September 17, 2010
Faith Filled Kids: Writing God's Word on Their Hearts
12:00 AM | 
Posted by
Maggie
My husband and I consider parenting our children our highest calling in life (for right now). We focus our parenting around the goal of utilizing all of the gifts and resources God has gives us to pour into our children, with the intention that they will be able to leave us one day and fulfill the calling God has on their lives. In order to get this outcome we feel like there are a few key components, that we need to equip our children with. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing about these components and how we put them into practice in our home. I hope you enjoy this series as much as I have enjoyed putting it together for you!
Component #1 - A Working Knowledge of Scripture
We feel like a working knowledge of the Bible will be foundational for our children as they go out into the world as adults. In our own lives we use the Bible as a reference point for everything. It is the authority over our lives. We purpose to transfer this belief to our children by reading the Bible together, memorizing and referencing scripture throughout our day and speaking scripture over them.
Reading the Bible together is a great place to start in giving your children a working knowledge of scripture. We do this together in the mornings right after breakfast. We have found it helpful for each of our kids to have their own Bible to "read", while daddy leads the discussion. Sometimes our oldest daughter reads the verses for him. We love the Jesus Storybook Bible for little ones and the NIV Dicoverer's Bible for Young Readers. We are reading what goes along with their homeschool curriculum lesson right now. Before that we read the Proverbs chapter that correspond with the day of the month. We have also used God's and Me! Devotional Book for Girls and love the Every Young/Man Woman's Battle Series for older kids. I haven't read her books yet, but I intend to incorporate Dannah Gresh's books into our day very soon.
Memorizing scripture happens, for our kids, within their homechool curriculum. They are assigned verses to memorize. They use those same verses to practice handwriting and do copy work. I have also recently made a point to memorize a few key verses, myself, that I can use in discipline situations (more on that in a minute). In the past we have used a Character Qualities Chart, where we memorize a scripture verse to go along with a particular character quality. The most valuable resource we have used for memorizing scripture are the Seeds Family Worship CD's. I cannot say enough about these CD's. Our entire family has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge of key scriptures in the Bible, that I have referenced over and over in conversations, from these CD's. I highly recommend them!!
Lastly, I want to really focus on the "working" part of the scripture knowledge I mentioned. We want our children to know how to apply the scriptures to the everyday lives, not just memorize them. The way we accomplish this is by speaking scripture over them. Here are a couple of examples:
After a rough day: "I am so thankful that God's mercies are new every morning and we get to start over tomorrow." (Lamentations 3:22)
Obedience: "The Bible tells us that obeying your mommy and daddy pleases God. Now I need you to think about what I asked you to do and obey me please." (Ephesians 6:1)
Fussing and Fighting: "God tells us to do everything in love and hitting your sister was not loving towards her." (1 Corinthians 16:14)
Afraid: "God says do not fear for I am with you. He will give you strength and help you." (Isaiah 41:10)
Everyday: "I love you sweetheart! You are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. You are His child and I am so glad that He made me your mommy!" (Psalm 139:14 & 1 Corinthians 15:10)
I am looking forward to sharing more with you next Friday! In the mean time I'd love to know how you incorporate scripture into your kids lives!
Blessings,
Visit my personal blog: A Bokros Kind of Life
Follow me on Twitter: @abokroslife
Component #1 - A Working Knowledge of Scripture
We feel like a working knowledge of the Bible will be foundational for our children as they go out into the world as adults. In our own lives we use the Bible as a reference point for everything. It is the authority over our lives. We purpose to transfer this belief to our children by reading the Bible together, memorizing and referencing scripture throughout our day and speaking scripture over them.
Reading the Bible together is a great place to start in giving your children a working knowledge of scripture. We do this together in the mornings right after breakfast. We have found it helpful for each of our kids to have their own Bible to "read", while daddy leads the discussion. Sometimes our oldest daughter reads the verses for him. We love the Jesus Storybook Bible for little ones and the NIV Dicoverer's Bible for Young Readers. We are reading what goes along with their homeschool curriculum lesson right now. Before that we read the Proverbs chapter that correspond with the day of the month. We have also used God's and Me! Devotional Book for Girls and love the Every Young/Man Woman's Battle Series for older kids. I haven't read her books yet, but I intend to incorporate Dannah Gresh's books into our day very soon.
