Through several events this summer God, somewhat painfully, showed me that we weren't being intentional enough about teaching the Bible directly to our children in our own home. We had given up the struggle of finding a time that works for our family. When we went to visit my best friend, Kristina, this summer we got to be a part of their family Bible/reflection time before bed. I sat their sad, knowing we used to do this but had finally concluded for our family this was a horrible fit. At the end of the day I'm exhausted and not good at lingering. Because Jeremy gets up so early this is also a hard time of day for him and the minutes between the kids in bed and us in bed are a precious few.
Last year I was inspired by my best friend, Lindsay, to do this time in the morning before school. She talked about wanting to send her kids off to public school wearing their armor. This made total sense to me and we attempted this with somewhat success. But, on the mornings were were running late it was a total fail and Jeremy was never able to participate.
The old me would press at it. But, God is really teaching me the value of finding what works for our family and then doing it with all my might for his glory. After some prayer and pondering I finally proposed to Jeremy that we try doing after school Bible time. This was a pretty consistent time that our family is home and many days during his slow season he is home by this time. It wasn't a perfect plan but we decided to give it a shot.
So far it has gone pretty good. We have of course had our challenges with this time slot too. My original goal was five days a week. But, as we have adjusted to nightly homework I am content to get in 3-4 days a week. On Wednesday nights we try to be at church by five so these afternoons we usually work on at home Family Quest activities instead of sticking with planned lessons.Recently I started tutoring our neighbor girl after school. This has been another challenge but she often joined us for after school Bible time anyway so we are working on figuring it all out. And I love the bonus of her getting Bible lessons right along with my kids. (Now I just have to get organized with dinner as some evenings I end up with no prep time from 3:30-5:00....)
I am certain this time slot probably won't always work for our family...however God has taught me the value of being flexible and taking one school year at a time. So, I'm hoping to not give up the fight of instilling God's word in our children.
I had a hard time finding a curriculum option. However, I had previously bought the Jesus Storybook Bible with the audio cds and so we started there. It has worked out great! We are making a huge Bible timeline on our bulletin board with the things we make. Here is a sampling of what we've done so far....
Picking Apples- Adam & Eve
I love when God provides activities that correspond with our lessons. They owners had even accidentally left out a ladder. A great practice at staying away from temptation ( climbing the ladder.)
Building the Tower of Babel with Blocks
Abraham & Isaac
To help the kids understand this complicated story they had to collect logs/sticks from all over our yard to make a fire. Then when Daddy came home he brought the ingredients we needed to make s'mores. We talked about how Abraham built the altar and God provided the sacrifice.
My hardest question yet came from Grace, "Mom, if God asked you to sacrifice me would you do it? I hope so! Let me be a sacrifice for God." I think as a mama I will have lots of chances to be obedient in this area. Jeremy and I talk a lot about wanting to allow our children to be obedient to God's leading even if this sounds dangerous or takes them around the world. Praying God will help me to allow my children to be living sacrifices for him!
Faith makes hail...
David anointed as future king.
This was one of my FAVORITE lessons. We talked about how God choose David not by looking t the outside, but instead he looked at David's heart.
The kids could choose between two cupcakes. The first didn't look very exciting but tasted yummy. The second looked good- nice icing and sprinkles however...
It was covered in salt and full of cotton!! Grace's face was priceless. They are STILL talking about this one.
Be watching for a second post with more activities and a picture of our finished timeline. We are hoping to finish up in December. If you haven't used the Jesus Storybook Bible with your family I highly recommend it. It ties every story into God's plan to send Jesus.
