These 4 books of games and imaginative teaching ideas are designed as a resource to complement and support Bible teaching. They have been written as companion volumes to the ‘On the Way’ Bible teaching programme, but are suitable for use in any situation where the Bible is being taught to children.

Teaching the Bible is an exacting task. Teaching the Bible to children is even more so. The concepts are sometimes hard to communicate and are often contrary to the norms in the secular society in which they live. They are used to an interactive style of learning and they want to have fun. Traditionally we have tended to separate off the ‘Bible teaching’ slot from the rest of the activities in our children’s programmes which are fun but have no Bible content. How much better to make every part of the programme count in the teaching of God’s word! Since children learn by repetition, why teach something once when you can teach it several times, using all the activities and games to contribute to the learning process? In this way not only is learning enhanced but the Bible is exciting, relevant and truly central to the group’s activities.

In these books we have outlined 3 supplementary activities - the Warm Up, the Consolidation and the Wind Up. Though this is only one model of an integrated teaching approach, it has been used by TnT Ministries with great success for many years. We have found consistently that with this kind of repetition even the smallest child can learn big things about God.

Warm Up

This is a short activity or presentation designed to arrest the attention of the children and prepare them for the Bible teaching which is to follow.

Consolidation

This is a constructive game or activity designed to reinforce the key concepts, theme, aim or details of the Bible story that has just been taught. It generally involves plenty of physical activity and some simple equipment.

Wind Up

A Wind Up is the final summation of the days teaching. It involves linking the Warm Up, the Bible story and the Consolidation together, emphasising the central teaching point.

Warm ups and wind ups take around 5 minutes and a Consolidation game 10-15 minutes. For each Bible story there are 2 schemes of Warm Ups, Consolidations and Wind Ups described. One will often require more space or more equipment.

The ideas and suggestions in these books are only guidelines for you to adapt and change in line with the age, number and needs of your children and limitations of your meeting space. We would stress that they should be used alongside, not in place of, teaching directly from the Bible.