Memorizing scripture happens, for our kids, within their homechool curriculum. They are assigned verses to memorize. They use those same verses to practice handwriting and do copy work. I have also recently made a point to memorize a few key verses, myself, that I can use in discipline situations (more on that in a minute). In the past we have used a Character Qualities Chart, where we memorize a scripture verse to go along with a particular character quality. The most valuable resource we have used for memorizing scripture are the Seeds Family Worship CD's. I cannot say enough about these CD's. Our entire family has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge of key scriptures in the Bible, that I have referenced over and over in conversations, from these CD's. I highly recommend them!!
Lastly, I want to really focus on the "working" part of the scripture knowledge I mentioned. We want our children to know how to apply the scriptures to the everyday lives, not just memorize them. The way we accomplish this is by speaking scripture over them. Here are a couple of examples:
After a rough day: "I am so thankful that God's mercies are new every morning and we get to start over tomorrow." (Lamentations 3:22)
Obedience: "The Bible tells us that obeying your mommy and daddy pleases God. Now I need you to think about what I asked you to do and obey me please." (Ephesians 6:1)
Fussing and Fighting: "God tells us to do everything in love and hitting your sister was not loving towards her." (1 Corinthians 16:14)
Afraid: "God says do not fear for I am with you. He will give you strength and help you." (Isaiah 41:10)
Everyday: "I love you sweetheart! You are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. You are His child and I am so glad that He made me your mommy!" (Psalm 139:14 & 1 Corinthians 15:10)
I am looking forward to sharing more with you next Friday! In the mean time I'd love to know how you incorporate scripture into your kids lives!
Blessings,
Visit my personal blog: A Bokros Kind of Life
Follow me on Twitter: @abokroslife
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12 comments:
Excellent, Maggie! Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful ideas. Memorizing scripture has always proved difficult for me. I never thought to incorporate it into our school curriculum and handwriting sessions. I will definitely be using that! Thanks! Happy Friday! :)
l love this!! Maggie, we do something similiar - even though we do not home school. We have a huge chalkboard in our kitchen. I put Bible verses for them to memorize on this. I choose verses that I believe will help them throughout their day - very much like the ones you've listed at the end of your post today.
In the summer we do crafts to match our verse for the week. Jordan (my 6 year old) reminds me often to make sure I put a new verse up there for them.
Got a question for ya... I've heard of parents have their kids write out scriptures when they have disobeyed - kind of like the old time writing sentences on the board - but using scripture. How do you feel about this? Punishing with scripture... good or not?
thanks for this great post today!
Maggie - I LOVE LOVE LOVE this! I love the series you started, I love the post! Excellent! And I just heart you! :)
This is phenomenal! Thanks for the great scripture references pertinent to discipline, behavior and thankfulness. Awesome! I will definitely begin incorporating these into our daily lives as well.
Thanks!
Laura
I'm the same way with memorizing scripture until we got the Seeds Worship CD's! My girls and I can quote so much scripture! It's unbelievable! If you don't know anything about them, they are actual verses put to music (not corney kids music either). Sooo good!!
That's great Penny! Thank you for sharing, because homeschool moms aren't the only ones who can incorporate scripture into their kids' daily lives! Especially love the summer idea with the crafts.
In regards to your question I personally feel like it would be more effective to pour scripture into their lives on a daily basis and then be able to reference it in a discipline situation. My caution would be don't expect that just because they have written it many times and possibly memorized it that they will be able to "use it". The Bible says put on the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God so that when evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground." (Ephesians 6:13) Make sure real-life application of the verse is used in conjunction with writing it!
Thank you! Thank you!!
Thank you Laura! Visit me and share your results!
Maggie -
This is AWESOME!! Looking forward to the rest of the series! There is so much we can start doing from this post right now!
Hugs,
Tara
Thanks so much Tara! I'm looking forward to sharing!
Hi Penny this is a great question and it was put on my heart to answer your question. I have used scripture with my kids when they dont do what is right. I dont look at this at punishment I look at this as them learning what God likes and dont likes. I will tell you that when you aline scripture up with what they are doing that is not pleasing to God it sticks with them and they can re-sight it. So I look at it as a way to tattoo scripture on their heart so they learn how to be pleasing to God and not themselves.
Maggie is this a book or study you are doing? I am always looking for ways to better serve God through my children. Cant wait to hear more.
Sonya
http://www.watchmefuze.blogspot.com/
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