A Book to Talk About! Actually, Two! V

The qualities Phillips saw as critical to the Early Church maintaining their faith, hope, love, peace (a partial list of the fruit of the Spirit):

quiet
prayer (confession, prayer to access God's resources for change, intercession)
fellowship
worship

He sees the reading of the letters of the apostles in the churches before the Holy Scriptures were called the Holy Scriptures, as encouragement to continue to read. Interesting. Today we know that the apostles were the apostles. If their day, Jesus, Himself chose them.

He talks about Service and that we need to always look outward. "Coming down to actual practice, the Christian has to ask himself what he can do to express outwardly and effectively his inward spiritual certainty. . .his first duty is to live a Christian life in his home and in his place of work..."
(pg 99)

He asks, what if even half the members gave and hour each week to their church . . . (pg 100) He talks about gifts, too.

"..the real danger to professing Christians lies not in the more glaring and grosser temptations and sins, but in a slow deterioration of vision, a slow death to daring, courage and the willingess to adventure."

A Book to Talk About! Actually, Two! IV

Peace. Another quality of the young church - peace more profound than the times in which they lived. Peace with God and with one another. The peace that comes from Hope based on who God is, and the Love He sheds abroad in our hearts,  Faith that links our reality with God's reality and helps us line up with Him.

I pray the Lord's prayer more often as I get older, if only to reiterate, "Thy will be done" even if, especially if, I don't know what that is. I don't have to know what it is. I can pray with no doubt that God will accomplish His will. Looking back, when I found myself praying the Lord's prayer more and my own prayers less, maybe to acknowledge that's how Jesus taught His disciples to pray, there were some big, unexpected changes in my life - changes I never expected.

He talks about some of the things that fight with Peace: the need to resolve inner conflict, to share life with God, to accept ourselves as God made us and the resources He provides one day at a time, the need to align ourselves with God's purpose for us however seemingly insignificant.

And remember. There is an individual expression here but perhaps even more important, there was a group of believers learning to stand in awe of God's work - His visiting the earth, sending His son in the flesh, learning to live faith, to live hope, to live love and they became an unassuming force to be reckoned with.

A Book to Talk About! Actually, Two! III

Phillips explores Love in New Testament Christianity. He says, "God Is Love," was a new concept for the people of this era. The passage," ...the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts."(Romans 5:5) was "...stimulated and developed by accepting the love of God as shown in Christ." (pg. 61) Phillips says, "I am quite sure that a great deal of the joyful experience and invincible courage of the Young Church is due simply to the fact that the early Christians believed these words to be literally true." (pg 62) The love of the God of the New Testament transformed lives.

The young church was convinced, he says, despite difficult times, that nothing could ever separate them from the love of God. Phillips explores how we are tempted by that which isn't Love and ends the chapter saying.  Ponder "the paramount importance" and "permanence" of Love.

If love is God's nature, ponder how Christ Jesus expressed it and how the early church expressed it. How do we express it? How do we teach children that love is most important and the love of God, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts will outlast everything else? Is the love I share with the people around me, something that will last forever?

What qualities or choices fight with our call to love God and our neighbor, as adults and as children? I seem to remember my kids getting into arguments and saying, "It's not about who's right or who's wrong, it's how you treat each other. If you treat each other badly, you're both wrong." You may feel differently.

I was going to link to a bio for J.B. Phillips. Some circles consider him a heretic yet, apparently the Reverend Billy Graham thanked him for his work.

But this isn't about the translator. This isn't about the man. Every non-original language translation has been given into the hands of men and women in order to make the Living Word of God more accessible to more people. If five people look at the same sunset, which only God can make happen, do they see the same thing? The sunset is beautiful. (I think). You can talk about the science of the sunset but that doesn't mean that God didn't create it. You can write prose or poetry about it. You can photograph or paint it. But we don't change the sunset. And it doesn't wait for us.

Definitely read the intro (Explanation) in the beginning of the book as the writer talks of the scriptures of the New Testament as a Living book like no other.

Trying to look at the New Testament through the eyes, history, and culture of the early Christians just adds another dimension. God's Word is intended to stand generation after generation. As human beings we will always be very Me-centered. God isn't.

