Growing In Your Relationship With God
In good relationships it is necessary to spend time together regularly devoted to getting to know each other better. It is no different in a relationship with God. Often this time spent with God is called a quiet time or devotion time. Prayer, worship, and Bible reading are often a part of this devotion time. Many people look to devotional materials to help them engage in the time they spend with God.
Listed below are several options we happen to like a lot, but there are countless options available.
Free Devotionals:
On Sunday mornings in Adventureland three devotionals are available. These devotionals correspond to the Bible lesson for that day and provide you with ideas and activities to do with your children to reinforce the week’s point.
On Wednesday nights during R.O.C.K. a devotional is given to each child. With your help, your child is encouraged to memorize a Bible verse related to the week’s lesson and complete 5 short devotions. The next week when your child turns in the devotion with your signature and recites the memory verse your child earns Kid Kash toward the R.O.C.K. Store which opens the last Wednesday of the fall and spring semesters.
Devotionals available online or at a bookstore near you:
-
My Good Night Prayers by Susan Lingo For children under six these 45 devotions on themes such as God's presence, forgiveness, love, and kindness offer a great start to establishing a regular time with God.
-
Veggie Family Devotional produced by Big Idea For folks with children under 8 years old this book will help you build a closer relationships with God and each other through fun devotions with the help of the VeggieTales characters. You’ll learn how to develop a powerful relationship with the God through love, faith, trust, time, communication and joy.
-
Growing with Jesus by Andy Holmes For early to middle elementary kids this book is all about growth. God loves to see us grow physically but also in our relationship with Jesus. Each devotion time in this book contains a scripture verse, a fun thought to grow on and a fascinating fact about our body and the world around us.
-
The One Year Book of Devotions for Kids published by Tyndale Kids For middle to older elementary kids because of some of the topics covered in this book, these devotions combine a key theme from a Bible story with a contemporary story, application questions, memory verse and an action phrase to reinforce the theme for the day.
-
Sticky Situations by Betsy Schmitt This book is geared toward middle to older elementary age kids and their parents. Each day’s reading provides a sticky situation a child may face with some possible options for how to handle the situation, a scripture reference to show what the Bible has to say and a discussion guide to help parents talk with their children about the situation presented in the reading.
Bibles:
Finding the right Bible for your child can be a struggle. There are many out there, but these are some favorites in Adventureland:
-
Toddler's Bible by V. Gilbert Beers published by Cook Communications. This Bible is ideal for toddlers-twos. Each story is four pages long with a short text and cartoon-like pictures.
-
The Beginner's Bible: Timeless Children's Stories by Karen Henley published by Zonderkidz. Ideal for children from 3 years through kindergarten. This Bible includes 90 stories that come to life through easy to read text, vibrant pictures and the scripture reference where it can be found in a traditional Bible.
-
My First Study Bible: Exploring God's Word on My Own! by Paul J Loth published by Thomas Nelson. This Bible is cited as a resource for kids from 4-7 years old, but we like it for older ones too. This story Bible is written from the main character point of view in each story including an explanation of how God has been involved in their life and wants to be involved in our lives too.
-
The NIrV Little Kids Adventure Bible by Lawrence O. Richards published by Zonderkidz. For kids from 4-8 years old this Bible is easy to read with few pictures. The New International Readers Version is ideal for children who think story/picture Bibles are too babyish but not quite ready for a traditional Bible.
-
The NIV Adventure Bible, Revised by Lawrence O. Richards published by Zonderkidz. Designed for kids from 8-12 years old, this Bible is the one we present to our third graders in Adventureland each fall in front of the congregation. This is a traditional Bible where kids look up verses by chapter and verse. There are loads of helps to allow children to begin studying, as they say “a real Bible”.