Hands-on Bible Class

Even if you feel exhausted and have nothing left in you at the beginning of the day, everyone, and I mean everyone, can press “play” on a CD player and listen to the Word of God. If you're low on money, there are free audio Bibles on the internet, and you can choose the version you want. You and your children can eat breakfast while you listen.

Secondly, memorizing the Word of God is easy and effortless if you read whatever you want your children to memorize into a tape recorder, and play the cassette when the children are falling asleep, or when they are playing. You can start with Ephesians 6:1, Ephesians 4:32, Psalm 23, the Lord's Prayer, Psalm 1, and Psalm 19. Or choose verses that deal with character issues that your children are dealing with. One year my three boys and I memorized the entire book of James by listening to it every day, and writing one verse per day. We repeated that verse over and over. By the time we got to chapter 5, we didn't have to repeat anything because the kids just rattled it off word perfect, since we had heard it so often. My youngest boy was only four at the time, and he was able to recite the entire book of James word perfect, as well as the rest of us. God will bring it back later in life to convict them of sin. You can count on it. The Word of God never returns void. It's worth doing. It's your sword. It's your only offensive weapon against sin, and when your children are young is the easiest time for them to memorize it.

You also need to make the Word of God come alive for your children. It should be the most joyful subject of all. It matters the most. When I say it's time for Bible class, my children often cheer. They have a delight for it. Why? Because I've made it come alive with costumes, dramatizations, salt and flour maps, flannelgraph, visuals, charts, and just plain getting choked up about what God was teaching me about a specific subject.

Bible costumes are super easy to make. Get some cloth at Goodwill or a fabric store, something that looks like Bible times. Fold it in half and make a hole smaller than you think for the head. You can always cut it bigger, but if it's too big, it will slide down their shoulder. Then cut it into a capital “T,” with the arms being the top of the “T.” Sew the sides, or if you hate sewing, ask a fabric store for fabric glue, and just glue the sides. Voila! A Bible costume. Don't bother hemming. Nobody cares. Everyone will feel like they are in Bible times as they walk around in their tunics.

Now you can dramatize Bible stories as you read them. For David and Goliath, we had a boy stand on a chair in plastic armor and a sword, talking in a low voice, “You come at me with sticks?!” Then David pretended to sling a stone, and Goliath fell to the ground, dead.

David hid in caves (blanketed forts) and cupboards, while Saul galloped around in his kingly robes and crown, trying to chase him down in a deadly game of hide-and-seek. A foam arrow was shot by Jonathan, indicating the secret coded message for his friend David to run away. Read the stories of the Bible, and see them in your mind. Catch the emotion of it, the adventure, the drama.

Paul's missionary journeys can be acted out. You can find a Roman soldier costume at Goodwill around Halloween for dirt cheap. Hop on top of the sturdy coffee table, and wave a blue sheet for the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. Then make a salt and flour map of Paul's missionary journeys. You could use papier mache if you want to keep it, but it's a lot more work, and a lot messier. Salt and flour is kind of like play doh, so it's easier to work with, but it eventually cracks. Label the cities where Paul planted churches. Look at pictures of those cities if possible. I've been to Ephesus, so I had a book full of pictures of Ephesus that the children looked at while my husband read the book of Ephesians after dinner one night. Live it. Breathe it. Feel it. Make Scripture come alive.

I do not recommend flannelgraph to low-energy people. Don't do it. It's too much work. But for those of you with medium to high energy, it is so worth it to do flannelgraph. Even babies and toddlers understand the Bible story, and they love, love, love it! Babies and toddlers think in pictures, so I personally believe that this is the best way to teach babies and toddlers the Bible. Betty Luken felts are good. I had to think in my mind what I needed for the story, then I pulled the figures from each panel that was stacked in a box. Buy a used flannelgraph set if possible so that you don't have to cut out every figure by hand. You also have to be able to tell the story. If you are not a storyteller, it will be too hard for you, and you will never use it. If you are a low-energy person, don't feel sad. A Bible picture book will do just fine.

Demonstrations are easy. To demonstrate how oil never ran out, have an oil jar in your hand, and pretend to pour it over and over. Or when God commanded Isaiah to draw a map of the city on a brick, and build siege ramps against it, have the kids do it. Break a pot for Jeremiah to say that the Israelites will be broken into pieces because of their sin. Spill out bowls for the book of Revelation, and put something in those bowls representing each curse.

But most of all, just spend time with God yourself. Play praise music and dance around when everyone is crabby and the sun doesn't shine. Fall in love with God. It will spill out onto your children. When I taught Isaiah 6, I was so choked up, I couldn't speak. (The holiness of God hit me like a punch in the stomach when I saw that even the sinless angels had to cover their eyes. Years before, I cried out to God, “Make me holy! Do anything!” God answered me by giving me a couple of the hardest months of my life, but when I came out of it, I understood the holiness of God like I never had before, and I was convicted of so much sin; I was aghast! But that's another story.) You could hear a pin drop as a tear fell from my eyes, and I said to my children, “This chapter changed my life.” I went on to read about the holiness of God, and I looked up at them and saw it in my mind, and I described it. My children's eyes lit up, and they saw heaven through my eyes. Who cares about the tears splashing down my face? My children will know God and love Him, and that's all that matters.

For more hands-on ideas of how to teach your children the Bible, watch Using Simple Costumes and Props to Teach the Bible.