Why am I doing Bible lessons at home?

Before I had kids, I was a high school math teacher.  When I was teaching, I tutored a lot of my own students after school, but I also occasionally tutored students in other classes.  The difference in teaching your own student and teaching someone else's student is like night and day.  With your own student, you know all the history with the student, you know what they should've learned, how they should've learned it, what his weaknesses are, and how to help him.  With someone else's student, I didn't have all that background.  I would do my best to line up my tutoring with their past history in math, and meet them where they were at, but it certainly wasn't as natural.  What I've realized about my kids and Bible lessons, is that if I am relying on outside people to teach them about God (at church, preschool, etc.) then when it comes to teaching them about life from a Biblical world view, it will feel like tutoring someone else's student.  If my husband and I are trying to train Jenna to share with her little sister, we need to know that she's been taught why it's important to share, why God wants her to share, who God is, and why we follow Him.

Through my college Educational Philosophy class, I came to the conclusion that the responsibility for the education of a child lies with the parents.  Not the school.  As parents, we should view school or church as a tool in educating our children, not the only source of their education.  So, when it comes to her spiritual training, my hope is that the lessons my daughter learns in Sunday School or at preschool would be reinforcing what she is already learning at home. 

There are, of course, spiritual reasons to do Bible lessons at home.  You can never go wrong if you fill your home with scripture, prayer, and talk about God.  This is what God longs for in our families.  I know this is what he longs for in my family.  If I am actively planning lessons for my daughter, then Scripture and God are on my thoughts and lips when I handle her.  Then when we tell daddy about it later, He fills our dinner table.  And when we finish the day with prayer before bed, we're talking to someone that who has been a part of our day.

So, friends, these are a couple of the reasons that God has used to put this on my heart.  But, please know that I am not an expert in this!!  My kids are 3 and 1, not adults who beautifully walk with Jesus or anything close to that!  This blog will be a humble, day-by-day journey, not a proven recipe for success.  I will be blogging about these lessons as I do them.  I will be praying over the lessons and praying over the blog and just trusting that God will use the blog however He chooses.