This is part 2 of a two part guest post by Jessica, mother of two, who is joyfully serving alongside her husband as they minister as international church planters in Eastern Europe. For part 1, visit here.
Previously I told you about what my husband and I are currently doing with our children for their biblical education. I wanted to share with a few resources to help you out.
Resources that we read to help us get started:
Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham
This is one of the three must read books that I recommend to parents. Dr. Baucham unashamedly explains how it is parents’ responsibility to be discipling their children and explains ways to get started. The book goes through an exegesis of Deuteronomy 6 to present the argument. Dr. Baucham challenges the current trend of youth groups and public schooling and even if you don’t agree with everything he presents, you will be challenged to evaluate your family’s practices. I highly recommend that both the husband and wife read this book and discuss the principles. My husband said that after reading it, he was really challenged to make sure he was living up to his responsibility for discipling his family if he wanted to be a man.
Family Worship In the Bible, In History, and In your Home by Donald Whitney
This is a short book that presents the biblical history of family worship and gives suggestions of how to start family worship time and what type of components should be included in this time. Again, both spouses should read it or singles should read it and choose a spouse who desires for family worship time.
Resources we use with our children:
Everything a Child Should Know About God by Kenneth N. Taylor
This book is a fantastic starting place to teach your children basic Christian doctrine. It is broken into 10 sections- 1. What the Bible is All About, 2. What God Has Done, 3. Who God is, 4. The Problem of Sin, 5. Jesus Comes to Help Us, 6. Jesus Wants to Save You, 7. The Holy Spirit Helps Us, 8. Why We Go to Church, 9. Living as Jesus’ Friends, and 10. When Jesus Comes Back. There are over 50 short devotional readings to share with your children. This book is easy to read and includes an illustration for each devotional reading, but it is not fluff! You will shape your children’s worldview using this book!
We use this book as a devotional we read in the morning. We have read through it twice and will continue to rotate it in as part of our morning routine until our children are 6 or so. I recommend it for ages 2 to 6, or slightly older if you have not been discipling your children previously. We read one or two readings each day and then discuss it with our children.
Leading Little Ones to God: A Child’s Book of Bible Teaching
by Marian Schoolland
This is the best book I have found to use for devotion time. It is so complete that a father could use it as a guide for family worship. This book also serves to teach children basic Christian doctrine. It is broken into fourteen sections- 1. Looking for God, 2. God is Very Great, 3. All that God Does is Good, 4. Sin Spoiled the World, 5. God’s Law, 6. God Loves Us, 7. What Jesus Did, 8. About the Holy Spirit, 9. How We Become Children of God, 10. How God’s Children Live and Grow, 11. God Helps His Children Live for Him, 12. When We Pray to God, 13. About God’s Church, and 14. Things That Are to Happen. There are 86 actual lessons and each one has a short devotional reading, questions to discuss, a suggested scripture reading, a memory verse, a hymn to sing and a prayer. There is a beautiful illustration on average for every 3 lessons. I recommend it for children 4 to 12 although a 3 year old who has been discipled for a while and has been trained to sit still may be able to handle it.
We have not begun using this book since our oldest just turned three two weeks ago, but I have read through it in its entirety. We will use it in the mornings as part of our morning devotionals, but since it is so complete, I do think it would be a great resource for a dad to use if he wanted a frame for family worship. My only complaint about it is that some of the hymns are a little obscure- but this is getting really picky! I can’t wait to use this book in the next year and in the years to follow!
Other helpful resource recommendations:
The Jesus Storybook Bible -this is one of two children’s Bibles recommended by Al Mohler because it is not just a collection of Bible stories, but shows the whole picture of the Bible and how every story whispers Jesus’s name. It is probably best for older 3 year olds and up.
The Big Book of Questions and Answers about Jesus by Sinclair Ferguson: a great book to use in family worship or devotional time that covers many questions kids may have about Jesus. Scripturally sound.
Big Truths for Little Kids by Susan Hunt and Richie Hunt: a cathechism with short stories written for children.
Big Picture Story Bible: the other Bible recommended by Al Mohler. It is supposed to give children a complete view of the Bible in its entirety not just a collection of stories. This is really a great Bible that looks at why God did what He has done and our son loves it even at two.
Hymns for a Kid’s Heart: I love this series! It is a book with stories about the history of a hymn, a short devotional, the lyrics and music, and a CD of the hymns. Each book has about 12 hymns. Hymns are such a great way to teach theology and these are so much fun to listen to and learn about with our son.
