• Make sure that every Sunday School classroom in your church has a Bible in it. You may choose to use age-appropriate story Bibles in classrooms for young children. Even children who are too young to read will become familiar with seeing the Bible and recognizing it as a special book.
• Do not assume that every adult (or youth) owns a Bible. When it was my job to present Bibles to third-graders (the tradition in my home church) I extended an offer of a free Bible to anyone present who was past third grade and did not own a Bible. Every year, at least one adult took me up on this offer.
• Children’s Sunday School classes often use a retelling of scripture from a leaflet or a teacher’s book. While this is age-appropriate (after all, the Bible was not written for 7 year olds!) remember to make the connection between the story you tell and the Bible. Before you read the story, hold up the Bible and show the children where it is found in the Bible. Older children can look up the story in the Bible themselves.
• When you read scripture, remember the source. With computer versions of Bibles, it is easy to print only the scripture passage you need. There are obvious advantages to this approach, including using larger type and not having to search for Philemon. If you are reading a scripture passage from a piece of paper, the simple step of placing the piece of paper inside an open Bible will serve as a reminder that this isn’t a random reading.

~Sally Hoelscher