Our church recently had First Fruits Revival (hear the messages), which means we were in church several evenings in a row. It was a good chance for the crew to start using their new Sermon Notes books that we got them for Christmas. I posted about them on Facebook after the first night and got a lot of questions, so I thought I’d share some more detail here.

It can be a challenge to get children to behave in “big church” as we call the congregational service–as opposed to “children’s church” on Sunday mornings or Bible club (Master Clubs for us) on Wednesday. And even “behaving” might not mean actually paying attention to the sermon. For one of our kiddos, it means doodling on the bulletin. For one it means sleeping. And for one it means asking 10,000 questions about complicated theology in a very loud whisper.

We had previously implemented the ONE rule. After the service, you have to be able to tell me ONE scripture that was referenced and ONE lesson you can apply to your daily life from what the Pastor said. It was simple, but it was enough to get them to focus at least a little bit and start a conversation when we were driving home. We’ve also used some FREE printables here and there (see some links below), but nothing consistently.

This whole adult coloring craze sort of inspired me to try something new, and of course New Year’s resolutions and all that! {smile} So I ordered the Busy Book Sermon Notes for Young Ladies, the Busy Book Sermon Notes for Kids, and Simple Sermon Notes for the crew for Christmas. After a full week of Revival and regular sermons, here’s my review of each, with a lot more pictures for you to get a feel for them.

In quick summary, I’m very happy and would definitely recommend them–but there’s always pros and cons.

The Busy Book Sermon Notes for Young Ladies

We picked this one up for the Ladybug, who is 12 going on 13 and joined the youth group this year. Each sermon is given 3 pages of doodle boxes for information and notes including songs, scriptures, questions, thoughts, and actual sermon notes. The Ladybug was a bit loath to carry it the first day or two due to the size. The book is pretty big (a full 8.5 x11 size) and won’t fit in her regular Sunday bags. Since each section is 3 pages long there’s a lot of flipping back and forth and the flat book-spine binding is also a bit troublesome. Spiral binding would make a HUGE difference, and I’m considering taking it to the office store and just having them do it for her.

Other than those two issues, she loves it and I see a big difference in her attention span for the sermon. You can see from the pictures that she’s taken notes and she’s found writing questions down to be particularly useful. Instead of mentally checking out when she doesn’t understand, she writes it down and we talk about it afterward. I had no idea she was swallowing so many questions! She’s even been including questions about vocabulary in the hymns we sing–not just the sermon. The prayer request section has also become something that she reviews and returns to regularly. She uses it to keep track of her own, personally prayer requests as well as congregational requests mentioned at the pulpit. My favorite part is the How Can I Apply This to My Life box. The Ladybug usually fills this part out after the sermon at home, while we discuss her notes.

The book is titled Teen to Adult, and there are a lot of adult reviews on Amazon if you’re considering it as an adult use. I think it’s perfect for a young teen (or pre-teen) girl and for folks who have wandering attention and will find the doodles a helpful “fidget” to focus with, but it’s not my personal style for note taking. The doodle boxes reduce the amount of actual writing space, so if you’re a copious note taker, this might not be a good fit either. Our Ladybug likes that she’s not staring at an overwhelming page of lines to fill and keeping track of all the note “topics” keeps her engaged.

I’ll also add that some of the journals I looked at were meant for bible study and sermon notes (like this one, and this one, or even bible study only like this one.). The Busy Book of Sermon Notes for Young Ladies is definitely focused on taking sermon notes in church and perhaps some fill-in of notes at home. It’s not meant to be a general bible journaling resource and would probably be a bit awkward for that use.

An additional recommendation…the pages are kinda thin for using markers or gel pens and there’s a lot of page turning for anything that might smear. I suggest getting some colored pens or pencils for young ladies to use. The doodles are still very fun to color in. I like the simple Paper Mate ones, but I don’t let her take more than two with her at a time, otherwise all I hear all service long is click, click, click, click…She also has medium-point Pentel pens in pink and purple and they work too.

If you’re looking for more journaling resources or free printable sermon note pages, you’ll find an array of options and articles on my Walking with the Lord Pinterest board.

You’ll find tons of individual printables available on Pinterest, but here’s a couple freebies…

Printable Scripture Journal Page and FREE Sermon Notes with email sign up…Path Through the Narrow Gate

Worship Notes for Kids…Children Are A Blessing

Worship Notes for Kiddos…MMMCrafts

My Weekly Sermon Notes…Flanders Family Website (I think this one is really good for older or non-doodling kiddos!)

I’ll have reviews of both of the boys’ books coming up!

How do you keep your kiddos occupied during “big church” services? We think it’s important that they learn to behave, but also participate, in the congregational service. I also know a lot of folks that allow coloring to keep the munchkins quiet, and there’s some bible coloring pages on my Pinterest board as well.