Bold Course | Birchman's Discipleship Process

Daily Encounters with God

Each member of the family will be given a spiral Field Guide. Each day the Field Guide includes 2 chapters of the Bible to read (Old and New Testament), an area for taking notes and journaling prayer, a weekly scripture to memorize, IMB focused people groups to pray for, and church members to pray for (corresponding to their birthday). This booklet is well designed, attractive, and created to accommodate all of our church members.

We have made 4 versions of this Field Guide: Adult, Youth, AMPED (children) and Power Up (small children). The Adult and Youth Field Guide have the exact same content though designed in a way that is age appropriate. AMPED is designed for grades 3rd to 6th, and Power Up is designed for preschool to 2nd grade. However, we give parents the right to decide which field guide would best suit their child.

Daily Encounters with God Step by Step

Step 1: Read the scriptures.

You must make your heart happy in God by filling your mind with God’s WORD.  If you don’t do that your prayer time will be largely empty or will begin to grow that way. God will speak primarily through His Word. Once you arrive at a truth about God that hits you in the heart, stay there and don’t leave. Keep reading that particular passage again and again and try to absorb all that the scripture is saying. Continually ask God: “What does this say about YOU? What does this say about how to follow YOU? Where am I missing the mark? How can I exalt You through this truth?” Do not skim the passages or chapters of scripture. You must sit and park in His holiness and allow His truth to transform you by having your mind renewed. After you have encountered God in His Word…

Step 2: Pray

Prayer is an overflow and a pouring out of your soul. God has created you for fellowship (intimate sharing) with Him. He has designed you for long, extended times of prayer and worship. We ask that you write down your prayers and thoughts (journaling) in order to help you observe your spiritual growth. Frankly, you will be able to see strong weeks with the Lord and weaker weeks simply by observing your Field Guide. Journaling also helps you stay awake and be more involved in your daily encounter, and give you a clear measure on how often you are regularly meeting with God. This is helpful, but not essential.  The essential part is prayer.

Step 3: Meditate upon the Memory Verse

Memorize and meditate on the weekly memory verse. Use the Field Guide’s daily plan to help you memorize. After you memorize THEN you can meditate (think, ponder and pray over) the verse. The goal in memorization is NOT more verses memorized, but more verses meditated on. According to Psalm 1, meditation upon the Word is the means by which we become fruitful Believers and have success in life. Meditation is the key to spiritual growth.

Here is a helpful guide that you can use.

Example Passage:  1 Samuel 1,   Psalm 16

Adoration (Praise): “I praise You that You ask us to walk in obedience to Your word- not to man; Abba, Father; You are LORD! I have set the Lord always before me; fullness of joy is in Your presence!....

Confession (agreeing with God about your sin): Not rising early again! Father, forgive me, make me like Hannah, I have no good apart from You; the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places…

Thanksgiving: “for being my Father, Your holy provision; church family, wife, daughter, family, health, for giving my wise counsel about ….

Supplication (asking God for specific needs): Help me to walk in humility and holy obedience to You and to Your holy ways today; Preserve me, Oh God;…

You can use the “ACTS” method above or simply write down your prayers anyway you want to. Some people like to do all of their reading at first and then spend time in prayer, while others like to read a little, and then pray a little until they are finished. There are no rules. Remember the goal: Encounter God in His Word and in Prayer.

How to Begin:

1. Find a time. Once you figure out the very best time for you, whether it’s the morning, afternoon or evening, make a covenant with the Lord. Don’t let anything get in the way of that particular time except for real emergencies.
    
2. Find a place. You need to find a place that is free of distraction. For some that means sitting at the kitchen table, for others it’s in the bed. The point is to find a place that is consistent, free of distraction and easy to get to everyday.
    
3. Prepare and Expect to encounter God. One of the most neglected aspects of a daily encounter with God is an expectation to meet with Him in a serious way. You are not paying bills, or brushing your teeth, you are meeting with the God of the universe! Therefore, expect to meet with Him, and prepare your time. That might mean getting the coffee pot together the night before, setting your Bible and Field Guide out on a clean kitchen table, or doing your exercises earlier. You must figure out what you need to do to prepare. You will be surprised at what a difference your daily encounter with God will be if you will make the necessary preparations.
    

