And there's a problem with this.
Yes, if you provide bibles they will use them at church, but how do you know that is going on at home. I don't have bibles laying out anywhere in any of my rooms. All of our students are requried to bring their own bibles, for a couple of large reasons.
1. I want to know they have a bible of their own at home that they can read and underline in. If I am always providing a bible for the students, we never have the opportunity to know if a student needs one at home. We have a large supply of bibles in a drawer that if a student doesn't have one and mom and dad can't afford to get them one, then we will provide one for them.
2. I want them to get used to using their own bible. If the church has NIrV's for them to use at church, but their bible at home is an NIV, there's is enough of a difference to confuse the kids when they sit down to use their bibles at home, possible enough that they give up using it. I want students to have a bible they are comfortable with so they can look up answers on their own.
3. We use our bibles. In our preschool area, Students are given a sticker if they bring whatever they consider their bible to church. And hopefully, by they time they are in elementary, it's a habit and they continue to bring it. All of our lessons for Elementary students are in a Large group format. And during this teach time we always have the students use their bibles to look up a scripture, whether it's the story or the memory verse. We also have sword drills, which are races to see who can look up different scriptures for this.
For all these reasons, I believe it's a detriment to Children's ministry to provide bibles for you children. But what about you, what do you think?