The Church Begins

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 plan picks up exactly where Jesus Comes stops. That plan ends at the empty tomb; this one starts forty days later, with Jesus going back to heaven and a small group of his friends left standing on a hill. If your child has done the storyline plans, say so on day one: everything from Abraham to the empty tomb was God keeping a promise, and this is what his people did next.

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.

This plan is full of question 4

Almost every story in Acts is somebody telling somebody. Peter tells a crowd, Philip tells one man on a road, Ananias goes to the one person he was most afraid of, and a jailer’s whole family hears in one night. Your child will notice that the question at the bottom of the page is the same thing the people in the story keep doing. Let them notice it themselves — you don’t need to point it out.

It also means question 4 will be harder to dodge than usual. That’s fine. A child who says “I don’t know who I’d tell” is being honest; help them think of one real name, and leave it there.

The hard days

Two days need care rather than avoidance:

• Day 7 (Stephen). Stephen is killed for talking about Jesus. Tell it honestly and simply; you don’t need to describe the stones. Stay where Luke stays: Stephen sees Jesus standing, and he forgives the people doing it — just as Jesus did on the cross. If your child did Jesus Comes, they may make that connection on their own. Notice, too, the young man called Saul watching the coats. He comes back on day 9.
• Day 14 (the jailer). After the earthquake, the jailer thinks the prisoners have escaped and is about to harm himself, and Paul shouts to stop him. Read it as written, without dwelling on it. If your child asks about it, answer plainly: he was terrified he would be punished, and Paul cared about him even though he was the one who had locked him up.

Then day 12 is the opposite: the church is praying for Peter to get out of prison, and when he turns up at the door nobody believes it. Let it be funny.

Making the “I will” real

Put a name in it and a day on it.

✗ “I’ll tell people about Jesus.” ✓ “On Saturday I’m going to tell my cousin the story about the man in the chariot.”

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.

What comes next

The book of Acts doesn’t really end — it stops, with Paul still talking about Jesus and nobody able to stop him. Day 15 is only two verses for that reason. The point of the last day is that the story came all the way down to your family, because somebody told somebody who told somebody. Your child is next.

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.