Much of what the author is doing is looking at those first Christians who didn't have all of the religious baggage that we have and the themes he saw repeating as he translated. He observing: these are qualities that made the Early Church alive, vibrant, life-changing, world-changing, drawing men and women to God. These qualities are within the grasp of every generation. Why do we focus on other things?

I disagree that we don't really need to read the whole of scripture (Old Testament, too). God gave us all of it for the reasons the scriptures say in I Timothy 3:16. You can pick which version you want to read it in. I think Phillip's point is that if your time is limited, focus on the gospels because they tell of Jesus, who He was, what He did, how He loved God and man - his faith, his hope, his love, how He maintained his connection with the Father, How He served. Read the New Testament because it tells you of those who knew God in the flesh and how they lived after Jesus left His Spirit to dwell in us and continue what He began.

Taking an idea back to the scriptures

A couple of articles I've read recently, written for parents but for teachers, too. These aren't specifically Christian but worth reading. Consider an approach like this...

"Collaborating with a 4-year old"  about parenting and art.

Can  you find stories in scripture where parents and children collaborated in childhood? As adults?  How about stories of God collaborating with Man? (Talk about a difference in skill and maturity!) Find the stories or the verses in context.

Don't tell kids how smart they are! 

Compliment their work, their effort, their ability to collaborate, their ability to find a solution for the problem. .. but is that what scripture says? Did you ever look?

Did God compliment His Son? Does God compliment Man? Find the stories or the verses in context. Did He? How much? When? To whom? What did God say?

How can you apply what you discover to your interaction with children?

Grape Vines

We took my youngest daughter out to eat for her 24th birthday in the middle of Finger Lakes wine country.

Thought about you guys as I stared out the window at a field of grape vines. Sorry. Forgot my camera. The trunks were noticeably old and thick. The leaves small, tender, new.  These are fairly young wineries.

The vinier had surely cut out all the dead wood that didn't bear any fruit and pruned back the branches that did. Someone who went to college in wine country on Lake Erie once told us how the smell of the grapes in the fields before harvest hung heavy in the air.

They'll be picking lots of ripe grapes in the fall and crushing the grapes and letting the juice mellow and age ...

Made me think of old traditions and new ideas, old folks and children, good fruit, bad fruit, crushed fruit and dead wood...

Went back and read John 15 .

If you're driving through wine country use the opportunity to ponder God's thoughts about vines and grapes and vineyards and wine...new wine...aged wine... Take a tour. Go back and read John 15.

Behind the restaurant was an abandoned field of grapevines, unpruned, unkept, obscured by all the other plant life left to take over the field...The vines are still there. They just won't bear the quality or quantity of fruit that the other field will.

Lots to ponder...

Did you ever find that you really identify with a particular Bible character? How about the kids in your class?

When you read a Bible story, are there ways to help kids identify with the characters in the story?

"How do you think ____ felt? Did you ever feel like that?"

"Did you ever do something like that? Do you know someone who did?" Not just the major characters but the other characters in the stories, too.

I know of someone who makes me think of Esther . . .

I know someone who makes me think of Jonah...

I know someone who makes me think of Noah's mother...

How about you?

The other day I was trying to find an author who's name I couldn't remember which makes the task rather challenging...he wrote about Genesis and creation from some new angles. Whatever it was that I read at the time, I was particularly drawn to his looking at "dominion" as caring for as opposed to absolute dictatorship but alas . . we don't know who it was.

So as I was searching...I found it interesting (apart from catch words, fads, and media hype) that there is an ever growing focus on our relationship as believers to the natural world. On line, anyway, it seems to fall into the ecology/environmental venue. I shouldn't be surprised. This generation of  parents is more relational, more holistic, more focused on networking and community and being individuals with a role to play but part of something bigger . . . It's just interesting how we work through our faith with global issues....

As an aside...there's a forward going around about an old lady who didn't bring her cloth bag to the grocery store but it gives a rather unique, and perhaps comforting for some of us, perspective the stewardship and "recycling" of the last generation...ok...my generation ...read it before you delete it...

This is just for fun. Lent. Easter. 'Tis the season.

This is a site with old pictures from Children's Bibles. Someone came looking for "the teaching boat" which I thought was a neat phrase for the boat Jesus taught from. Here's another page from the same site.

