Today, I’m talking all about our weekly memory verses that we practice with our kids.
We want our kids to grow up knowing that faith is a part of everything they do, so we try to apply our weekly verses and general topics about faith into everyday conversations and scenarios.
For example, one of the first verses we learned together was Ephesians 4:32a: “Be kind to one another.” So when one of our kids was having a hard time sharing or using kind words, we would pause what they were doing and say our weekly verse together.
Ryan’s class in preschool has a weekly Bible verse that is written on their monthly calendar and our church also has a monthly verse that they practice with the kids, so we either choose one from those options, or pick one on our own that we want to practice with the kids.
Last week, we started memorizing Proverbs 3:5-6. This wasn’t on Ryan’s school calendar or one they’re working on at church, but it’s a life verse that we want our kids to know early on. It’s a long one, so we broke it into parts. Our first week, we just did the first part of the first verse: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”
We try to keep each verse short and use hand motions to learn them. We make up the hand motions based on whatever makes sense with the words. The kids actually help with this part. For the reference part of the verse, we take two hands flat and together and then open them up like we’re opening a book as we say the reference (Proverbs 3:5).
We usually switch out the verse on Sundays and practice them throughout the week. We keep our chalkboard with the verse right in our kitchen so that it’s something we see often. (The chalkboard, by the way, came from Hobby Lobby for $10). And sometimes we actually carry the kids over to the verse to remind them what we’re practicing (this was big during our “Be kind to one another” week.) But we always do it with a tone of reminding them, not in a way that makes them feel like they’re messing up with what we’re focusing on for the week. We never want to “punish” our kids with scripture or make them feel bad for behavior that doesn’t match what we’re practicing that week. In general, focusing on what they’re doing well and reminding them of our goal seems to work so much better than pointing out where they’re failing.
Each week, when we switch out the verse, we talk about what it means and how we can practice it. We’ll ask questions like, “How can a friend love at all times? How can we practice this in our house, at school, at the park, etc.?”
Honestly, one of the best parts of this weekly exercise is the way it challenges me and Matt to keep scripture at the forefront of our own minds. If we’re asking our kids to “be kind to one another,” we have to make sure we’re being kind to them when they need redirection. If we’re teaching them to “trust in the Lord with all our heart,” we have to make sure our hearts are handing over the areas of our lives that are easy to control.
Overall, this has been one of my favorite family exercises because it’s something we all do and something that challenges each of us.
I’d love to hear from you. Do you practice scripture in your homes? I’d love to know of any verses you’ve taught your kids that have been really great to apply in their everyday lives, or if you have a way of teaching scripture that works really well for them. If you have something to add or a question to ask, just leave a comment below!
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