Note: These pages are a list of topics that parents have asked for help navigating. These are not necessarily meant to be conversations that you should have with your kid/teen, but more helpful as you navigate parenting in general. These are designed to start the conversation, not answer ever issue that might surround it. Do more research! Follow up these ideas with a conversation with another trusted parent. Our goal is to start the conversation and help point you in the right direction. The goal is not to give you all the answer!
How to read the Bible with your kids
This is often an intimidating thing for parents. Sometimes it can feel forced. Sometimes there’s not time in the bedtime routine. Sometimes it just falls down the list of important things that need to happen each day and get’s left off the list! We would suggest three things… each of which can flex to make work for whatever stage of life your kids are at!
Make God’s Word into a habit
This is probably the easiest when our families are small and our kids are little. Get used to reading a kids Bible with pictures to your kids before bed. As they get older, let them read before bed. As they get older, start having them read on their own before bed! In their younger years be sure to ask, “So what did that mean?” or “What does that teach us about God?” help them not just learn facts, but to process the significance of the story. At this age you have the power to control a set time WHEN they read their Bibles.
In their teenage years, the only things that change in this conversation are: their schedule and their freedom. It’s harder to mandate their Bible reading time, but you can do everything you can to encourage it and to open space for it. We stand by the old phrase “An open Bible is a read bible.” What if you made sure they left it open on their nightstand and encouraged a “No electronics” window after 9:00pm? Maybe they’d have nothing else to do! What if you created incentives around Bible reading instead of chores? What if you left open Bible around the house? There are plenty of ways to encourage this and make space for it, get creative!
Create moments out of the normal rhythm
There are tons of great resources for parents of preschool and elementary kids to make the Bible fun at an early age. Our personal favorite is: https://bibleappforkids.com. It’s creative and interactive. It’s perfect for car rides or sitting at your brother’s soccer game. These kinds of resources help make the Bible fun outside of the normal rhythm you created above. It will also help start great conversations!!!
In their teenage years, their personal Bible study time is invaluable, but what might be just as valuable, and also more fun for them, is cooperate Bible study. You want your teenager to care about God’s word?! Make sure they are around people that study it together! Here’s quick ideas: Make Church THE priority for them. Encourage Bible studies that happen at their schools weekly. Offer to pay for their lunch/coffee with a mentor for a few months if they’ll do a Bible study with them. Etc.
They need to see you do it!
Kids and teenagers are REALLY REALLY REALLY good at figuring out what we care about the most. They do this, not based on what we say, but based on what we do. If we want our kids to know that God’s Word leads to life, we have to prove it. They won’t buy something that we aren’t buying. Want the Bible to matter to your kids? They first need to see it matter to you!