How to help your child have a Daily Encounter in the Bible

1. Expect them. Power Up Field Guide is to help prepare them for their future. We want to start expecting them to do the same thing that older children and adults do. Therefore, even if they don’t fully grasp what we are trying to accomplish NOW, they will grasp the idea that they are doing what Mom and Dad are doing. Share with them your hopes and dreams for what you want them to be able to become as they get older.
    
2. Model it for them. Show them how you have your regular time with God and how you expect them to do it.
    
3. Guide them. Since they cannot read yet, read to them a small paragraph or a few verses of what YOU read. If a particular verse or passage impacted you, share that with them. You can say something like this: “God is teaching me that He alone is strong and mighty. I need to praise God more for how he takes care of our family. What is God teaching you through what I read?” For very young children you never know what they’re going to say! That’s ok! If their answer is “God is teaching me to be a fireman”, guide them into an answer more appropriate. Focus on sharing something that the scriptures say about God and about how to follow God.
   
   It might help if you got an illustrated children’s Bible. Let them sit down and look through the pictures and pray. Then show them how they can respond by drawing and coloring in their Field Guide. You can ask them the same questions on the Field Guide. Again, always attempt to make the focus God (his character, nature, his attributes) and how we are to follow and obey Him. You can also take some time to review the people group of the week or the scripture passage being memorized.
    
4. Celebrate them! All children put forth effort when we affirm what we see them doing. Saying things like, “David! I am so proud of how you get out your crayons every morning without me asking you to. Way to go!” will go a long way. Always be positive when they are spending time doing this and never criticize. The quickest way to create resentment towards God and you is if you are harsh and critical when they are trying to please you.
    
5. Reward them! Did you know that before formal training of the Word God, Jewish fathers would have their children eat honey? Naturally, the children enjoyed this and it proved a point: the Word of God is sweeter than honey! But this also shows that they made an intentional effort to have their children associate the Word of God with something enjoyable. Therefore, think through fun ways that you can reward your children for the hard work they put into their Daily Encounters and scripture memory. We want our children to have good memories of their time doing this.
    

Seven Training Goals in the Power Up and AMPED Field Guide

1. We want to train our children to approach the Word of God correctly. We don’t want to train our children to approach scripture in a way that makes them the focal point. Scripture is the only way by which we come to know who God is. God is the ultimate and primary focus of every verse of scripture. Therefore, we want to train our children to ask two primary questions:
   • What does this say about God?
      Asking this question forces us to focus upon the words of scripture and less upon what “we say” about God or what “my friends say”. Plus, this question is much  harder and requires genuine thinking and reflection. Although very small children have difficulty with abstract questions like this, we can still begin to train their minds to think in these ways.
      
   • What does this say about how to follow God?
     We want our children to look for clear instruction from the Lord on how to follow Him. While not every verse of scripture gives a clear command, every verse is inspired. Inspiration means that every verse is God-breathed, perfect for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Likewise, all scripture was written as men were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1 Peter 1:20-21). Therefore, we can trust that even though there may not be a clear instruction, even truth like “Jesus is Lord” teaches us that if He is Lord, than we must follow Him.
     
     Since Power Up is designed for smaller children we do not ask these two questions in their Field Guide, but have reserved them for the AMPED Field Guide (older children). Nonetheless, we want you the parent to be aware of our learning goals and to help them in this regard.
      
2. We want to train our children to pray in a variety of ways and to think.
   
   In both the Power Up and AMPED Field Guides, we have designed the prayer section to focus on a particular aspect of prayer. All prayer falls into 5 categories: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication and Intercession. We have designed this so that our children focus on one of those each day. Furthermore, the prayer section is created to have our children think and ponder about the scriptures, giving them a creative outlet that is age appropriate.
    
3. We want to train our children to meditate upon scripture. Just like the Adult Field Guide we ask our children to memorize and meditate on the same verse or verses that the adults do. We want to encourage parents to extend grace on some weeks when a particular passage has several verses in it (Philippians 4:6-7).  Give them a 50% credit on weeks that include two verses if you need to. Regardless, let’s work hard with our kids to memorize and to do difficult things. In the end they grow and YOU GROW.
    
