Instilling a Passion for Scripture
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Way back when, in the late 80s and early 90s, when our family was being formed, we had a lot of music in the home that was scripture-based. Was that Salty? There was Salty, yes. Salty and Anselvania and Kids Praise. And we just enjoyed the music ourselves because it was fun and uplifting and scripture-based. My kids latched onto it, and it was a really good season for

And for just kind of the soundtrack that went along with us to, you know, camping trips and as we did chores around the house, there were just a lot of ways that we poured in an understanding of and an appreciation of Scripture.

I'm John Fuller, along with Danny Huerta. Dr. Huerta is vice president of parenting here at Focus on the Family. And Danny, we're all different. Did you use music or some other way maybe to instill an interest in the Bible to your kids? Yeah, I mean, we use music. We use kind of a multi-sensory deal. We did some crafts to do some illustrations. We would find that either in a variety of devotional books. And if we were teaching a certain lesson...

We would pull from wherever we could to create certain lessons. And at church, we had a great children's pastor at Living Hope Church where we were at. We continue to be there. But the children's pastor had some crafts that they would do at the church and then would send some papers home. And then I volunteered on that team with a few of my other friends there.

And ideas would spark from there, and so it would help with continuing the lesson at home. Yes, I love that. Yeah, that's important. So if you're able to volunteer at your children's Sunday school, the children's church, and

you can take some of those lessons and continue to pour into them according to that lesson throughout the entire week. So just finding creative ways to teach them. Now, when they got older, we used Ray Vanderlaan. That the world may know. Yeah, that the world may know. If there's a snow day or actually our kids started asking for that. They go, hey, can we watch Ray again? Yeah.

We love that. And if you look carefully at some of those, John, it was a little distracting. It was so hot there that you could see the sweaty belly button. And then you could see the sweat going. And we'd go, man, it must be so hot. We had fun with it. We learned so much from Ray's teaching. He's a skilled, skilled teacher. And now we have RVL. RVL to study. And we've got a variety of new Ray Vanderlaan's books.

videos, and more. In fact, we'll link over to those in the show notes. What we would do is watch those and have great discussion afterwards. And I know sometimes there are study guides and things that are included with those. And I know with the RVL, man, they're great.

But it's gone to another level. And I love it. And in fact, tonight, John, with the young adults, now my kids, young adults, they're coming to our house. We're going to watch RVL and discuss it together. Well, how timely. I'm glad you brought that up. And again, for our listeners, I hope you'll look for the links to RVL The Study in the show notes.

Let's go ahead and turn our attention now to an excerpt from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Jim spoke with Danica Cooley. She's a mom and talked about developing a love for Scripture in her children. Danica, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. This is your first time, right? It is. Oh, that's fun. We love that. And man, you have been working hard, not only as a mom, but also with curriculum development and all kinds of things.

I guess the first question is, where do you find time to do it all? Well, I've been writing about the Bible for kids since 2009. And a lot of it I did...

late at night when we first started. - Really? That's the only time you had, right? - It really was, 'cause I wanted to be present for them and I wanted to participate in their day and we homeschooled, so they were there all the time. So yeah, I did it late at night. And then as they became more independent and got involved in sports and would go to practices, then I would work during that time. - Wow, that's amazing. And speaking of that, you have four children, two are older and then you have the two teens. - Yeah. - Two teen boys.

Yeah. So I can relate. How old are they now? They're 17 and 18. I love it. In fact, you reference an argument that you had to break them up. And I guess I'm going to go right to the heart of your house. What was going on and why did you have to break up this argument with your boys? Yeah.

Well, I sent them to brush their teeth together, which is a total newbie mom mistake. I should have known better, but I wanted them to go to bed. So I was in a hurry and I sent them and they were just arguing. And I thought maybe someone had squeezed the toothpaste tube wrong.

And they came barreling out with their little toothbrushes and said, you know, Mom, we need you to solve something for us. And I thought, okay, well, then maybe this is a productive argument. And they said, we are arguing about the burning bush where God talks to Moses. We need to know, was it God the Father or God the Son in the bush? And

And I remember they were seven and eight. Yeah, and I remember thinking, I don't know what's happening here. I thought that a lot as a parent. I just don't know what's happening here. But we used to take them to church with us for the first service and then go teach Sunday school, and they'd come down with us. And they were under the pews and coloring, and I just...

thought we were setting a tone for attending church later in their life. But it turns out they were listening to our pastor's sermon that day about Christophanies and Theophanies and the difference between God the Father and God the Son appearing in the Old Testament. And then they took it and applied it to a story they knew really well. And then they wanted to know how that turned out. And so that really spoke to your heart, obviously, about how much a child, a young child, can absorb. Yeah.

when it comes to... I think we often as parents underestimate that, right? I think we do. Our kids absorb and take in so much. And what we came to believe is it might as well be God's Word. Everywhere that we can introduce it, we might as well incorporate God's Word into our lives because it becomes the fabric and foundation of their lives. ♪

All right, some good stuff there from Danica and Jim. And Danny, for the parent who is thinking, well, I'd like to do that, but I don't have the first idea where to start, what encouragement do you have? Yeah, have your kids come up with ideas. Many times they have very creative ideas. Go, hey, we're going to read this book here. We're going to read the Bible. We're going to go into some stories. Where do you want to start? And you start to look at the different places in the Bible. And if your children have been at church before, they will have some favorites.

Start there. Read it together. Start to talk about it. Ask them a simple question. What stood out to you? What do you think you're going to take with you as you walk away from God's Word? Because as we treasure God's Word, it begins to change us from the inside out. And so let your kids begin to see the evidence in your home as you're taking in God's Word. Those are the beginning steps to this. Many families start with Psalms. They just...

read a psalm together, talk about it, look at key words in there. Some start with Daniel because it's just such an intriguing book and great stories and it's not too long. Esther and Ruth are interesting ones as well. And then some, just the life of Jesus, starting with Matthew, going Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

That can take several months just going through piece by piece. Be patient with it. You'll know the chunks that your kids can handle, and there's no rush to get through it. It's a matter of you could even just do one verse. So start small, have your kids participate, and contribute to the ideas of how you're going to do this at home. That's excellent. And we have...

other great ideas on our website, including details, Danny, about the reading of Scripture. Yeah, the family reading of Scripture. It's our new resource. Love it. It's still growing. It's still being shaped. We just launched this. And actually, in fact, one of them is

the character of Daniel, and then we have the character of Esther coming out. And then Holy Week is also available in Advent on our library. And the family reading of scriptures, basically you're hearing a dramatized version of each portion of scripture or now myself reading on there. And then just some thoughts about that portion of scripture and then some stage-specific discussion questions that you can start with

to get the conversation going between you and your kids. You can use those conversation starters throughout the week as you maybe continue to just listen to the same thing or process the same portion of Scripture. The idea is to give a multi-sensory. There's visual, there's audio, and there's conversational reading. It gives you the full package to be able to, in a short way, in a quick way, in a very practical way, engage with God's Word as a family.

Well, you can hear the passion and you can learn more about family reading of Scripture. We've got the link in the episode notes. For a gift of any amount today to the Ministry of Focus, as you partner with us to help us equip parents around the world, we'll say thank you by sending a copy of the book, Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible. Written by Danica Cooley, it has so many great ideas. You heard some today. It's got lots more to help you help your children dig into God's Word.

So contribute as you can to the work of Focus. We'll send the book to you. Details are in the episode notes. And remember to leave a rating or review of this podcast wherever you listen, and then take a moment and leave us a note. Tell us how you listen and how these shows have impacted you. Your feedback is always appreciated. Well, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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