When our older children were around age 5 and 6 my husband and I wanted to find a resource that we could use together as a family that would be easy-to-follow, get us in the Word, and help us train our children in character training. 

After much searching, we decided on using the family devotional, Our 24 Family Ways by Clay Clarkson. The devotional’s premise is that you are creating a culture in your home of how your family thinks and acts.  Based on the idea that we are called to “train up a child in the way he should go”, Clarkson maps out 24 ways which you can use to teach and instruct your children. I loved this idea because I felt like it was giving clarity and verbiage to the character traits I desire to see in my children. We refer to the 24 ways given in this book all the time now, even after finishing the devotional, to redirect heart attitudes and behaviors. We have now used this devotional twice and I can’t recommend it enough!

Related: How Do I Explain the Gospel to My Children?

The devotional’s layout is simple. It is set up to be used for 24 weeks, one week per Family Way. The 24 weeks are broken into 6 sections. 

The six sections are:

1. Concerning authorities in our family: these ways address love and obedience to God, parents, and other people of authority. 
2. Concerning relationships in our family: these ways address having a heart of love, service, encouragement, and forgiveness towards others. 
3. Concerning possessions in our family-: these ways address thankfulness, contentment, generosity, and stewardship of belongings.
4. Concerning work in our family: these ways address diligence, taking initiative, working cooperatively, and taking personal responsibility for cleanliness.
5. Concerning attitudes in our family: these ways address choosing joy, being a peacemaker, patience, and showing grace to others.
6. Concerning choices in our family: these ways address making right choices in the midst of peer pressure, self-control, and truthfulness.

Each section has 4 Family Ways and each Family way includes a picture with a story starter for discussion, and 5 days of questions, scripture readings, discussion prompts, and prayer ideas. Each day is presented using the acronym ARTS.

A – Ask a Question

This section gives the leader questions to get the children chatting before reading the bible passage.

R – Read the Bible

Bible passages or stories that are applicable to each day’s topic are listed here with a short summary. My kids loved to use their own Bibles to look up these passages and take turns reading aloud to the family. 

T – Talk about it

Here, questions are given that relate to the passage as well as open up discussion for life application.

S – Speak to God

In this section, prayer prompts are offered as suggestions. 

In addition to that, each week has one passage of scripture intended for memorization, some commentary, and a character trait highlight. Our family devotional time is about 30 minutes. We could easily fit everything in each day, as well as take a few minutes for reviewing previous weeks’ verses that we had memorized.

Here are the reasons we loved using Our 24 Family Ways:

It was engaging for children of all ages

We have used this devotional with children ages 4-10 and most of the content was perfectly suited for all of their ages, with some tweaking here and there for the younger ones. 

It was easy to open and use with no preparation

Each morning my husband would open the book, glance over the topic and was able to jump in and lead without missing a beat. All you need is the book and a Bible. 

It set us up for life application and practical training

The verbiage of the ways gave my husband I language to use that my children knew from devotional time as we addressed situations in our home. I found this super helpful for training and discipline and plan to continue to use these ways in our home for years.

It encouraged the children to think and discuss

Each day’s devotional is based on scripture and the prompt questions get the children thinking and talking, rather than the parent reading long passages and telling the children what to think. I loved watching my children’s cognitive and language skills develop over the time we used this devotional.

It is designed to bring your family closer to God and each other

I loved the idea that each Family Way that we taught was empowering the children to take a step nearer to God and to us as a family unit as we talked about it being something that we all collectively do in our family.

It presents meaningful key passages of scripture for memorization 

Although we are no longer using this resource daily, we now have 24 passages of meaningful and applicable scripture memorized that we recall often. When situations arise, we remember these verses and how the Word applies to our lives.

As we went through the study, we wrote the Family Way and the passage for memorization on the chalkboard that hung behind our dining room/ school table.  On Mondays we introduced the verse by reading and reciting it together a few times. Sometimes we put tunes or hand motions to the verses as well. By Fridays, we usually had the passage memorized.

To review the verses each week, we use this Scripture Memory System, as well as Light the Way.

Related: 7 Tips for Scripture Memory

Light the Way Interactive Scripture Memory Set

I saw the value of our children having these 24 foundational passages of scripture hidden deep in their hearts so much that I wanted a way to continue to reinforce them in our home, even after finishing the devotional. I tried to think of short activities that my children could do each day of the week to reinforce memorization and application of the passage. From that place, Light the Way was created. 

Light the Way includes 24 weeks of daily scripture memory activities. Children can recite, write, draw, or interact with character-building scriptures as they commit them to memory. This can be used alongside the devotional book Our 24 Family Ways  or independently as an intentional scripture memory tool.

Each verse includes five hands-on educational activities including:

• Print copywork
• Cursive copywork
• Cut and paste scramble activity
• Fill-in-the-blank activity
• Journal prompts

Whether or not your family uses Our 24 Family Ways, Light the Way is a great resource for children to memorize and apply key scriptures.

*New and updated*

We took all of your feedback on our Light the Way Scripture Memory Set and made it even better:

• More affordable (new low price of $24) 
• Primary and intermediate lined options in both print and cursive
• Comes in both NIV and ESV Bible versions

Download a free sample of Light the Way here.