How To Actively Engage Children In God's Word

This is a great way to get into God's Word with your children.  Doing this simple steps will become a natural way to engage in God's Word. I do these personally without thinking about the steps already.  Therefore, teaching it to the children is a powerful tool so they can individually seek out His Holy Word.  I start out doing this together.  We have been doing it for about two years now  The children, with their great memories, have memorized the entire book of James and Philippians.  We don't only want them to take God's Word to memory but to apply it to their lives.

Seven ways to actively engage with God's word:

1. Read it

We choose a book that we will focus on for the whole year.  We like short ones like the epistles for now.  I write out a passage on a big paper and tape it on the wall by our dinner table.  Every morning at breakfast, we recite it a couple of times for a whole week.  Once it's memorized, I write out the next passage (about 4-7 verses usually).

2. Sing it

At lunch time, we come up with a tune for a song for it, or chant it.  Adding hand motions helps engage the little ones and aids in memorization too.

3. Pray it

During our prayer time, we focus on this passage for our prayer time.  I will read it as a prayer.  For example, "Love one another", I would say, "Lord, help us to love one another..."

4. Meditate on it

I would simply read it and ask the children to ponder upon it for a quiet minute.  Then I would ask them to share their thoughts on the passage I just read.  For this to work, the ambient has to be set, by running water, very quiet, perhaps with soothing background music.

5. Proclaim it

By the end of the week, everyone will take a turn at reciting the passage alone.

6. Study it

We do this just as a table discussion while we eat by asking simple questions and bringing up other Scriptures that relate to the passage.  I would ask, What do think John means by "whoever hates his brother is a murderer".  Then, we would go to the sixth commandment and what Jesus had to say about it.

7. Live it

We just began a new way to put the Scripture into practice.  I write down 7 ways that we can apply this Scripture at home with each other.  I put the list in a week list and we secretly choose a name from our family member to whom we will apply the passage to.  For example, if I drew the name Destiny, every day I will do what the list says.  On practicing loving one another, Monday says to do a chore for them.  The children really like it and get excited about it, especially because it has to be a secret.  We reveal who we got at the end of the week.

How do you engage your children with God'sWord?  We would love to hear your ideas!