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Family Devotions, Bible Study, and Teaching Children About Jesus

The Watering Place: Come and be Filled with Encouragement for Homeschooling.

Homeschooling Encouragement Article by Wynne and Harriet Yoder

Here is another in our series on teaching Christianity to your children. Studying the Bible, doing devotions, and praying as a family isn't hard once you get started. If the Lord has planted this idea with you, He will make the way for you to accomplish it. Start small and add more as everyone gets with the program! Here are the links to topics on this page:

Bible Study Devotions
Praying With Your Children
Scripture Memory

Bible Study/Devotions

Choosing the Reading

Choose a book of the Bible and read a chapter a day. My children love Daniel, Ruth, Jonah, and Revelation. Genesis is a good place to start. You can always alternate between the Old Testament book and the New Testament. You can also add one Psalm and a chapter of Proverbs.

Same Bible

If you want your child to read some, take turns! When you share reading, it helps to have the same Bible translation. When our children were younger, we purchased inexpensive award type Bibles for the purpose of having the same translation and the same page numbers! It's easier for everyone to keep up and take turns with reading.

Bible Atlas

Use a Bible atlas to locate the places you read about, if applicable. Use an atlas that is appropriate for the ages of your children. Or you can have one for each child at his ability level.

Prayer

Open with prayer. You can pray aloud yourself, ask for a volunteer, choose someone, or go around the circle and ask each person to pray. Ask the Lord to bless the reading of Bible. Click here for more about prayer!

Review

Before you start the day's reading, ask your child(ren) to tell you what you read about yesterday This encourages retention of the material, You can prompt or ask questions to jog the memory.

Read Aloud

Read Bible passages aloud. It is amazing how daily Bible readings can follow along with real life. For example, Wynne had been reading Revelation to the children. During that time, they watched the "Left Behind" videos. Our little boys saw things in the movie that their father had read about that day!

Ask Questions

Ask questions about what you just read. Let your child narrate back to you. You will be able to tell how much he understood. Encourage the children to answer in complete sentences.

The Word Does not Return Void!

Keep in mind that devotions don't have to be a super spiritual to be spiritual moments. The word does not return void! You are planting seeds and it may take time to see results.

Keep Little Hands Busy

Various Bible coloring books are available. Or you can encourage your child to draw what you are reading about on plain paper with crayons or colored pencils. I made felt boards by sewing two different colors of felt together with a piece of cardboard between the layers to add stiffness. The children used these to make pictures on the felt during times when I wanted to keep them quiet. Purchase precut felt squares and cut them down to fit into the large zipping baggies. Cut the excess felt from each square into various shapes. Cut the cardboard about 1/2" smaller than the felt squares. Sew a straight stitch about 1/4" from the edge. If you don't sew, you can use a hot glue gun, following safety precautions. Store them in a large baggie.

Need More Structure

There are excellent children's Bible studies available for purchase if you want more structure.

Praying With Your Children

Explain to the children that praying is our way of talking with God and that God hears our prayers and answers them.
If you are new at this and haven't prayed with your children before, it might be good to lead the prayer yourself for a few days before asking them to pray
It is ok to prompt small children or reluctant older children if they don't know what to say. For example, ask them to thank God for something. One sentence is just fine for starters.
Remember it gets easier with practice!
Consider keeping a family prayer journal.
Suggested Prayer Topics
Pray for the physical and spiritual needs of your family. We take prayer requests before we pray and assign a request to each person.
This helps children to learn to think about others.
Pray for extended family/church family/neighbors/the nations. That's a lot but the Lord will lead your prayer time.
When we are having a bad day, we stop what we are doing to have a prayer session to get our hearts right with God. Usually we start with repentance prayer with everyone included. Typically a bad day involves bad attitudes and unrepentant hearts, but it is also very likely that the enemy is throwing lots of fiery darts and prayer builds up the shield of faith to quench them. (See Ephesians chapter 6).

Scripture Memory

Start small! Think about verses that changed your walk with the Lord. It is much easier to teach what you have experienced. Once the children are used to learning verses, you can start learning passages.

Encourage your child to memorize scripture passages such as:
The Ten Commandments
The Lord's Prayer
The Beatitudes
The 23rd Psalm
The spiritual warfare chapter--Ephesians 6

Rewards It is ok to give prizes for remembering Bible verses. It is encouraging to everyone. Again you can start with small rewards such as special privileges, little prizes, or treats. One summer we told the children we would go to our favorite amusement park when all of them learned 1 Corinthians 13. Each of the older children teamed up with a younger child to practice the verses. Even our two nephews who were visiting memorized it.

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