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A daily Bible Journal for your family to practice the habit of being in God’s Word every day. This is a creative and informal way to start the practice.
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.
Teaching/modeling for our kids how to pray came pretty naturally. 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 (kind of like how you model prayer differently for a toddler vs. a teenager). 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!
Click here for more on Christian parenting.
If you think this is something that might work for your family, you can print out the list of Scriptures we used here:
I’d love to hear what you’ve done to encourage daily Bible reading with your family.
Click here for lots more resources on growing faith, lessons from Scripture, and more!
beth says
Love it! Simple and low pressure is a great way to get kids into the Word every day! Love all the new blog posts 🙂
Susan says
Thanks, Beth!
Elizabeth @ Ellie and Elizabeth says
Love this idea to instill the importance of reading the Bible every day. Amen!
Susan says
Thanks! Glad you stopped by…blessings to you!
Shopgirl Anonymous says
I love this. It really pulls the family and instills christ focused decisions and ideas early on. 🙂
Susan says
Thank you! It can definitely be a challenge to integrate these types of discussions into the day to day. Finding things that work, even for a time, is always exciting.
Stevie Luplow says
This is WONDERFUL! I may have to do something like this, only I think my kids would rather have their own journals that I would have to check every day.
My daughter also has Luther’s Catechism so we will be starting to go through that (we have to find my husband’s copy and hopefully my older son will get a copy soon from his Opa).
I have saved your list. Thank you so much!
Susan says
I’m so glad you found something you can use! I did have a reader on Facebook tell me that she also did individual journals with her kids, per their request. It took a little more time, for her to write in each of them, but it worked really well for them. Be blessed – –
Michelle Bretschneider says
Susan,
Thank you so much for this post! I used this idea for Christmas presents to various families this year, including my own.
Thanks!
Michelle
Susan says
You are very welcome. And thanks for sharing this great idea for gifts…I wouldn’t have thought of that! Love!!