At the beginning of the month we give our kids a GodTime card. This is a printed piece, specifically designed to help them read their Bible at home during the week.
One thing that we’ve noticed is that kids need help from their parents as they are learning to find things in the Bible and understand what they are reading. It’s tough for them to do it alone.
This past Sunday, we taught our kids that “If you want to know God better, READ HIS BOOK.” As part of that lesson, we really focused on how to use the GodTime card.
Check out this video that we shared with our younger kids on Sunday and emailed home to our parents this week.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:32 am
I love your God Time Card idea!!! I know it would be asking alot, but it would be cool if you could provide these as PDF’s so that people like myself that don’t attend Northpoint could use them. I am sure that many parents in other states would use them with the help of your generosity!
Great idea
January 5th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Hi Chris!
I wish that we could, but we use curriculum created by the ReThink organization and although we do create our own GodTime card, we use many of their virtues and bottom lines as part of the card we create. But there is good news! You can go to http://www.252basics.com/ and use their material as well. AND as part of their material they also have a GodTime card. It looks a little bit different than ours - but just as great.
Hope that is helpful to you!
Kendra
January 5th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Awesome Idea! I am continually thinking how to get kids to spend time with God as well as having parents be a part of that! Do you reward them anyway? Do you have a reward system at NP?
January 5th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
We don’t reward the kids. Sometimes a few of our small group leaders will give a special prize to the kids and sometimes we will do something short term where kids get a prize. But not very often
Kids love prizes though, so I don’t think that’s a bad idea!
Kendra
January 6th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Kendra,
Does your Godtime card follow that template monthly, or just this month following the discipline/faith skills content? We use and adapt 252 as well.
Thanks,
Angie
January 6th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
We follow this template every month. We made this change at the beginning of the school year. Mostly because we had used the same GodTime format for many years and felt like we needed to catch our kids attention in a new way. But also because of feedback and observations with kids and parents.
Kendra
January 6th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Ditto that! Thanks.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Do you know where I can get the icons for the Find it, Mark it, Write it and Pray it?
January 6th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
We created this in-house. Let me ask about the icons and I’ll get back to you ASAP!
Thanks.
K
January 6th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
I can’t tell you how much this blog has meant to me in the last six months taking on this new challenge. We just had a conversation with our elementary teachers about a way to teach kids to use their Bible more. I can’t wait to share this idea with them.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Thanks for the great idea Kendra!! I love this way of using the God Time cards. I have been working on a one for us based on what you created and will be presenting it to our team to start using in February.
I found the icons on iStockphoto.com. You will have to alter them slightly to get them to look this way. If you want to send me your email, I can send you the jpegs I created. They are a little different(I used a book instead of the magnifying glass).
I was wondering if you could post (or email) a pdf of the card so we could see the instructions you have listed under the different days.
Thanks again for helping me to stay in tune with great ideas on help families move closer to God.
-Teri
January 6th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Hey Teri,
I would love to see the jpegs you created. Can you e-mail them at kevinlifechurch@gmail.com?
Thanks!
January 6th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Hi guys! I’ll post a PDF of the GodTime card for you tomorrow when I get in the office. Should be able to have the icons for you then as well.
Hope you have a great evening!
Kendra
January 6th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Hi Helen,
I’m so glad that this information is helpful to you. We’re all in this together and I’m glad we’ve found a good platform to share information. Let me know what your teachers think!
Kendra
January 7th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Here’s a sample of January’s GodTime card. Sorry for the delay!
http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2010/01/06/godtime-sample/
January 8th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Thank you so much for this new idea! I’ve been trying to come up with a format to simplify some of our information into a once-a-month piece that we could print on cardstock in color, instead of our weekly bw paper. This has helped me solve that problem quite nicely!
January 11th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I am assuming that you give these out on the first Sunday of the month and then to other families as they attend> What do you change on the GT card each month. It looks like it is pretty static except the big idea, the month and the verses for each week. Is it printed 8 1/2 x 11 or 5 1/2 x 8 1/2? Why did you go to this format instead of the 252 format? Thanks for your help. I really like this format!
January 11th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I would also like to see the jpegs you created. You can email them to johnson.rn@gmail.com. Thanks.
January 11th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Hi Robert,
You’re right, the format stays the same except for the scripture that we chose for each week, the big idea, and the month/date.
We changed it because we had used the 252 Basics format for many years. We found that our kids weren’t using it as much and we needed to catch their attention in a new way. After gathering some feedback, we also found that we needed to simplify the process for kids. So that’s why we decided to try something new.
You can find the icons on iStockphotography.com — here is a link to the PDF of the card http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2010/01/06/godtime-sample/ — you probably saw this - but I wasn’t sure.
Thank you Robert!
K
January 14th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I absolutely LOVE your GodTime card. I would also like to get the jpegs used. We were wanting to do something different with the cards because the kids were not using them at all. I think this fresh look could be just what we need to get it jump started again!!!
You can email me at pamf@cbctx.org Thanks!!!
January 14th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Hi Pam,
You can download the jpeg of the card here http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2010/01/06/godtime-sample/ -
The icons can be found on the istock photo website.
Hope this is helpful.
K
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Kendra,
We are wondering where you got the verses on your January GodTime card. We are currently using 252’s GodTime cards and would like to start creating our own monthly card similar to what y’all are using but we can’t see where the verses on your January sample match up with the verses from that month’s Bible stories or memory verses. Your help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Hi Katy,
We write and edit our content quite a bit. So the verses on the GodTime card do match up with the memory verse we’ve chosen and the direction we are taking with content. If you are looking purely at 252 Basics, then we don’t always match. But the GodTime verses are chosen by someone on our team who is on our content team and they are chosen strategically to help kids engage with God’s word and to connect to what we are teaching that month.
Hope that helps.
Kendra