My husband and I left a lot to become cross-cultural workers overseas. We believe in the power of God, the power of His Word, and its power to transform lives — that’s why we left in the first place. If you’re a cross-cultural worker, your story probably echoes our story.
But somewhere in the midst of visa trips and market hauls, of ministry activities and prayer groups, of cooking everything from scratch and surviving the bugs and the heat, of participating in church and worship in another language, we can unintentionally forget to share those same life-giving words in our families and with our own children.
Over our fourteen years of living overseas, we’ve seen both thriving families and families in crisis. We’ve seen families whose children somehow are overlooked in their spiritual development as the parents feel busy, burdened, unprepared, or unequipped to take responsibility for their children’s spiritual care.
I’ve written before about The Unchurched Missionary here at A Life Overseas. It is a hard problem many of us face as we go to the ends of the earth to the places and people left who still haven’t heard the gospel. We often go alone or without a lot of local church support. As adults who often grew up in home culture environments with vibrant VBS programs and engaged youth groups, with Sunday school teachers and paid-for curriculum, with Wednesday night class, and with children’s ministers and youth ministers, we can just take for granted or maybe forget that much of our spiritual development was happening outside of our homes in the local church where our parents attended.
A returned missionary who had served nearly two decades once told me that on re-entry to the US she was shocked how much the involvement in the local US church was impacting her younger children. She confessed that her oldest children never got the benefit of being involved in vibrant church programs and ministries in their first language.
Early on in our work overseas, I came to a similar realization: if my kids were going to know the story of Scripture and develop spiritual practices, they were going to have to learn them in our home from me and my husband. We are Bible translators focused on the unreached and unchurched — people who need Scripture in their heart language to grow and develop. We would have to live the life we preached and spent so much ministry time and activity on. We would have to incorporate daily rhythms into our lives that could teach our children in their heart language.
When my oldest was four years old (and I had three younger kids, two still in diapers), I started a very simple, manageable, and consistent “Bible story time” every afternoon after naps at the already established snack time, before more play time and dinner. It was easy and low-stress for me as a mom of many littles. The supplies were extremely simple: I got a quality Bible storybook, and I tore a piece of paper to make a book mark. That’s it.
Every afternoon, I’d read a story or two from the Bible storybook, talk about it with my kids and ask them simple questions, say a little prayer, and then send the kids off to play while I figured out what dinner I was going to make from scratch with the locally available ingredients.
What began as a very simple rhythm turned into an extremely life-giving, meaningful spiritual practice that our family has maintained now for over a decade. As my kids have gotten older, we have slowly added more age-appropriate spiritual practices to our simple afternoon time.
Years ago, we began adding Scripture memorization to our daily Bible story time. It was natural for us to start at the very beginning, Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” We continued to Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before me.” That verse made a lot of sense and was extremely meaningful to us in a culture where idolatry is so common.
Then, I thought, why not continue to Leviticus? So, I picked Leviticus 19:2: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
My goal was to pick fairly short, meaningful verses. Verses my kids could easily remember and had at least something to do with the main focus of the Bible book it was chosen from.
Soon, I had made my way through the first ten books of the Old Testament. And I realized how much fruit this experiment was already bearing. My kids were learning Bible verses, and they were learning the books of the Bible. I was memorizing Bible verses, too. What if I could pick one passage from every book of the Bible? What if my kids could internalize the content and overarching story of Scripture with a verse memorized from each book of the Bible?
I had a few guidelines in my head from the start about Bible story time and Bible memorization:
Bible story time would be fun. We would have good snacks. It would be the best, most important part of our day together. We would do it even if we hadn’t done homeschool activities that day. We would do it most every day, so the kids would expect it and look forward to it. The kids never forget snacks, so they would remind me if I forgot! We would celebrate every time we finished reading through a Bible storybook with a sweet or special treat. Bible story time would never involve “work,” just listening and talking together.
I wouldn’t reward or punish my kids for memorizing or not memorizing Scripture. I would just make it a natural part of our story time. They would memorize the verses slowly over time through familiarization rather than coercion. I would plant the verses in their hearts and wait slowly for a harvest. They wouldn’t just memorize them for a Sunday school performance. I would give these verses time to take root.
I wouldn’t punish myself for missing a day or missing a week if we were sick or under extreme circumstances. We would just find the torn bookmark in the Bible, grab our list of Bible verses, and start again. We could start back at Genesis or start in the New Testament. We could start where we’d just had other Bible lessons from. We could start anywhere.
I wouldn’t feel guilty as a mom for not preparing more or for not doing something elaborate. I would just do the best I could, consistently over the long haul. I wouldn’t give up or abandon this simple idea for something more flashy or more expensive. I would trust and believe that God’s Word planted in the hearts of my children would grow and would produce fruit.
As the years passed, and I shared our ideas with others on social media, I realized there was a need to make this idea into a flexible resource that other families could use, too.
My husband Daniel is an M. Div. graduate, a Bible translator, and an involved parent. We now have seven children together, and despite our many ministry activities outside of our home, we consider our most important ministry the ministry that happens within our home.
When I discussed the idea of creating this book with him, he got excited. And he offered to write the summaries for each book of the Bible, providing clear context and historical background. Although I’ve published most of my other books and articles under the pen name, Julie Jean Francis, we decided that we would publish this book together under our real names: Daniel and Julie Tignor.
Plant Them in Your Heart is the result of our years of Bible story time, our consistent approach with our kids over the last decade, and the last year of writing and planning and designing the actual book.
Plant Them in Your Heart gives your family a gentle and flexible plan for memorizing Scripture. You’ll discover that learning Scripture doesn’t need to be a chore, but something that fits within your regular rhythms of everyday life. This book is filled with ideas for ways to cover your home and life with reminders of God’s truth.
The 66 carefully chosen passages — one from every book of the Bible — are designed to introduce the major themes of each book and of the entirety of Scripture. A short devotional and family-friendly challenge accompany each passage, as well as a little background information for each book of the Bible. The book includes many ideas for memorizing and engaging with Scripture in fun ways.
The goal isn’t performance. It’s planting. It’s about God’s Word dwelling in you richly, growing, and producing fruit in your life!
Every time you remember the verse in a moment of parenting frustration, every time your child hears one of “your verses” mentioned in Bible class or during a sermon, every time God stirs one of these verses in your heart just when you thought He was silent — all these moments are God’s grace and mercy breaking into your life with His sacred presence and His sacred words.
His Word will come to you in times of need—maybe when you least expect it. Maybe when you have even neglected it. Maybe even when you have abandoned God. But He will not abandon you. He will keep searching for you, pursuing you, looking for you.
God’s Word planted in your heart will always produce a harvest. You can have this same transformational experience for you and your family. So lead your family on this journey. Plant them in your heart, one verse at a time.
If you’d like to try it out for yourself, you can access a free sample of the book here: bringinghiswordtolife.org/books/plant-them-in-your-heart/
The book releases today on Kindle and in paperback.
You can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram. We will be sharing about the book and ideas for using it in your family in the coming months.
