Fall is on the horizon and this season is a great time of year to set a new routine with your children. Diving into God's Word on a regular basis is a great foundation for your family. Here are some helpful ideas to start getting your kids in the swing of reading the Bible.
#1 Read the Bible to them/Let them see you reading your Bible
Love and respect God’s Word yourself! It’s pretty logical, really. If you want your kids to love the Bible, you should love it yourself. Continue to make time for reading or discussing Scripture as a family. Discuss the verses that you read together to apply them to your lives. Spend time daily reading the Bible to your younger children, encouraging older children to read their Bible on their own.
#2 Pick a theme to start reading about
Help your child pick a theme that they want to discover more of what the Bible says about it. If they have an interest in something, they will be more likely to want to dig deeper into studying it. Here are a few ideas to start with:
The Fruits of the Spirits - They can find other verses in the Bible that cover the same qualities or gifts
The Armor of God- They can spend time on each piece of the Armor that they find in the verse
The I am names of Jesus- this will get them digging deeper into The Word
#3 Set aside Devotion Time for the whole family
Mornings or Evenings… it doesn’t matter, just keep devotion time intentional in your home. If you have mixed ages of kids, it may help for you to do devotions with your younger kids while your older children go off and read the Bible on their own.
#4 Give them a Bible they enjoy
Every child learns in different ways and their Bible should reflect their style. Here are my tops picks of BIbles:
#5 Give them a journal to start Bible Journaling using the SOAP method
All you need to do the SOAP Bible study method is a Bible, a journal, a pen, and a passage of Scripture. The SOAP Bible study method is a simple way to engage with Scripture and apply it to your life. The acronym makes the method easy to remember.
SOAP stands for:
#6 Discuss what they are reading/ Provide questions for them to answer
After you’ve read a passage, take a moment to think about what you read. Where do you see God and Jesus in this story? These questions can help you find them.
What did God do in this passage?
#7 Sing Scripture Based Songs. Include hand motions to help retain memory
Memorization experts emphasize the importance of involving as many of the senses as possible: Sight, sound, touch, smell, motion, the more the better. Write it down, say it out loud, do a little dance, create a silly little saying, add hand motions, connect it to a memory, sing a song. All of these approaches make memorizing easier. That’s the reason Seeds Family Worship created Scripture memory songs. They make the act of memorizing Scripture easy, almost effortless. Just play a song regularly and before you know it, you’ve memorized the verse.
Here’s some of my favorite songs to memorize God’s Word:
Sabrina Harrison has been leading Kids Worship for over 20 years. She values her worship experiences at Summer Camp and Vacation Bible School the most. She loves to train up future worship leaders with her 6th Graders that have moved into Middle School Youth Group. Her favorite Seeds Family Worship song is More Than Conquerors.
