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Daily Bible Reading
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I’m struggling and probably overthinking things, but I need some wisdom from my fellow CM’ers. We’re on summer break and our daily bible and devotional reading has waned. Our schedule has been super busy with doctor appointments for my youngest, so it hasn’t helped the situation much. School is starting on Oct 1 and we’ll be back to our daily reading of our devotional together (Keys for Kids) and then our SCM module 2 bible reading. My hang up is that I really feel convicted to have something at night with Daddy. We used to read at night with Daddy when we did MFW two years ago. Last school year, it was just easier to do our bible reading during school hours so we stopped our bible reading with him, but I want to go back to nightly readings. I know our schedule is sometimes hectic and it might not work for every night of the week, but I think it’s important for Dad to be the leader of our family spiritually. I told my hubby this and he agreed, tho I know he feels like that just stretches his time even thinner than it already is. So my question is, can anyone recommend a good study or book to use as a guide? We have the Jay Vernon McGee Thru The Bible set and my hubby thought we could just pick that up and read a section out of it every night (tho flipping through the first volume, some things go on for pages will will not hold the attention span of all the kids). We have a DD 15 and three DS 12, 10, & 8. I am probably overthinking it, but I want to have a plan. I looked at Penny Gardner’s website and printed off her suggested reading for Old & New Testaments. That is just bible stories so I guess we could start out doing that.
So tell me, what does your family do? I feel like I’m making this too complicated.
Melissa
I have just been in the process of tweaking this for our family, and I think this is pretty much what we’ve settled on.
For “family devotions”, we will still read out of an illustrated Bible storybook since my two youngest are very young (2.5 and 4), and we want to make sure they are able to fully engage in our family time together. We also read and talk about a little section from Psalms or Proverbs. And that’s all. If my kids were the ages of yours, we’d probably just read together out of the Bible rather than a storybook – either pick a book and read through it, or follow some kind of Bible reading plan or maybe with a devotional, but I’m pretty picky about those.
For “school”, I am planning to have my dd7 read and narrate (probably with drawings) through the Life of Christ selections on Penny Gardner’s list, in a similar fashion, and we’ll dicuss her drawings and any quesions that come up together.
At any rate, I felt like for our family time that we chose something that would include ALL of the kids, and then we could do studies that are more age-appropriate to each school-aged child as part of their school work.
Hope that helps some.
Jen
We follow these schedules for Bible, including the commentaries by Paterson-Smyth, among others. The first link is from PNEU Yr 1 … we use that on Fridays as a read aloud together and then my children illustrate it in their Bible notebooks. The second link breaks down scripture by year, according to the PNEU. We are in Yr2 so we read from Genesis on Mondays, Psalms on Tuesdays, Matthew on Wednesdays, Proverbs on Thursdays, and the Yr1 reading on Fridays. We do a family devotion on weekends. These readings (in the links) are very realistic and easily read and meditated on together in the evenings. We use this as our morning Bible time together, but the schedule is so simple and sweet that you can easily do this in the evenings with daddy, too.
We have been reading from cover to cover lately. We just read together and talk about it as we go, act out some of the story parts, etc. We’re pretty laid back with 7 little ones, we don’t have to hurry through. Even a little bit each day is more than nothing! We spent the summer reading 6 pages of scripture each day and all the kids got into a really good habit of sitting quietly together and talking about it. Now we’re reading less but the good habit of sitting has stuck well – yay!
See, like I said, I’m over thinking things. I read a few pages in Thru the Bible last night and while I found it interesting, I’m not sure the kids would at this juncture. I guess just picking up the bible and reading it together as a family is the easist and most sensible thing to do. I appreciate the advice and thank you for the links Erin.Kate. 🙂
I asked my pastor what he uses to teach his kids Bible. He said, “the Bible”. God speaks to even our littlest. I read the commentary prior to reading the scripture with my kids and simply use it to guide or enrich our discussions a bit. I do not have the commentary in hand while we read. We all have our own Bible and we just read. I use the schedule from the links I sent as my roadmap.
@ erin.kate, Thank you for those links! Do you know what “Saviour of the World” refers to in reguards to the Bible reading schedule?
Hi Melissa! Have you seen Titus2’s Feed My Sheep ? Steve Maxwell shares how it really does not need to be complicated; Simply reading and discussing the Word of God as a family is enough. This has been an invaluable resource for our family bible time. Just thought I’d share. Blessings to you and your household, Heather
We use Little Visits with God with DH right before bedtime. It takes 5-10 minutes and the kids look forward to it. There is a short Bible passage, a short devotion, discussion questions or quick activity and a prayer. We’ve been doing this consistenly since last Advent and it’s gotten to be a habit for all of us! If one of us is at a meeting, the other reads it to the kids, but we are usually all together.
Here is what works for my family. I used to do what you did and tried bible readings in the day, but I really wanted my hubby a part of this time. And really, I don’t like to call bible “school”. It’s our life guide!
So, I use the SCM guide modules and do bible readings at night 2-3 times a week. Its super easy, and we take turns reading the assigned chapters and have a brief discussion. I also encourage my kids to keep reading whatever they want in the Bible on other days/times. I do NOT combine this with the history/geography of the country in the module! This is talked about during our history school time, which is on Tuesday and Thursdays this year.
I can’t tell you how this has taken the stress off of my day! And I love that my husband can be a part of it too.
One more thing, I don’t continue this in the summer. It’s nice to have a schedule change and start again fresh in the fall. Variety is key to enjoyment, IMO. 🙂
We do our major Bible study in the morning, along with a hymn and memory verse. In the evening, we have our read aloud book, and a brief Psalms and Proverbs reading.
I try to get into the in-depth Bible study in the mornings, but we keep the evening Bible time brief intentionally. I think by keeping it simple in the evening, you are allowing it to not be so overwhelming to your husband when he is able to lead. Also, just reading the Scripture and praying keeps us from getting ‘between’ the Scripture and the kids. I want the Word of God to be the last thing in their heads when they hit the pillow – not our ‘explanation’ of the Word. Your husband can always lead a more in depth devotion time on the weekends or whenever he has more time.
And don’t worry, your husband IS the spiritual head of your home. Your aknowledging and respecting his position will do more to solidify him in that than trying to pull together a Bible study – I know from experience!
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