Truth and Grace Memory Series by Thomas Ascol- recommended by Voddie Baucham, this is a series to guide your child’s scripture memorization. A catechism as well as hymns are also included for memorization. Great resource!
Thanks Jessica for sharing these wonderful resources!
we recently read “family driven faith” too! Its unbelievable! Great book
Also, I found a book at the grocery store today called 100 heroes, 100 songs and it is great for a preschooler’s devotional time. Each Bible story has a song on CD to go with it.
i should have added one caveat about Big Truths for Little KIds. There is a small section that focuses on infant baptism and while I do not feel that infant baptism is the model presented in scripture, I still think this book is well worth your money. We rewrote that section’s catechism questions (it took us just a few minutes) and are using it with our son. You could either do the same or skip over that small section.
Thank you so much! I am going to try to get some of these from the library!
These 2 posts are very interesting, thank you so much for sharing all your great resources with us. We have some nice books for our 4 years old, but what she enjoys most is prayer time, we do that each night after dinner, she asks for it, and we use our bible for that. I think it is important to teach our children to love the Bible, and make the difference between the Bible and other books. Songs and hymns are also great for kids, and they memorize them so quick!
I do think, as in any aspect of education, that the best way to teach something to a child is by setting the example. If they can see how you love reading the Bible, praying, and worship, they will naturally do the same.
thank you so much for this encouraging post!
blessings
Thank you for this excellent post! I have a 2 1/2 year old son. We began reading him the Big Picture Story Bible when he was an infant. We have gone through it numerous times. We also purchased the Jesus Storybook Bible last fall before he turned 2. I cried through almost every story as each related the preciousness of Christ. My son has benefitted from both of these resources in addition to several by Carine MacKenzie – My First Book of Questions & Answers (simple catechism), My First Book of Bible Prayers and My First Book of Memory Verses. We recently began Mon – Fri devotions after breakfast using a story from one of the two bible story books followed by material from each of the My First books. What a precious thing to see the gospel seeds beginning to take root in our son’s heart. We pray it produces the fruit of righteousness all the days of his life!
Just yesterday, I was in a fervent conversation with an awesome youth pastor, about how godly discipline and training of our kids and youth MUST be the responsibility of the parents (and he totally agreed).
God has designed for the home and the family to be the primary place of spiritual growth and consistent day-by-day discipleship. I believe it’s possible for church, and kid’s ministries, and youth ministries to “add” to our home training (and our kids and teenagers greatly benefited from many ministry opportunities at church and by leading youth Bible studies), but the responsibility to “disciple” is given to the PARENTS!!!
Thanks for a great post, and for all you do to encourage godliness in our homes! Blessings to you!
Ann – author of The Mission-Minded Family
I really enjoyed this post! Here are some of our families favorite resources…
-The Bible in Pictures for Toddlers (Ella K. Lindvall) We started this when our daughter was 18 mos and she LOVED it. We did too and it was a great introduction to the Bible. She carried it everywhere and would name all of the people in the pictures by age 2.
-The Read Aloud Bible Stories Series(Ella K. Lindvall-can you tell I LOVE her!). We started these at 2.5 and they are fabulous. A wonderful, developmentally appropriate way to get more in depth with Bible stories. By 3 our daughter started memorizing them and “read” them along. We also use them in Sunday School with our 3 year olds. The Easter Story is a perfect way to introduce the Passion to a little one.
-The New Bible In Pictures for Little Eyes (Taylor). We started this this past year (age 3). Our daughter is very sensitive and Bible stories can get pretty intense so this was a good way to introduce her to that. We can get through several a night. I like this because it covers many of the stories that aren’t in the Read Aloud Series (Samuel, Paul/Silas, etc.).
-I just ordered the Classic Bible Storybook (Taylor) and Everything a Child Should Know about God to start on this spring.
-We LOVE the “Hide Em In Your Heart” music series by Steve Green. Nothing is more precious than hearing your child sing scripture at a young age.
-Teaching resources from Karyn Henley (www.karynhenley.com) She’s got some great developmentally appropriate ideas for young children!
Thanks for a wonderful post the last two days. Very helpful and encouraging. Another book that my husband and I are currently reading is Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. This book as radically changed how I look at discipline and child rearing. I cannot more highly recommend it!
Shepherding a Child’s Heart really shaped our parenting from the beginning. I highly recommend Don’t Make me Count to Three as a follow up to Shepherding. Ginger Plowman takes Tripp’s principles and gives readers a little more application.
We have enjoyed this book as well- The One Year Devotional for Preschoolers.
Its a devotional for preschoolers, short and has a simple point and prayer. Thanks for a great post, you have me thinking!