I'm going to post this and then go look for sites for Bible Art.

Take your familiar holidays, read the familiar passages the way a storyteller would, without visuals and props and let the story (God's Word) do it's work. Or read it and then gather images that people have created over the centuries and flip through from the oldest to the newest and see what you see. See how the artist interpreted the story but also see how people's cultural perspectives changed. What stayed the same. What changed? What part of the story did they focus on?

ponder with me

I'd like to propose that as the Virtual becomes more and more the world that children become most familiar with that sensory, tactile, kinesthetic learning and association, human interaction with the natural world and healthy relationships will become that much more important for a child's whole wellness.

I'd like to propose that as more and more kids spend more and more time away from their nuclear family that exploring the relationships between child, family, care-givers, and community with all the "socialization" pluses and minuses will be worth exploring...

Many cultural elements over the last quarter century are new and a bit daunting...but if there's "nothing new under the sun" how do the scriptures lead and guide us through?

What if the images of the scriptures that we take for granted (and generations before have taken for granted) disappear from our culture over time? . . .  father, mother, sparrow, bread, lily, grain, sheep, grass, water, stings, horns, ...so many things we take for granted in a God-created world that may or may not survive as our man-created world continues to grow...what do you think?

Are we obligated to keep all the things that God created and those things referenced in the scriptures alive in our world? If people stop eating bread or stop eating meat will that make those passages of scripture irrelevant? If farms disappear will that make the agricultural images of scripture irrelevant? What about commercial fishing? What about time spent outside observing something like a sparrow?

I'm just asking ... I suggest we think about it now instead of turning around later, wishing we had...

Pondering Psalm 78. A long Psalm. The focus is on God and all that He's done, all that we have to praise Him for - but there are also references to children and future generations worth pondering. The American Standard version has cross-references, if you're interested.

. . . an odd movie, perhaps, to post about . . .

Blogger ate random part of my last try. Let's try again...

Someone is bound to be upset about my posting this but there was a conversation about violence earlier. Last night we watched the The Secret of Kells. Apparently it found a wider audience in Europe than here, understandably so. Some Americans look for God's divine direction and intervention in our history. Many other cultures can do that as well. I would use this movie more to stimulate discussion and conversation than for use as a teaching tool but understand that the Book of Kells contains the four gospels, hand-written during the dark ages with extravagantly illuminated (illustrated) handwork combining the best of Irish handwork and iconography.

I found it rather fascinating from an artistic point of view. It is also an interesting interpretation of events.

Do your research first. I'd read "How the Irish Saved Civilization," one of my favorite books, maybe because I learned alot about the church that I'd never heard before. I also played with drawing Celtic knot patterns for a while after we celebrated St.Pat's Day at Artisan a few years back, looking for activities for the kids. As with any creative endeavor they tend to take on a life of their own. It would probably also help to know the legends of Kells & Iona and the saints featured in the story and the background on the fairy which I didn't read ahead. Try picture books from your local library.

You can look at it as a story about the Christian and Pagan cultures of one people/one place joining forces to face an enemy from the outside but there are many many layers. The main character is a child. The adults in the story, the child, the fairy, the community, all have their own individual battles to win. There's also the intergenerational differences about what's important. If you focus your children on unconditional obediance don't waste your time watching this although Brendan's gentle "no" is obviously for a higher cause. The Irish monks were known for being softer than those from the Roman church which comes across in their voices and dialogue but not neccessarily the face of the abbot. All in all, a fascinating movie about faith and culture, internal and external foes, generational differences, fear, literacy, nature, art and spirit . . . lots, lots, lots! Though the movie doesn't focus on this, if you do your research, you can focus your audience on what God did.

*if my link to the movie doesn't work it's easy to find.

Wrestling with Cultural Shifts 2

Who would ever have dreamed that a culture would discredit God's word for the violence there? It's always been there. The Old Testament is full of slaughter and often at God's own hands and generations of children sat around the fire listening to war stories, stories about heroes and victories won. We use our imaginations and (depending on our experiences) we controll the intensity of the image we create when we listen, when we read. If we watch TV and movies, those who produce the show create those images for us.


