What are you passing down to the next generation

Take the following inventory to see what your spiritual background was like. Then ask yourself, “What am I passing on to the next generation?” Are you giving them the whole counsel of God or just the “fun” stuff? Take this “Spiritual Inventory” from Focus on the Family to see how you were taught as a child.

1. To what degree were spiritual principles incorporated into daily family life?
1. Never 2. Rarely 3. Sometimes 4. Frequently 5. Almost always 6. Consistently
2. Which word captures the tone of how you learned to view/relate to God?
1. Absent 2. Adversarial 3. Fearful 4. Casual 5. Solemn 6. Intimate
3. How would you summarize your family’s level of participation in spiritual activities?
1. Nonexistent 2. Rare 3. Occasional 4. Regimental 5. Active 6. Enthusiastic
4. How were spiritual discussions applied in your home?
1. They weren’t 2. To control 3. To manipulate 4. To teach 5. To influence 6. To reinforce
5. What was the perspective in your home regarding moral absolutes?
1. If it feels good, do it! 2. There are no absolutes. 3. Let your heart guide you. 4. Dogmatic legalism
5. Moderate conservatism 6. Clear boundaries
Results:
Above 24 = Strong spiritual legacy; 19 – 24 = Healthy legacy; 14 – 18 = Mixed legacy — good and bad elements; 10 – 13 = Weak spiritual legacy; Below 10 = Damaged spiritual legacy

If your children or students were given this evaluation, what would be the spiritual temperature of your home or

ministry? Let’s look at some practical ways to make your home or youth room a place where godly disciplines, godly ways and doctrine could be taught.

Deuteronomy 6:6-8 (NKJV), “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them

diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”

Studies show that once our students graduate from high school only 2 out of 10 will continue to attend church. How can we change this trend? How can we leave our students and children with a strong, healthy spiritual legacy?

Here are two practical truths to put into practice.

► If you are a parent, remember and live out Deuteronomy 6:6-8. Use every opportunity to teach your children about God, His Word, and how it applies to us. To teach others we must be students ourselves. Be in the Word. Why not

use the Word of Life Quiet Time? Discuss with your kids what you got out of today’s Quiet Time. Ask them what the day’s scripture means to them. Guide them!

► If you are a leader, use this opportunity to share the truth of Deuteronomy with other parents. Encourage them to be in the Word, make a Quiet Time Diary available to them, and pray for them. Have a parent meeting within the first

month of your ministry. Lovingly, and with excitement, share what your plans are for the year and the expectations you have for their children and / or students. Take a few minutes to share with parents the importance of knowing and teaching the whole counsel of God.

May Deuteronomy 6:6-8 be a reminder to us as parents and as leaders that we have been given the responsibility to train up and teach our children the ways of the Lord. We must continue to grow ourselves by being in the Word daily.

Then share what we have learned and pass these truths to others—the next generation.

[Earlene Livingston and her husband, David, are Word of Life missionaries in Atlanta, GA. They make their home in Woodstock, GA. You may reach Earlene with questions and com]

Helping Early Learners Memorize Scripture

“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Psalm 119:11 The words of God have the power to keep us from sin when they are hidden in our hearts. But how do we help our Gopher Buddies accomplish this? Working with children between the ages of four and six brings unique challenges. First, most will not be reading yet. That makes it harder for them to study their verses on their own. This puts more burden on you as a leader, and on their parents or older siblings. In this age when parents are showing less and less of an interest in the spiritual growth of their children, the burden will fall more and more upon you. Secondly, and related to their inability to read, you will have to use creative teaching techniques to help them memorize Scripture. Here are some practical techniques:

• Use Visuals: Make a poster for each verse. Find pictures that can represent each word in the verse. Glue them to the poster in the correct order. This can also be done on your computer using clip art and/or graphics found on the Internet. The graphics will help them to associate the words of the verses with the pictures that they see. Be sure to clearly describe and define difficult words so the children understand the words they are memorizing.

• Use Movement: This idea works well for Gopher Buddies. They already like to move and their movements can help them to memorize. I suggest that you develop movements for the different key words in the verse. Don’t worry about words like: of, for, the, that, etc.

• Use Repetition: Repetition is crucial. The more they hear the verse, the easier it will be for them to memorize it.

• Use Games: There are 36 creative game ideas found in the Gopher Buddies Lesson book each year. Children love games, and tying together scripture memory and games will help keep their interest up.

• Use Creativity and Efficiency: What can you do if you don’t have any parental involvement? First, be sure to use your time well for scripture memory before, during, and after the club meeting. Secondly, if you have permission from the parents, you can call the child and work on a verse over the phone. Scripture is what should always be on our minds and hearts (Joshua 1:8). We have a great responsibility to help our Gopher Buddies not let the “book of the law…depart out of thy mouth.”

[Jordan Wertz is the eastern Michigan Word of Life missionary specializing in children’s ministry. Jordan and wife, Bonnie, make their home in Corunna, MI. You may reach Jordan with questions or comments about his article at jordanwertz@ wol.org.]

