I dunno how you do faith stuff with your kids. We do it both in the ebb and flow of life but also more intentionally around the dinner table.

Last year Danelle found a book of kid’s devotions with one for each day of the year so we used that maybe 4 or 5 times a week.

This year I picked up the Scripture Union E100 Bible Challenge. I have had the guide sitting in my study for a couple of years now and always thought it could be useful. I found the last devotion book a bit lame so wondered how the kids would go with just straight Bible content. And in the E100 there is a fair bit of it…

Here’s an excerpt from their website to give you an idea of what it is:

The Essential 100 Challenge (The E100) is an effective Bible reading program built around 100 carefully selected short Bible passages — 50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament. It enables people in your church to get the big picture of God’s Word and in the process develop a daily Bible reading habit.

The E100 Bible passages are usually one to two chapters in length and can easily be read in 10 minutes or less. The E100 Challenge takes a reader through all of the major types of biblical writing including Historical books, Poetry and Wisdom Literature, the Prophets, the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles and Revelation.

It seems some churches have used it as a preaching guide and integrated it into their whole teaching program, so it can be a churchwide thing as well as a very locally based activity.

What I’ve noticed is that our kids have responded well to it. Each night we read around 2 chapters of the Bible (currently Genesis) and as we are reading I ask them to consider a) one thing that strikes them and b) one thing that they would want to ask a question about.

And crikey… there is no shortage of questions…

Genesis is just chock full of stuff that needs questioning and mums and dads don’t always have the answers. But it is really good to have the conversations with the kids and to see how their minds enquire and explore. Just the last few days have led us into some pretty murky theological water.

I am conscious that they at a very early stage of faith and need concrete answers as much as possible to their questions, but I am also conscious that I don’t just want to feed them a party line that won’t hold water as they get older and think things thru more carefully.

Either way I’m not too worried. I think it matters less that we get the answers right and it matters more that we raise the issues.

Anyway if you’re looking for something really simple and surprisingly productive to do with your kids (probably 6 & above) then you could check it out.