reading the whole Bible to our children (4) guest post

Today Fiona gives some fantastic suggestions for practical ways to read the Bible with your kids. This is the final post in a four-part series: see the others here, here and here.

This might all still sound rather daunting! Let me tell you some of the strategies we’ve used to read the Bible to our own children at home on a daily basis.

• Use different formats at different times and at different ages. Alternate reading through a children’s Bible, and then a book of the full Bible.
• Illustrate the Bible reading yourself. For a few years, I drew rough figures in a scrapbook each evening. You don’t have to be a very good artist – stick figures will do! (Older children may like to do this themselves.)
• Get your kids to act out the Bible reading (this was great in books of the Bible where there was lots of fighting!!).
• Let children read aloud at times.
• Ask one of more of your children to ask one question about the passage, and to answer a question too.
• Give each child a sheet of paper and encourage them to draw an illustration to go with the passage.
• Make a simple worksheet to accompany the reading.
• Above all, persevere, even when there are evenings when you seem to be doing more yelling than Bible reading (“Quentin, stop touching Hamish! Rufus, would you sit down! Anna, don’t hum now ... Hamish, we’ll find your excursion form later … Rufus, would you SIT DOWN and KEEP STILL!”).

So just do it! Read the whole Bible to your children, and I hope you will feel often the delight and excitement that I feel when my children ask questions or make comments that show a growing understanding of God’s word.

image is by johnb2008 from flickr