Drawing Scripture with Your Children

Written By Kelly Baugh

Anytime we can bring art or creativity into our devotional/prayer times with our children, we should! Using art to unlock creativity is an amazing tool that gets people more engaged with Scripture or prayer. By using multiple intelligence centers, creatively engaging with God makes the experience more memorable, real, and impactful. 

Science proves this as well: if we experience something with both the right and left sides of our brain, it becomes a foundational experience within our minds. We are also more likely to return to this way of interacting with God because of how strongly we feel His presence when we engage with Him through our whole being. 

Practice:

  • Have everyone grab a notebook or paper and coloring utensils.

  • Listen to a Psalm or story from the gospels with your children. Below is a list of some good passages to start out with.You can either read it aloud to them (in one of the more “accessible” translations--The Message, New Living Translation (NLT), or The Passion Translation (TPT), or you can listen to it read with them from an online app like Bible Gateway, YouVersion of the Bible). Color, doodle, or illustrate the scripture you are listening to. 

  • Depending on your children’s attention span, read through the passage several times as they draw.

  • Once you are finished (15-20 minutes), have everyone who participated take turns explaining their picture and why they drew it the way they did. Ask how they felt or understood God as they were drawing. 

  • At first, your child may feel hesitant or shy about drawing and sharing, but keep at it. As they see your pictures and the authenticity of how you felt led to draw and share, they will follow your example and do the same. 

Celebratory Psalms/Thankful Psalms: 1, 8, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 27, 30, 32, 33, 34, 40, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 75, 91, 92, 95, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117,  118, 121, 124, 125, 131, 135, 136, 138, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150

Gospel Passages: 

  • Matthew 3:13-17, 5:1-48, 8:23-27, 9:35-10:16, 14:13-21,14:22-23, 17:1-13, 20:2-28, 28:1-10 

  • Mark 1:21-39, 5:24-34 

  • Luke 1:39-56, 2:1-20, 5:1-11, 7:36-50, 19:1-10, 22:7-30, 23:26-49, 24:13-35 

  • John 2:1-11, 4:1-42, 11:1-44, 12:1-8, 13:1-17, 20:1,11-18, 21:1-19

Kelly Baugh
Next

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God - John Donne