3 tips for starting ‘Bible times’ with your kids

If you’re a Christian and have kids of preschool age, I think I can predict five things about you:

1. Life is busy.
2. You are tired.
3. It isn’t always/often easy.
4. You have a niggle in the back (or maybe front) of your mind about doing better (whatever that means) at raising your kids to know and love Jesus.
5. You find it hard to do anything with that niggle because of points 1-3 above!

What this article is not going to do is heap any guilt on you. I’m not going to use the words should or ought. What I’d like to do is just take that niggle and give you something positive and manageable to do about it—even while you have young kids and while you are busy, tired, and not always finding it easy.

Here’s the headline:

You can have great Bible times with little ones—and when they’re little is the best time to start!

Here are three tips for getting going and making it a win:

1. Make it part of your routine

Yours may be the kind of family that schedules everything in or the kind that is more take-it-as-it-comes. But in all families, some things happen every day. Breakfast. Teeth cleaning. Choosing bedtime stories. Aim to make a daily family Bible time part of the routine. Choose a time that works for you, when your kids (and you) are usually at your best and calmest (for us, when our kids were little, that was after bathtime and before story time). I am willing to guess that there are five minutes somewhere in your day that can work.

Then get started and try to stick to it and accept that of course there will be days when it doesn’t happen due to illness/work demands/meltdowns—give yourself grace to miss a day, but aim not to miss two.

2. Make it manageable and sound excited

I know that I am prone to realise I should be doing something and shoot for “best-in-class”—to decide to do family Bible times and decide that they will be half an hour long, twice a day, involving long prayer times and everyone sitting totally still and… And then I remember: that’s not how real families (or at least, my family) work.

it’s easier to get your kids into a Bible-time habit when they are little than when they are older

Don’t aim too high and hit nothing. Instead, make it manageable. Five minutes a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year would be 52 hours of time together hearing from God—amazing!

And when you talk about what you’re about to do together, try to sound like you’re looking forward to it. (Remember: God is going to speak to you all as you read his Word.) Kids pick up very quickly on whether their parents see something as a joy or a chore. If you talk with excitement about reading the Bible together, they will be far more likely to be excited about it themselves.

3. Don’t reinvent the wheel—find a resource that engages your kids

When my kids were little, I had zero headspace and very little time. So, coming up with a Bible time each night that would be both faithful and engaging felt impossible. Maybe you know that feeling too.

But that’s okay—let other people who have a bit more headspace and have had a bit more sleep help you. Find a resource that ticks these boxes:

• • It’s faithful to the Bible.
• • It asks your children to engage with what they’ve heard—by answering simple questions, or looking at some pictures, or praying, and so on.
• • It is going to feel like a win for your family because it’s fun—whether that’s through fun illustrations, stickers to find and stick in, or whatever.
• • It won’t require you to do loads of prep. You want something that you can pick up and find easy to use even when you have had zero time to think ahead—even when you are sleep-deprived.

So, there are my three tips for Bible times with little ones that feel like a win. But the biggest thing is this: remember that the Holy Spirit is at work in ways that we can’t see. If you sit down for five minutes a day with your kids and help them think about a Bible story and see a great truth about God, you’ll be amazed by what goes in—even on the days when they’re wriggly and seem disengaged. And when it seems hard, keep praying and keep going—because, honestly, it’s easier to get your kids into a Bible-time habit when they are little than when they are older. It’ll always be better to start today than tomorrow.

Read more:

The Serpent and The Seed: An online game that is a beautiful, generous gift to the world

Step In - Premier’s new Bible podcast for children provides a rich resource for Christian parents

Clever Club Bible Bingo: A great game to help children learn and meditate on Bible stories

None of this will make you less busy or less tired or make parenting life less hard. But it will do something better than that: it will form a precious habit for you as a family as you show and share the goodness of the Lord Jesus with your little ones. You can have great Bible times with little ones—and when they’re little is the best time to start!

Carl Laferton is Publisher at The Good Book Company and author of Beginning with God—92 faithful, fun five-minute Bible times for kids aged 2-7. This devotional is an addition to the God’s Big Promises collection.