It has evolved over the years. When we first started out, I would pick random chapters and verses out of the air and have the children race to see who could find it in the Bible first.

I raced against Yanni and Xay in the early days.

This exercise got them up to speed with Pastor, when he’d tell the congregation to find a specific scripture.

This practice morphed into studying a specific topic. If I wanted to find out more about a specific word, like ‘rock,’ for example, I would go to Biblegateway.com and look up ‘rock’ in the King James Bible, and then take the children through the whole search, 5 verses at a time. When we completed a search, I would have the children write about what we learned. Sometimes, we’d write poetry based on the Bible search topic.

(I later turned my poems into songs, and had hoped to teach the children to do this at some point).

The trouble with Bible study was the children’s attitudes. They would scoff and roll their eyes with each topic, and I wondered if they ever got anything out of it.

Ayanna got to the point where she could appreciate what I was trying to do, and her attitude improved. Xavier began to get bored with the whole process. Then he joined the homeschool Christian Youth bible study, and stopped studying with us.

Before he stopped, though, Xay suggested a topic: Faith vs Works. This was a topic they were discussing in his Bible study, and he wanted some insight. It took some time, but we pushed through this topic.

Xay is now leading the Bible study, and is searching the Bible for his own answers. He apologized to me for his attitude in the past. He told me that he found some of the scriptures for faith vs works.

Today Xay was ready to dig into the ‘cornerstone’ scriptures again. I was thrilled. Going into Bible Study with the children, I wasn’t sure what would become of it. I knew that I wanted the children to know the Word, and I wanted them to know God, but I wasn’t sure how to ‘teach’ that.

I also feel guilty for having gotten in there with them. Shouldn’t I have learned it first and then taught it to them? Wasn’t I being selfish, trying to learn myself at the same time?

One thing I’ve learned through studying the Bible is that the Word does not return void. So if you are digging through the Word, it will do the work itself. We are talking about planting, and producing good ground. We are also talking about faith.

Now I’m doing Bible study with the younger children. I don’t race them in their search. They seem too young to compete against me. I hope this decision doesn’t weaken them. I am trying to make sure they understand what we’re reading.

Esteban just writes a verse from Proverbs. He can’t wait to get his own Bible to search through. Nobody has a bad attitude in this next group of kids.

That is something.