Often parents will tell me they don’t have family devotionals because they aren’t really sure what to do. They either feel like they don’t have enough Bible knowledge to do it “right” or that they aren’t creative enough to keep their kids engaged.
It’s important to remember your kids are starting with zero knowledge of God, Jesus or the Bible. No one is born knowing those things. When they are young, anything you teach them that you have learned is new important information to them. As they become older, they do start asking more questions. You don’t have to have all of the answers. Your minister, Bible class teachers, mature Christians and at times – even the internet -can help you find the answers.
The creativity concern is understandable. In an age when children and teens are bombarded with constant entertainment everywhere they go, many have developed an extremely high bar for what they consider “fun”. Here’s the little tip that changes everything though. Kids love spending time with their parents. They may deny it all day, but kids crave spending quality time with their parents. So even if they aren’t jumping for joy at your suggestion – move forward. It may turn out better than you expected.
There’s really a simple recipe of sorts for teaching the Bible to your kids.
- Use every day objects as your starting point. Today’s a bright sunny day here after weeks and weeks of daily rain. So why not use the sun to teach your kids about God?
- Check the Open Bible website for Bible verses about your object. In my sun example, there are lots of interesting verses using the sun as an example of something or as part of a larger Bible story.
- Decide which verse or verses cover a topic you want to teach your child. Click on them to see if they are part of a larger story. For the sun, I could teach the story of Creation, the story of Job, Revelation, the story of Joshua when the Sun Stood Still and more.
- To make it fun, find an activity to do with it. This step is totally optional. If you just want to share the story or verses you found, that’s great! If you have the extra time and energy though, you can have an activity that will make your study more memorable and create great family time memories. You can go to our main Teach One Reach One website and find the Bible story you chose under our children’s lessons. We have activity ideas suggested for each Bible story. (If you can’t find what you are looking for, keep checking back, as we add new activities regularly.)
- Grab your kids, your Bible and any supplies and start teaching! The length of time isn’t as important at first as just the action of teaching your kids something God wants them to learn. Five minutes is five minutes more than they might have gotten otherwise. Of course, the ultimate goal is to get to the point where you are living out those verses in Deuteronomy about teaching your kids about God every chance you get every day of the week. But if you haven’t been doing any Bible teaching at home, you need to start somewhere. And that’s okay!