“I’m going to sit right in the middle, so I don’t miss a thing!” This was the comment from one of my Sunday School kindergarten students as I set up my shadow puppet screen to tell that Sunday’s Bible story. Today’s kids are bombarded with visual technology at home, at school, and even in the car. What can we do as Sunday School, VBS and Kids Club teachers that will keep our students engaged and excited to come and learn about the God and Savior of the Bible? My answer – there are lots of ways! Here are seven of the twenty-some methods I use.
How Can I Help? God’s Calling for Kids
Mary J. Moerbe and Gene Edward Veith have done it again—they have written an excellent resource on vocation, this time for children! If you’re not familiar with the doctrine of vocation, it’s not just jobs, careers, or how we make a living, but it’s the areas of life God has called us to so that we can love and serve our neighbors. This does include the workplace and also the family, society, church, etc. Even children have vocations, and this book is a great way to introduce them to how they can love and serve their neighbors by being a helper!
Something Wonderful! The Easter Story
Reading books to young children, with their eyes full of wonder and discovery, must be one of the most delightful tasks an adult can experience. Whether from the lyrical rhythm of words or the telling illustrations, the responsive zeal of children is contagious.
Counting to Christmas: Family Advent Devotions and Calendar
Advent is a wonderful time of the year filled with joy, wonder, and anticipation. It is a time we prepare our hearts and focus on our need of a Savior and God filling that need by sending His one and only perfect Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, four siblings travel to the English countryside to escape World War II. But when the children stumble through a magical wardrobe into Narnia, they quickly realize they have escaped one war only to be embroiled in a new one. Except this time, there are umbrella-carrying fauns, bickering beavers, a prophecy that the four siblings will rule Narnia, and a wicked witch determined to enslave them all.
Come, Lord Jesus! An Advent Devotional for All God’s Children
Advent season is a time when many families change from their regular devotional material to Scripture readings that emphasize the beautiful prophecies of our Savior and the Gospel accounts of His birth. This season is also the busiest time of year for many families, and an Advent devotional guide can help us slow down and take comfort in God’s Word and His promises.
Little Visits with God
Wiggling, talking, whining, disobeying, the struggle is real. What struggle? The difficult task of sitting everyone down for family devotions. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes the effort doesn’t seem worth the payoff. My husband and I are always on a quest to find engaging ways to interact with our daughters about spiritual things. Usually we can incorporate these conversations into everyday life, but we also like to strive for some semblance of a family devotional time. Enter Little Visits with God. No devotional is perfect, but this one comes close.
Bible Discovery Devotions
Teaching children God’s Word is one of the most rewarding yet challenging privileges God has entrusted to us. The home is the primary place where this teaching should occur. The Lord doesn’t require us to be a seminary-trained theologian to teach our children. Thankfully when God gives us children, He also gives us what we need to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Helpful resources abound and make wonderful gifts. One of those helps is bound up in a devotional book called Bible Discovery Devotions by Martha Larchar.
Sing the Faith: The Small Catechism Set to Music CD
Luther put his Small Catechism together during a time of biblical illiteracy among the common people, as well as the clergy. He wanted to develop a tool to teach the basics of the Christian faith. Luther’s Catechism starts with God’s Law—how God calls us to live, with the Ten Commandments.