4. We want to train our children to tithe and give. This is posted every Saturday as a reminder to tithe (giving 10%) of their income to work of the Lord in the local church. 
    
5. We want to train our children to be a helper to the family. Parents should not be the only ones running around on Saturday night or Sunday morning to get to church on Sunday. We want to encourage a routine in your family by which they contribute to helping you.
    
6. We want to train our children to regularly reach out to others. The goal of Sunday School is grounded in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore, children should be thinking throughout the week and at least on Saturday night, “who can I invite to church?” If we don’t we will continue to foster a “me” centered idea of what worship is all about.
    
7. We want to train our children to prepare for worship on Sunday. We should create within our children a holy hunger and expectancy that God is going to move in mighty ways on Sunday morning. We should pray for our pastor on Saturday night and encourage our children to prepare their hearts.
    

How does my child do Power Up if they cannot read yet?

We have designed the Power Up booklets to be used for kids to draw things they are learning by Mom or Dad’s daily encounter with God. This is why you, the parent are essential in the discipleship process of your children. We have designed the Power Up Field Guides to work like an extension of Mom or Dad’s daily encounter with God. In other words, if you don’t have a daily encounter with God, than you can’t walk your child through one either. This doesn’t need to be long, but after having your own daily encounter with God, talk to your child about it. Have them get their crayons or pencils out and have them draw something they are learning as well.

Should my children do the Field Guides if they are not Christians yet?

Yes, you should based on three reasons:

1. The scriptures lead us to Christ.
   
   Bold Course, mission trips, Sunday school, or Bible reading plans do not produce regeneration in your children or anyone else. We do not encourage in any way a false assurance given to your children because of daily spiritual disciplines. But if we as parents do not honestly know the gospel well, nor understand the basics of salvation, we can give our children a false assurance of their salvation based on a variety of religious activities.
    
2. We see parents commanded to teach, model, and lead children to the scriptures both in the Old and New Testament.
   
   In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Israel was clearly commanded: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”  The visual picture is that the family would not only be completely saturated and in love with the scriptures, but they were to be extremely proactive in teaching them to their children, regardless of whether or not the children wanted to hear.
   
   Notice what God states in verse 20-21: “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and his statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son…”
   
   The picture painted in these passages is encouraging. The Hebrew parents were commanded to love the Word of God and create a continuous environment in their home that upholds and shows forth the glory of God in His Word. Verse 20 reveals that there will be a definite time when children will ask: “What is the meaning” or “why do we do all this stuff?”  That will be one of many times when we teach our children in a context where they understand more on a deeper level why we uphold and obey scripture.
    
3. If we do not uphold scripture like this, why would we assume that children would ever ask that question of us?  They will not ask, because they have seen what we really value and love.
   
   Sadly, many will ask: “What is the meaning of our purchases, pursuits, vacations, toys, etc?” They will take inventory to our priorities and they will be trained to value and love the exact same types of things that we have trained them to love. This is sobering. Ultimately, our desire is that our children will be able to confidently say to themselves, “The reason Mom and Dad do all this stuff (Bible reading, scripture memory, Church activities) is because they value God above all things. I should value God above all things.”
   
   In Ephesians 6:1-4 we read, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go will with you and that you many live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."
   
   Interestingly, Paul does not dismiss the promise given in Exodus 20:12, just because the Spirit has now been given to abide in all believers and the Law fulfilled completely in Jesus Christ. In other words, we need not throw out the Old Testament’s clear teaching about parenting or anything else. Instead we should see these commandments, laws, statutes in light of New Testament teaching about Jesus Christ.
   
   We bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We do not teach our children the Law of God for them to reach perfection. We teach them the Law of God to show them what true righteousness is! We want our children to look at perfection and then look at themselves and realize that they don’t reach the perfection of God.  If that makes them feel bad, then we are doing the right thing! The purpose of the law was never to gain righteousness, but to have us plead for forgiveness to the only One who fulfilled righteousness, Jesus Christ (Gal 3:23-24).