raising up the next generation

Raising up the next generation starts with one.

A 10 year girl in my ministry completed the SUDS 21-day bible reading, fast, and prayer challenge!  

Here's the story: 

We challenged the kids to consider taking the SUDS 21-day challenge of reading their bible daily, memorizing a verse, fasting from various kid-favorite things to do, and to pray.  SUDS stands for See It,Understand It,  Do It,  and Share It.  See it stands for taking time to read the bible everyday.  Seeing God's word.  Understand means to ask God to show you what the bible means.  Do it encourages kids to do what they read.  And share it means share what you are learning about to others.

I asked this girl why she took on this challenge and she shared that, "I wanted to get closer to God and read my bible more often.  So, I put a reminder on my ipod touch and every day at 3:30, my alarm would go off and instead of reading a chapter book, I'd read my bible on my ipod touch."

What was the hardest part?  I wondered.  

She said giving up candy and sweets.  The SUDS challenge asked kids to give up one fun activity on a rotating basis.  For example, candy/sweets one day, computer games the next.  

Then she shared that this process helped her develop a habit of daily bible reading.  She explains that one day her friend came over and her reminder went off.  She took out the ipod touch and said she needed to read the bible right then and there. Her friend asked her what she was doing.  She explained the challenge.

To keep her going, she'd look at the SUDS calendar to see what she had to give up for each day.  That would help her throughout the day to stay focused.  One day, she reached into the freezer to grab a chocolate covered banana and remembered today was the day to fast from sweets.  So, she choose not to eat the treat.

I asked her to describe what fasting meant to her and she smiled and said, "sacrifice".  She nailed it!

I wanted to know how she would rate her experience;  thumbs up!  thumbs middle?  or thumbs down! 

She said, "thumbs up, it was fun!" and then her ipod touch reminder went off.  The daily reading popped up on the youversion and she shared her verse with me.  "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!"

It takes one.  One to share.  One to experience.  One to impact.  One ripple.

I pray it will spread!