Christian Service Ideas For Children

Christian service is such an important part of a child’s spiritual growth. Too many of the children in our world today are growing up with a “me” focus. As we promote Christian service within Olympians and Gopher Buddies ministries, we are trying to teach the children to have an “other’s focus.”The Olympian Christian Service Manual and the ideas given to Gopher Buddies for Christian Service are a great place to help the children focus on the needs of others. As you enter the spring season, here are some examples of ways the children can serve:

Tree Planting – Find out when your state celebrates Arbor Day and then plan to participate for a Group Christian Service. Check with your parks department and schedule a time to plant trees with the children at one of the local parks. As you and the children come in contact with others at the park, invite them to attend your church.

Pack It Up – Visit www.childrentochildren.org and then contact the social service agency in your community to see if you can work out details for your Olympians and Gopher Buddies to participate in a project similar to the “children‐to‐children”project. Ask if you can place a Bible in the duffel bags as well as a stuffed animal.

Food Drive – Have the children bring in canned or boxed foods for a homeless shelter, rescue mission, or Baptist Children’s Home. After the food has been collected, get the children involved in helping to pack up the boxes for delivery to the organization.

Fun Flowers – There are so many ways to create beautiful faux flowers from tissue paper and chenille stems. Have the children each make a flower and create a cheery card to attach to it. Plan a field trip to a local nursing home and allow the children to help distribute the flowers.

Flower Garden – Collect money from the children for a few weeks and then go and buy flowering plants for a senior citizen or for a nursing home. Take some of the children with you so they can participate in picking out the flowers. If possible, allow some of the children to participate in helping to plant the flowers.

Give a smile! – Cut round circles from construction paper and have the children creatively make smiley face cards to distribute to children who are in the hospital. Purchase some little stuffed animals that can be given along with the cards.

Spring Cleaning – Check with your Pastor and see if there are some senior citizens who could use some extra help with cleaning and yard work. Make sure you recruit additional adults to help, assign the tasks, and then “divide and conquer.”This is a great way to be a testimony in your community!

Helping Children Memorize Scripture

I hope that we can all agree that memorizing God’s Word on a regular basis is important. Since it is important, how can we make it happen in our Olympian Clubs? Before we get into some helpful ideas for helping your children memorize Scripture, let’s discuss some of the philosophy behind why we memorize Scripture. Word of Life’s philosophy on the topic of scripture memory is summed up in this statement: “Internalizing Scripture to connect to life’s needs and problems is essential for a growing, obedient Christian.” As leaders, we can’t focus on our Olympians memorizing just words. If that is our focus, there would be little difference between memorizing Scripture and memorizing a school textbook. Instead, we need to teach children to hide God’s Word in their heart, not just their head. One way to make sure that the children know what the verse means is to regularly ask them questions like: “What does that verse mean?” or “Can you explain that verse in your own words?” Lastly, we need to be very careful how we motivate our Olympians. We may use positive reinforcement such as stickers, certificates and medals; but, our focus is on spiritual growth, not just on the awards.

Here are some ideas for helping children who aren’t doing well memorizing Scripture:

• Work together.
Even if some of the Olympians in your Personal Training group are doing great, having your whole small group work together will encourage those who aren’t doing well, and will teach those who are doing well how to help others.

• Be visual.
Some children learn best with their eyes. Make a poster with pictures representing the words of the verse to help them learn. You can also use motions or sign language to teach the words of the verses.

• Make a game.
One example is to write out a verse on a chalkboard or a whiteboard. Have all your Olympians read the verse out loud. After one time, erase a few words and have them say it again. Keep going through the verse, deleting a few words each time, until all of the words are gone.

• Break them down.
That is the verses, not the Olympians! A whole verse can be intimidating for a child. Instead of focusing on the whole verse at once, have the Olympian work on half or a third of the verse each week, until they get it done. That way, they see progress as they work. The following are ideas for helping children who excel at memorizing scripture:

• Slow them down.
This might seem like the opposite of what you would want to do; but, there is a point to it. When memorizing Scripture comes easy for a child, it can become easy for them to rush through their verses without stopping to apply the verses to their life. For example, if your Olympian has memorized all of her Bronze verses, and the Bronze goal date is still two weeks away, have her review the Bronze verses. If a child is on track with his verses, I would not let them quote more than one to you each week.

• Get them more.
If an Olympian memorizes all of the verses before the end of the club year; there are always more. If they are a Challenger or Conqueror, they can memorize some of the other eight Champion verses. If they are a Champion, there are an additional 24 verses in the Bible Study each year that are not used on the Scripture Memory Cards. They can be found after the lesson title of each lesson where it says “Key Verse.” Having God’s Word hidden in our hearts is one of our best tools for facing temptations.

We need to do our best to help our Olympians have God’s Word memorized and applied to their lives.

[Jordan Wertz is the Word of Life children’s missionary in Eastern Michigan. Jordan and his wife, Bonnie, make their home in Corunna, MI. Questions or comments about this article may be directed to Jordan at jordanwertz@wol.org.]