How many times have you told your preteens: “Your faith is something you live every day, not just when you are here at church.” Or my favorite: “You do know you can open your Bible during the week, right?”
If we can help preteens develop the habits of opening and reading their Bible and wrestling with what they findthroughout their weeks now, they will be better equipped to handle what life throws at them in the future (can anyone say, “letting go of the bike“?).That’s when I found: “The Other Six.”
The concept is basic: provide students with a small challenge to help them connect with God and the Bible “the other six” days they are not at church. It can be a follow-up question from the weekend’s lesson, a prompt to get them drawing or writing based on reflections of the weekend’s text, or simply an encouragement to read the text again on their own away from the service.
It might work for only a few days out of the week. Or it might get a student into a daily devotion habit that lasts the rest of their life! But when you’re helping someone learn how to ride the bike of their own faith, you celebrate every push of the pedal along the way until you’re cheering as they ride laps around the block.
How do you help students interact with the Bible throughout the week?
Below is a picture of what our “The Other Six” looks like.
Also, be sure to check out Rob Ham’s blog (seeing as I borrowed the idea from him!).
