Blog

We have had some fantastic breakthroughs and exciting answers to prayer as we’ve involved very young children in our Discovery Bible Studies. We’ve written an article in our Tools and Resources section with some creative ideas and examples of how we have used DBS with mixed groups of adults and children. We hope you find that helpful, but for now here are just a couple of stories to encourage you that this is such a worthwhile thing to do!

We started using a tool (shared in the above article) to try and help the children with the questions about what they were thankful for, what they were struggling with and how we could help. One little girl (aged 6) put sad faces next to friends and school. As we talked to her it turned out she had been sat next to a girl in her class who was being quite unkind to her. The parents had spoken to the teacher but nothing had changed and each day she was worried going into school. So we prayed all together about the situation. In reality the children stayed to pray for about one and a half minutes and the adults continued praying about this - which is fine! The story we shared that day was Jesus calming the storm and the thing that stood out to the children was that Jesus was powerful and could do amazing things. The next week she came back and put a happy face next to school. The very next day after we had prayed the teacher had changed the seating plan!

But the story didn’t end there……

A couple of weeks later although things were better, because she wasn’t sitting with the other girl, the girl was still being unkind and saying nasty things. So we prayed again. Now I can’t honestly remember what the DBS was that week and I don’t think the response came directly out of the story. However, that afternoon the little girl said to her mum ‘I think she is nasty to me because she’s sad the other girls don’t let her play with us.’ She told her mum she was going to ask the other girl to be the mummy in their game the next day. She did this and the whole situation shifted from that point onwards! Praise God!

On another occasion one of the children was thankful that they had won a prize in the end of term prize draw at school. Doesn’t sound too exciting…..until we get into the whole story! All the children get 5 tickets at the end of term and then there are a few prizes, but not every child gets a prize. This child had never had a ticket picked out and was sad on the way into school thinking this would happen again. So the child and parent prayed that this time one of their tickets would be picked out. In assembly the child’s ticket was picked out, not once, not twice, not even three times - all five tickets! A huge pile of gifts demonstrating God’s kindness and ability to do the improbable. Mum was really encouraged about her own struggles and as the story was shared at the start of our DBS a whole group of adults had a reminder to pray for the improbable and to expect God’s goodness and generosity!

It’s not always easy doing DBS with all ages, but it is so worth it and brings a whole different

viewpoint which challenges and encourages. Enjoy these precious times!

Written by a dear friend and fellow disciple maker, CB.