestic church.
If families want to dive deeper, they can sign up for the paid version where they will receive daily reflection videos with Father Tim Anastos, the chaplain at the University of Illinois-Chicago and spiritual director for Spirit Juice Studios, and Julia Jacks, director at Spirit Juice Studios, as well as activity sheets — in addition to the items included in the free version.
“We wanted to create something really simple that could be implemented into every day because the work that parents do at home, the work that we do here in the cleaning and the taking care of kids is holy, sacred work,” Jacks told EWTN News in an interview. “And itʼs not that we have to go out and find Jesus somewhere else or we need to go somewhere to have God with us. He is right here in this moment. We just have to be more intentional about it.”
Jacks explained that the theme was chosen because those hidden years can be seen as the time that “forms Jesus' life — he was holy from the beginning but he continued being formed in that domestic holy life, the type of life that weʼre all leading at home, too.”
She added that the activities in the challenge are “little, simple activities that you can do as youʼre putting the dishes away from breakfast or as youʼre folding up a basket of laundry, and itʼs supposed to fit naturally into your day — whether it may be bedtime or bath time.”
“So itʼs not meant to do more. Itʼs not meant to add more to your plate. Itʼs meant to naturally integrate into your everyday life and just find God where you are and in what youʼre doing,” Jacks said.
While the 30-day challenge officially launches June 8, participants can begin anytime. It can also be completed at their own pace.
“Weʼre trying to help parents not necessarily be perfect but strive for consistency and participation,” Jacks said.
The mother of three shared that there’s great importance behind parents taking part in these faith-based activities with their children.
“Our kids really look to us for their faith formation. It could be hard for them to maybe conceptualize exactly who God is, who Jesus is, and they look to us to guide them,” she explained.
“I can tell you my boys, they repeat everything I do and say to a fault sometimes. So what a great opportunity for us to have them mimic our faith habits, our prayers, reading our Scripture, being grateful, things like that, and they’ll learn that through mimicking us, through learning from us,” Jacks added.
She said she hopes families who participate in the summer challenge will “build small, meaningful rhythms of faith during a season — particularly with the summer faith challenge — that could otherwise be a little bit challenging.”
"Weʼre just hoping to inspire parents and families to participate in these daily rhythms that hopefully they could take on into the school year, into the fall and winter and spring months,” she said. “So, itʼs not meant just to be 30 days and done; itʼs supposed to help put you on a track of thinking and participating in your faith every single day in small meaningful ways.”
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