I don’t think there’s a Christian parent out there who isn’t looking for ways to ensure that their children grow up with a strong foundation in the Word of God. Developing the habit of daily Bible reading can be tough for us to do ourselves, let alone teaching it to our kids.
There are a lot of family devotions out there that are great. The best ones encourage discussion and family bonding.
One thing we struggled to do, however, was to get our boys to read the Bible on their own on a daily basis.
Enter our Family Bible Journal
I started by getting a pretty notebook. (I think that part mattered to me more than the three males in my house)
Inside the front cover I wrote these instructions:
1 – Look up the verses and read them.
2 – Do one or both of these things:
-Copy the verse into the notebook
-Write what you think the verse means
OR what this verse is telling us to do
OR what you think about when you read this verse
We wanted it to be accessible to the boys, without overwhelming them. That’s why we included the option to simply copy the verse into the notebook.
I then went through the notebook and at the top of each page I wrote a Scripture reference. You can find the list of verses I used in the Free Printable at the bottom of this post.
We put out the notebook, a Bible, and a pen and had a family meeting to go over our new plan.
Each day, before school or work, each of us would, on our own, read the verses and record our thoughts in the journal.
We also made an effort to talk about the day’s verse over dinner.
Here are what a couple of entries looked like:
While I know that we weren’t doing in depth study, the goal of the journal is to develop the habit of being in the Word daily. And to that end…goal accomplished!
And, you know, something else to keep in mind is that we use different tools in different seasons of life. This tool worked for us for some time, but we don’t still utilize it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up if something starts becoming more of a burden than a blessing. Move on to something else!
If you think this is something that might work for your family, you can print out the list of Scriptures we used here:
© Susan Landry, 2016--Used by permission. Originally published: here.
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