Cultivate a Love for God’s Word Without Making Your Kids Memorize Scripture

I’ve rarely made my kids read the bible for the sake of reading the bible or just because that is what Christians should do. (I’m not saying they don’t read their bibles, I’m just saying I don’t make them.)

And I’ve rarely made them memorize scripture arbitrarily or because a lesson plan said to. (Not that they’ve never memorized scripture at all … in fact, the one year they memorized the most was because the kids requested that we make it a whole family goal, and we did that all together, which was a lot of fun – because they wanted to do it.)

The Problem with Bible Programming

Like the education of any other subject, I just never could jive with the “programming” of the dynamic word of God in young kids. And I certainly never wanted learning God’s word to become a rote practice for my own.

Too often, adults try to cultivate a love for God’s word in kids through system (whether at home, at Christian school, or at church) but at the expense of not cultivating a love for WHY we should love God’s word in the first place.

There seems to be an emphasis on programmed practice over personal relationship as adults try to raise kids to know God. We spend energy filling young minds with biblical knowledge through structured methods, but don’t know how to communicate and point to the gospel through the everyday ebbs and flows of life.

Children get filled up with adventurous and heroic bible stories or memorize bible verses that they seem to forget as soon as they receive their recitation prize. Yet they lack in gospel perspective and fluency.

And then we wonder why the majority of young adults “leave the faith”.

“There has to be another way,” I thought. As a young mom, and new Christian, I didn’t want our family to succumb to those statistics.

Love the Gospel, Then Love the Word

As I thought and prayed about the matter, I realized that most people (young and old) really don’t retain much of what they are taught, unless they are ready or hungry for it (hence our reason for unschooling). Sure, we can all learn things and gain knowledge along the way … but knowledge really only “sticks” and becomes practical and lasting wisdom when we are most ready to receive and apply it.

I decided early on in my motherhood that I wasn’t going to force my kids to know God’s word without first cultivating in them a love for God first. I wanted God’s word to become meaningful, not mundane.

So, instead, I set about discipling my kids in The Bigger Story, teaching and training them with a meta-narrative perspective. I focused more on our need for a rescuer and reason why the gospel is such a precious thing to be treasured, and worked to grow gospel fluency – not only in them, but in myself.

Our approach to diving into truth in those younger years was more organic – just as life is organic.

Struggling with a sibling or a friend? Not wanting to do chores? Whining and complaining? Lying? Having a hard time being thankful? Worried or anxious about something? Putting oneself before others in all the many ways one can do so?

As life happened (and still happens!), I would then lead them to what God’s truth had to say, reminding them how the gospel should inform our responses in each situation. Scripture was our go-to for most every aspect of life, as a source for help and direction (as opposed to scripture being something we disconnectedly jammed into a lesson plan or only something they learned during Sunday school, and then me imparting my own worldly wisdom the rest of the time). It’s not that we never went to God’s word, it’s that our approach was more … dynamic … living … active. Just as God’s word is.

Over the years, my kids have grown to love God and the good news He brings through Jesus. And it is their love for Him and what He has done that has then compelled them to love what He has to say.

As a result, they would choose their own verses to memorize (not bc Mom, a teacher’s guide, or a Sunday school teacher told them to) – because those specific verses were what they needed at those times. The scripture they do have tucked away in their minds and hearts now isn’t because they received candy, a toy, or stickers for it, but because they had to cling onto it when there was nothing else to cling on to.

I didn’t want to raise them to simply know God’s word; I wanted more for them to love what Jesus did for them in light of what they really deserve. I just felt that if they could understand the gospel in such an intimate way, then everything else would fall into place. Which, so far, and only by God’s grace, has.

Parents Model How to Do All That

But this kind of approach – unreliant on teacher’s guides or Sunday school assignments – requires us parents to first love the very thing we are wanting to impart to our kids. We can’t pour out what we aren’t filled with.

I know life is busy and there are so many cares burdening our plates. But so often our energy is focused on managing this life, as we try to create order out of chaos. Our minds can easily become entangled with thoughts of the here and now, and we rarely carve out time to meditate on absolute truth or foster eternal perspective. Additionally, because we are so encumbered, we end up farming our kids out to others for their primary spiritual instruction and guidance.

But we, as parents, cannot abdicate the job we have been commanded to do.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Deuteronomy 6:5-7

We may think we are fulfilling our responsibility when we do things like stick them in Christian schools, plug them into church programs, or throwing a devotional their way and simply telling them to read it. Those are all great, but they are only resources to help us, not to replace us.

And – we can’t program or structure their spiritual growth! We can only guide them and model for them how to do that as they see us dynamically walk out our desperate need for Jesus.

So the question really is: Are you desperate for Him? Are you living a life tethered to the reality that apart from Jesus, our depravity only leads to death and destruction? Is the gospel humbling you in such a way that compels you to be ravenous for the hope and truth found in God’s word?

We can’t force-feed a gospel centered life to our kids. We can only live one that they want to emulate themselves.