Reading Bible Stories...
Emory has a series of Bible story books that were given to me at my baby shower when I was pregnant with her. She loves them! Our original intent was to use them for family worship, but we've really struggled with how that should look for our family when our oldest child is only two-years-old. We don't want to embitter our kids with boring family devotions and cause them to dread the time the family spends reading God's word together, but we also don't want to cheapen the reading of God's word and allow it to become a frivolous activity.
While I think there is definitely a place and argument for an organized family worship time, my husband has decided it is to come later when our children are a mite older and can communicate what they would like to study with us. I happily acquiesce to his leadership on this matter! But, the problem still remains of exposing our children to the Word before they are "ready" for a sit-down family worship.
Here is our solution(s): We've always offered her Bible story books as an option for her bedtime reading and she has usually chosen one to be a part of her reading. When we moved Emory to the big girl bed she had a bit of a freak out that we never anticipated, so my mom suggested reading Scripture at lights out to help calm her fears. It worked immediately and is still part of our routine. We have a read-the-Bible-in-a-year that breaks the readings down for us. There is an OT, NT, Psalm, and a Proverb reading each night. (We've actually been skipping the OT reading because it has been the wars of Joshua and it is actually pretty gory. Not that we're opposed to exposing her to such reading, just not the wisest thing right before she sleeps!) This takes about 10 minutes and we do it after we turn out the lights and her sleep machine is already on.
As she gets older and more verbal, we are actually having conversations about what we are reading. Add to that the great CD's we have from Jamie Soles, and we've found that we have fallen into family worship all day long, which has been such a blessing. We are constantly discussing God's word, His requirements, His blessings to us, and our responsibilities to please Him with our behavior. And, it is so pleasing to hear her reading Bible stories to her baby dolls and praying on the potty. I really need to get that one on video, but I can't figure out how to do it without ruining the moment.
Today she read me a Bible story and here is how it went:
"This is from John 2. John the baptist was walking up a hill and saw Jesus in a tree. He said, 'Jesus, you come down. I want to come to your house.' And Jesus said, 'No, I can't do that. That would be disobeying.'"
I love it! At least seeds are being sown for her heart to recall later.
While I think there is definitely a place and argument for an organized family worship time, my husband has decided it is to come later when our children are a mite older and can communicate what they would like to study with us. I happily acquiesce to his leadership on this matter! But, the problem still remains of exposing our children to the Word before they are "ready" for a sit-down family worship.
Here is our solution(s): We've always offered her Bible story books as an option for her bedtime reading and she has usually chosen one to be a part of her reading. When we moved Emory to the big girl bed she had a bit of a freak out that we never anticipated, so my mom suggested reading Scripture at lights out to help calm her fears. It worked immediately and is still part of our routine. We have a read-the-Bible-in-a-year that breaks the readings down for us. There is an OT, NT, Psalm, and a Proverb reading each night. (We've actually been skipping the OT reading because it has been the wars of Joshua and it is actually pretty gory. Not that we're opposed to exposing her to such reading, just not the wisest thing right before she sleeps!) This takes about 10 minutes and we do it after we turn out the lights and her sleep machine is already on.
As she gets older and more verbal, we are actually having conversations about what we are reading. Add to that the great CD's we have from Jamie Soles, and we've found that we have fallen into family worship all day long, which has been such a blessing. We are constantly discussing God's word, His requirements, His blessings to us, and our responsibilities to please Him with our behavior. And, it is so pleasing to hear her reading Bible stories to her baby dolls and praying on the potty. I really need to get that one on video, but I can't figure out how to do it without ruining the moment.
Today she read me a Bible story and here is how it went:
"This is from John 2. John the baptist was walking up a hill and saw Jesus in a tree. He said, 'Jesus, you come down. I want to come to your house.' And Jesus said, 'No, I can't do that. That would be disobeying.'"
I love it! At least seeds are being sown for her heart to recall later.
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