So, how many of you parents out there have worked through an entire catechism with your children? About a year and a half ago we started working through the Catechism for Young Children. While there are a number of aspects of the catechism that are valuable, I really struggled to stick with it. Although we want our children to understand all of the concepts held within the catechism, it became increasingly frustrating to me that as we memorized the catechism, we weren’t memorizing God’s Word.
Once we finally decided that we had to go a different direction, we began considering what we should do in place of catechism. What exactly do our children need to know, and which Bible verses should we focus on? It may just be me, but those questions seemed a bit overwhelming. At this point we turned to a small book entitled Building a Biblical Worldview Verse by Verse by Brannon Howse, founder of Worldview Weekend Conference.
The book is available in hardback and as an e-book and is divided into 52 questions and answers. Each answer is a verse, and with each question and answer set there is a further explanation. Each question is not only well thought out, but thought provoking as well. For instance, question 29 is, “What is a Christian’s responsibility concerning wealth and money?” (Wow! Is this a hard one to get across to our kids, or what?!) Question 33 is, “How does a believer live a victorious Christian life?” Question 48 reads, “Why should we not be surprised or deterred when the world makes fun of our worldview and faith in Jesus Christ?” And, while Brannon matches one main verse to each question, he also lists several other pertinent verses in his further explanation.
While looking through the book I had to consider the areas my husband and I want to emphasize with our children as we focus on Bible memory. Brannon emphasizes certain areas more than we would emphasize them. For instance, a number of Brannon’s questions focus on the relationship between individuals and their government. While these are worthwhile questions and scriptures, they are probably not in our top 52. I also determined that the book did not include as much of a focus on steps to salvation as I would like to have seen.
Building a Biblical Worldview Verse by Verse has been valuable to me in that it helped me to begin piecing together my “top 52″ verses for memory. While we have done Bible memory in the past somewhat randomly, it is nice to have a list that I can now go to which I feel includes essential verses on which our children need to focus. While some of these verses were the same verses highlighted by Brannon Howse, others are different.
The Building a Biblical Worldview Verse by Verse hardback book is available for $12 (+shipping) and the e-book is just $6.
If you have used the book in your home, let us know what you think of it.
