Brave

This page is for you, the parent or teacher — not for the child.

Fifteen studies, five weekdays a week, three weeks. One short passage a day. It is built to be a child’s whole Bible time for the day and to take fifteen or twenty minutes, not an hour.

This is the first of the six thematic plans. Unlike the storyline plans, it jumps around the Bible on purpose — fifteen different people, one subject.

The shape of one day

1. Read the passage out loud. Twice. You read it the first time. Let the child read it the second time if they can.
2. Close the Bible and have them tell it back in their own words. This is the step everybody skips, and it is the one that does the work. If it comes out thin, read it again and let them try again. Don’t correct the retelling into a lecture — just ask, “what happened next?”
3. Ask the four questions. Let the silence sit. A seven-year-old needs longer to answer than you think, and the first thing they say is usually not the thing they mean.
4. Help them land one “I will.” Small and real beats big and vague.
5. Pray. The prayer under each day is there if they want it; their own words are better. Pray at the end, not the start — it’s a response to what they found, not a hint about what they were supposed to find.

The four questions

Every day, the same four:

1. What does this show me about God?
2. What does it show me about people — and about me?
3. What will I obey this week?
4. Who will I tell?

Under each day you’ll find a kid-sized version of each one. Use those if the standard wording goes over their head; use the standard four once they can carry them. They are the same questions the adults’ plans use, on purpose — a child who learns these four can walk into any Bible study for the rest of their life.

Don’t teach it

The strongest instinct you will have is to explain. Resist it. The moment you start teaching, the child stops discovering, and you have replaced a skill they could keep with an answer they will forget.

If they say something that isn’t in the passage, don’t correct it — ask, kindly: “Where do you see that in the story?” Let them go back and look. If they get something wrong and nobody catches it today, they will meet it again — the Bible is long and God is patient.

The one thing this plan must not teach

Brave does not mean unafraid. Every person in these fifteen days was frightened. Gideon was hiding. Esther thought she would die. Ten spies talked themselves out of a promise, and the two who didn’t were outnumbered by a whole nation. If your child finishes these three weeks believing that brave people don’t feel fear, the plan has done the opposite of its job — because the next time they are afraid, they will conclude they are not one of the brave ones.

Say it plainly when it comes up: of course they were scared. That’s what makes it brave.

Why day 14 is in here

Day 14 is Peter denying Jesus — a day about somebody who was not brave, in a plan called Brave. That is deliberate, and it may be the most important day of the fifteen.

The man who swore he would die for Jesus was frightened by a servant girl in a courtyard. And Jesus looked at him, and later gave him his job back. A child who learns only “be brave” learns a rule they will break. A child who learns “you will be afraid, you will sometimes fail, and Jesus does not throw you away” has something that survives contact with real life.

If your child has failed at something recently, this is the day to say so.

Repeats from the storyline plans

Several of these — Joshua 1, the sea, David and Goliath, Gideon, the furnace, the lions, the storm — appear in the chronological plans too. That is on purpose: a child meets a story once in its place in history and again under a theme, and hears something different both times.

If they say “we did this one,” good. Ask what it shows about God anyway, then ask what is different about reading it as a story about being scared.

Making the “I will” real

Put a name in it and a day on it.

✗ “I’ll be braver.” ✓ “On Thursday I’m going to tell Miss Ramírez I don’t understand the homework instead of pretending I do.”

Then ask about it the next day, before you read. Did you do it? Who did you tell? Asking is what turns this from a reading plan into a habit of obeying.

Ages, and mixed ages

Written for roughly ages 6–12. A six-year-old will need you to read it and will answer in one sentence; an eleven-year-old can read it themselves and write their answers down. If you have both at the table, read once for everybody and let them answer at their own depth. Don’t split them up — the younger ones learn how to answer by hearing the older ones do it.

If a child is genuinely frightened of something

This plan will surface real fears — of the dark, of a bully, of a parent’s illness, of dying. If that happens, stop the study. A child who says out loud what frightens them, and is met kindly, has got more out of that day than any right answer. Pray about the actual thing, by name. Then carry on tomorrow.

If you miss a day

Pick up where you left off. Fifteen studies is fifteen studies whether it takes three weeks or five. Whatever you start, finish.