Showing children videos is one of the best ways to get their attention fast. It seems once the television screen goes on, every eye in the room focuses in that direction – and stays there. Children who won't still for storytime or a discussion time, will often be glued to the set until it's turned off. They like the lights, the colors, and the visual activity.

For this reason, Bible story videos can be a very effective tool for teaching Bible stories and lessons to children. Children's Bible videos can stimulate a visual in the mind's eye and put words to pictures. They can also give children concrete examples of a concept or idea.

A Bible video can be a fun way to teach new Bible stories, or help children remember old favorites. Instead of sitting your children or class down to hear another story, you can play a video of the story instead.

It's important to remember that most Bible videos are not entirely accurate and often fail to correctly present biblical accounts in one way or another. You will want to watch for discrepancies between the video you're using and the Scriptural account of the Bible story. It might be a good idea to watch the video on your own before showing it to your children, so you can quickly point out where the video goes off course.

After showing a Bible video to your children or class, have them read the scriptural account of the story. Do they spot any differences? What was added to the video? Was anything left out? Remind the children that the Bible is always the infallible word of truth.

Another way to use Bible videos to teach Bible stories is to show only a part of the video and read the rest of the story with your children. Perhaps you could introduce the story by reading from the Bible, watch the video for the exciting action scene, and then return to the Bible for the remainder of the story.

A fun activity to do after watching Bible story videos is to have the children act out the story they just watched. If some parts of the video were not biblically accurate, have the children plan how they can act it out to match what the Bible says. This is a good way to reinforce the story they just watched and the biblical truth.

You can also show children videos to teach Bible lessons rather than stories. Some videos can help them examine motives and character qualities. Have them look for examples of godly and ungodly attitudes in the video. Rather than describing attitudes, you can point out a certain behavior and ask, "What do you think about how so-and-so handled that situation?"

Have children observe body language in the video. What did a particular character do to show compassion? What did he do when he was angry? Looking for and identifying these types of behaviors makes children more aware of their own body language and how it affects others.

Again, it's important to always return to the Scriptures, and what the Bible tells us about our attitudes and behavior. Videos are helpful for showing specific examples, but always base your teaching on Scripture. You can say something like, "Let's see what the Bible has to say about what we just watched," and then talk to the children about a verse of passage that relates.

Showing children videos can be a valuable tool for teaching the Bible, but you need to remind them that we always go back to the Bible, the infallible Word of God, for the real story.

Author of "Plant the Word"
Co-Owner TrainUpChildren.com

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