Fortunately, war isn't all we find in the scriptures. Was God just responding to a culture in ways that particular culture could understand? Are we really such a kind, gentle, peace-loving people who have no point of reference for such things? God knew there would be generations who would respond like this. And if we were truly a kind gentle peace-loving people. Would God use different images to teach us or respond differently?

We're uncomfortable with scripture that seems to contradict our cultural sensitivities. We're uncomfortable with scripture that seems to contradict itself, let alone talking about these things with our children. We're afraid. Afraid of being right. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of misrepresenting God, afraid that scripture will leave our kids unequipped to face the real world. But scripture was set in the real world - a violent world. We're a cowardly fearful people. But we can't be or we won't inherit the kingdom of God. God didn't hesitate to wage war but God is Love. We're forced to wrestle with that.

The church accuses the world of violence, inappropriate sexual excess, materialism, consumerism....etc etc. The world looks at us and sees the same stuff... What do we do with this? We don't live to please people but to please God. But Christians, even Bible-believing Christians, disagree among ourselves. But the questions and issues we wrestle with really aren't new because "there is nothing new under the sun". How do we handle the scriptures as God's holy Word in a culture that clashes with it, when the lines aren't so clean as they used to be in "Christian-Judeo society". What does reconciliation with God look like in our culture? In any culture? Is it always the same? Man is the same. Jesus is the same. God is the same. His Word is the same. But I bet a soldier knows the Warrior God differently than I do. God the judge, God the shepherd, God the king...a judge, shepherd, king all know different sides of God than I do.

Where is God while these cultural tectonic plates are shifting? Somewhere in that place that doesn't shift and shake. The quake is inevitable, but I'd rather not be standing on a crack. My husband will call it a "paradigm shift"...I'm thinking paradigm quake...How do we walk with our children there? We tell them the stories of scripture and wrestle with them in the context of our world.

We keep coming back to God generation after generation to wrestle with Him and His Word... what matters to God? How do we know? What do we hold on to? What's cultural? Is that just someone's interpretation? Is interpretation even an option? What is the Kingdom that will never be shaken? The two greatest commandments sum up the ten...


I decided to do a quick word search for "violent" (first NIV, then NAS) recalling something in scripture about the Kingdom being taken by violent men... I found it. I don't understand it but I found it. While I was looking for that, I ran over the passage from Acts 2. I should say it ran over me - maybe because I was looking and thinking about expressions of cultural violence (war and killing) and natural disasters and ... gosh...I looked at the word "violent" in the context of Acts 2 and . . . well? The spirit showing up like a violent wind . . . God's Spirit? God! What does that mean?...

I want to think that I fear God...Men, women, and children who experience war or natural disaster - something destructive and totally beyond their control will have very different feelings attached to "violence" or even the "fear of the Lord" than those of us who don't. We are a culture used to being "in control" - not face to face with the earth and it's seasons - day after day dependent on a field for food, hoping for rain when our food plants start to shrivel and the water's running out, hoping for sun when it won't stop raining so the potatoes don't rot. Hoping that grasshoppers won't destroy next season's food as they fly through. Faced with the floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, oil spills, terrorists we're forced to face things we can't control and quite frankly...are you surprised for God to feel compelled to continually remind a generation that has so much control over its environment that we aren't the ones in control?

Jacob was a shrewd deceptive controlling man but he wrestled with God and won. That wrestling to win resulted in a (probably painful) permanent injury. He ended up with a dislocated hip which would have seriously impeded his day to day ability to move for the rest of his life in an agricultural, pastoral, nomadic time. They didn't have wheel chairs or hip replacement. He wrestled with God because he wanted God's blessing. He fought with God. He argued with God if you will. It wasn't enough to have his father's blessing - he wanted God's blessing. It came at a cost and the end result blessed not just a man but a nation, both far from perfect, at that... 

So? Welcome! You've been "birthed" into an imperfect faith-filled group of people who wrestle with God generation after generation and remain faithful to the God of the scriptures despite the contradictions they find everywhere. God is God. Look at the wars of the Old Testament. Did God condone them or was it man being man. And what role did God play? Were they superstitious (non-scientific) to ask these questions? Did Jesus need an anger management seminar when he was throwing things around in the temple? Look at what He said to Peter when Peter took out his sword and cut off someone's ear. If it's in the scriptures, it's there for a reason - all of it, "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."(2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV) despite the contractions. Because of the contradictions, I'm left to wrestle: how is it all true? Solomon in his wisdom...for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.

