At the Orange Conference I attended a breakout session talking about 5 basic Faith Skills to build into kids to help them take ownership of their faith and make it theirs.  If you are a parent and/or serve in kids ministry, you don’t want to miss the next 5 posts.

Skill #1:  Navigate the Bible

• Children should know how the smaller stories within the Bible work together to tell God’s Big Story.  Many ministries are guilty of teaching the bible as a series of one-liners that support the main teaching point.  Yet kids fail to see the bigger picture in scripture.
  
• The Bible is a place they can go to find verses that will help them with specific questions.
  

God’s word is a source of Life to a believer.  Read in context, it reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  Kids that learn a biblical worldview have a more solid foundation to build their life upon.  We can’t expect our kids to have a biblical worldview unless the Bible plays a prominent role in our lives.

Parents, how can we better equip you to teach your kids how to navigate the Bible?

Ministry leaders, how well does your curriculum teach kids to view the Bible as a continuous story of His Glory?

Talking about the 5 skills to establish faith in our kids.  Catch the first 4 here.

Faith Skill #4: Articulate Faith

Create a safe place to discuss and wrestle with what kids believe.  This is key for our kids to make their faith their own.

Not just as parents, but as individuals, we can fear doubt.  We are scared of questions.  Sometimes it freaks us out when people question their faith.  We think we might lose them forever.  They might go off the deep end.

“Just have more faith.  Have more faith!”

I’m not discounting faith.  It’s a vital component to your relationship with Jesus.  But in order to make something your own, sometimes you’ve got to wrestle it down yourself.   I appreciate a good sermon, but I value scripture more when I labor through, question and digest it myself.

Give people in your home the space and the safety to question.  Have less faith in your explanations of God… and have more faith in the work God is doing in the midst of the wrestle.

Some of the best parenting advise I’d ever heard came from a 23 year old single man.  He said…

Talk less.  Pray more.

Do questions make you uncomfortable?  Do you allow people to question and wrestle with their faith?

All posts in this series can be found here.

Skill #2:  Personalize Scripture

Encourage children to memorize scripture so they can remember it and apply it in everyday situations

Knowing how critical the demonstration of parents and volunteers can be, it only makes sense that we lead the way in scripture memorization.  And yet I slack significantly here.

I’m inspired to 2 action steps:

• Lead my kids in memorization by doing it also rather than just expecting them to do it
• Lead my volunteers to memorization to increase their effectiveness/encouragement
  

As a parent/volunteer/mentor to kids… how would you rate yourself on personalizing scripture?