Ten top tips
1. It will be helpful to work out with your child the best regular time and method for conversations to happen. Many children are already busy young people who are juggling a number of commitments. Be sensitive to their time constraints. If you know ahead of time that you will be unavailable at your prearranged time, give your child advance notice and reschedule.
2. Give honest (age-appropriate) answers rather than ‘perfect’ answers and be willing to share failures as well as successes. If you have difficulty thinking of an answer to their question, it is OK to give yourself some thinking time and tell them you will get back to them; or, even better, see if you can work out the answer together.
3. Take a genuine interest in the child, asking about what is happening in their world and cheering them on in their own faith journey, while sharing regular experiences from your own life.
4. Pray regularly for your child.
5. Be encouraging and affirming. Let your child know that you look forward to your conversations together.
6. Maintain a sense of anticipation with your child that you are looking at a special book in which you expect to come face-to-face with God. Encourage an attitude of discovery – looking for God on every page.
7. Help your child to see their own life story as part of the vast epic of God’s Word, as you show the reality of God at work in their life. Always be prepared to relate stories from your own life that reveal how God is at work in the lives of his followers.
8. Wherever possible, ask your child what difference their discoveries might make to their lives. While we cannot dictate the difference it might make, we can suggest aspects of their lives that might be affected.
9. Do not expect every conversation to end in your child’s values and lifestyle being turned upside down. God does demand change through the Bible, and we must not underestimate a child’s ability to live a thrillingly radical Christian life; but change and growth are normally slow.
10. Be open to the possibility that the ‘coaching’ relationship may continue beyond the Big Bible Challenge.