1) Encourage them to take God’s Word with them. I encourage my children to hide God’s word in their heart through Scripture memorization. During the school year, a local church’s AWANA program creates structure for this and during the summer, we try and discuss a verse a week. Another way for your child to take God’s word with them is by carrying a Bible in their backpack. I love this Faithgirlz Backpack Bible from ZonderKidz my daughter Sophia is holding up.
She says it’s beautiful, loves the bright colorful inside pages that include fun activities like quizzes and is the perfect size for her emoji backpack.
2) Provide them with relevant spiritual resources that include a Biblical approach to life. In this photo my daughter and her cousin are giggling about how God created their noses while reading this tween girls devotional Brave Beauty by Lynn Cowell. Wynter Pitts and her daughter Alena also has a recent release titled Hello Stars if your child prefers fiction when reading.
3) Involve them in group activities that teach Scripture and if you can’t find a convenient group that works with your schedule, create one. On the first Friday of the month, my daughter and I are hosting a Whatever Girls study using Brave Beauty mentioned above. As your children age, small group activities allow them to plug into Christian community and support each other in their walks with God in the school hallways. Whatever Girls also offers an online version and there is a study guide to go with Brave Beauty if you are looking to take action and start your own group.
4) Surround them with spiritual songs that include Scripture and reference Biblical concepts. I love Pandora and our Amazon Echo as both play great music on demand. Infusing our home with Christian music especially on the hard days when everyone is rushed and irritable changes our environments and often affects our moods. We listen to local Christian radio stations in the car also that often share Scriptures between songs.
5) End your day with Scripture. I often do this when snuggling my kids by asking them to share a verse with me. I’ve heard for God so loved the world more times than I can count on all my fingers and toes but allowing our kids to display their biblical knowledge and celebrating it with them reinforces their desire to learn. Often as we have Amazon Echo Dot’s in their rooms, we ask Alexa to open the Bible app and read us the verse of the day. I plan to start asking a chapter a day of Proverbs to read to us starting this evening.
Faithgirlz Backpack Bible and Brave Beauty Giveaway!
I’d love to put a copy of these awesome resources in one of your daughter’s hands. Subscribe to the #counselorthoughts email list (your inbox will barely notice) and comment either below on the blog with how you share Scripture with your children or comment on my Instagram post to be entered to win. We will draw a winner for each one of these and mail them to you.
Noelle says
Thank you for giving me a chance to win.i love sharing scripture with children especially. In children’s church, through lessons and books.
Michelle Nietert says
Thank you for all the encouragement you spread. I think great Christian children’s literature is so important also.
Robbi says
We memorize Scripture each week with an AWANAS program. We read from the Bible and do Bible stories daily. And my favorite is putting on Scripture based music.
Michelle Nietert says
I love Scripture set to music also. Makes it so easy to memorize.
Virginia says
We keep the verse we are working on memorizing in the car! When we drive to school and back we see it and say it.
Michelle Nietert says
Great idea! I’ve forgotten about that now that we walk to school and my daughter rides a bus. I need to do it because we drive to activities and church.
Jen S. says
We are reading The Story for Children as well as a children’s devotional each night. I want to start scripture memorization, but am overwhelmed with where to start. There are a couple of AWANAS programs here, but they don’t fit into our schedule as they are midweek late in the evening and a good 30 minute drive from out home which would put our kids in bed way past bedtime.
Michelle Nietert says
I received a good suggestion on scripture memorization and that is to put it on a Post-it in your car and just do it with the kids every time you put the car in reverse.