This summer 100 churches participated in Bags of Discovery, a new resource from SBS designed to give families an opportunity to chat about the Bible in simple and engaging ways when regular church activities were no longer running.

Scotland has a marvellous tradition of church based Bible holiday clubs running locally through July and August, helping to keep children occupied but also importantly setting the foundations for faith through lively Bible engagement. As these communities of fun and laughter are built each year, many children are drawn closer to Jesus.

However, this year having been at home since the early Spring, the cancellation of the summer activities was a potential loss to the children, their families, but also to the vital connection with the local church.

Bags of Discovery was created to fill that gap.

Following the themes of the Bible 2020 reading plan, Hope, Love & Power, we created three sets of resource activity cards to be distributed to families by local churches. The themes were deeply relevant at this time of change and suffering and the activities were designed to help best explore these themes from the Bible.

Whilst SBS created the cards, the local church was tasked with putting a card into a ‘Bag of Discovery’, adding all the items needed to do the activities.The games, crafts and recipes within helped families to chat about the daily verses and their relevance to everyday life.

It was exciting to witness families across the country talking about the Bible and God within their households. As one Mum from Glasgow said, after taking part in Bags of Love…

“It helped remind us to take time to think about God, talk to God and read the Bible each day. Our son even practiced a bit of reading before going back to school…even tackling some of the trickier names in Ruth 4!!”

It has also been encouraging to hear from church leaders as they have described the impact the distribution of the bags had with their local families…

“The responses in tagged photos online and messages on our church Facebook are lovely. But what is even better is the sense that we were able to give not only a worthwhile daily activity to break up long lonely days but even more so, a pointer to the source and focus of our hope – a God who can and will sustain each of us through this crisis and beyond.”

As summer draws to a close and autumn begins we estimate that 6410 families across the country have received a Bag of Discovery and had that crucial point of contact with their local church.

We have a small amount of resource cards left if your church would like to host a Bags of Discovery week this October half-term or use them as part of your regular weekend online program. Click here or the banner below to order while stocks last.