So, how do we prepare and equip our children to make our God their God the way every generation's had to? How do we prepare them to walk faithfully in changing cultures the way every generation's had to? How do we train them to faithfully wrestle with God and all that seems to contradict itself and end up with God's blessing and the ability to bless others . . .

One step at a time . . .I start by giving myself and those around me permission to wrestle with God. Maybe God's people succeeded because they started learning to wrestle as parent and child walking, talking every day when they rose up, when they lay down, when they walked along the way together. Maybe that's the place they learned to wrestle with God's word and life as they knew it age appropriately. Everything in it's time, everything in its season. There was a time and a season for the people of God to await a Messiah, a time and a season for Jesus to come to this earth, a time and a season for subsequent generations to remain until He comes again - a very long season of watching and waiting and wrestling and continuing to work at whatever He's given us to do ... always...until He comes. God help us as we wrestle with Him! God bless you!

Wrestling with Cultural Shifts 1

I have crazy too much to do right now - the cutting party for the activity room for the book festival is tomorrow. I'm subbing at a doggie day care part time for a couple of weeks but I have to finish this. It's long but done for now. If you've been reading this for 5 years, you may find this a bit hackneyed - great word- but let me back track a little. More than five years ago we became part of a post-modern church plant. Terms like "emergent," or "postmodern" were new to us. When it was time for childrens' ministry nobody wanted to do it so I volunteered. The only resource I could find about this "new" culturally conscious approach to faith community was Ivy Beckwith's Postmodern Children's Ministry.

I found Dr. Beckwith's book prophetic: keenly observing the very early stages of what was about to become a monumental cultural shift, calling us to pay attention, change, and respond appropriately as God's ambassadors. In every generation God looks for people willing to wrestle with Him to understand the times and lead His people through.

Having grown up with great-grandparents, grandparents and parents all of whom were faith-filled, devoted church people, having raised our own kids (21 to 29 years old) in the church, I'm thinking that these progressive cultural differences are perhaps the most dramatic differences of any generation gaps in the history of man. My children are bridges between past and future. Maybe children always are. Their attitudes towards God, life, the outdoors, technology, consumerism are rooted in my generation and those past, but churned and sifted through the secular and sacred cultures they pass through and hopefully God's Word. I don't envy them the job they'll have as parents to amalgamate past, present, future and scripture for their children. I don't envy them at all, coward that I am...

So kidinspiration.com posed a question here. The word "ultra-violent" probably doesn't even exist in cultures familiar with war. Someone mentioned that in cultures who depend on hunting for food and raising livestock for food there exists a different attitude towards living things - a more respectful attitude, perhaps. But, having grown up on a farm, I want to say when it comes to animals, farm people have a different respect for animals they depend on but they also think business. They aren't raising companion animals to be kept and fed and sit on a lap. An animal has to earn its keep - not unlike creatures of the wild and not in itself inhumane but rather a different culture. If hunting is the only way you eat, you think differently than someone who can buy their food in a grocery store. I want to think that when those who recognize their dependency on other living things for survival are more apt to care for them in a way that will benefit both in the long haul or he won't live very long.

Violence: If someone is holding a knife to your throat or your daughter's, or violently trying to take away your freedom or your home you may think differently about the ethics of killing than you will as an observer. I'd like to think I would be able to make godly choices but the reality is that I don't know. And what if I turn the other cheek and let someone rape or kill my child.  Doesn't that mean I don't care enough to fight for what I love. . .? Is that the lukewarmness that Christ condemns in Revelation?

I was going to explore what "humane" means in the cultures of animal species but that word as a concept doesn't exist there. Respect does, doing what has to be done for survival does. In my opinion that is not the same as one creature inflicting unwarranted, inappropriate physical, emotional trauma on another like we find among men. Respect and mutual dependency exist but it's not always "humane" but hey, animals aren't human. For man, most of our choices today aren't life or death spontaneous decisions. Well, they probably are life or death but we don't see the effects of those choices like a rabbit who hesitates. Non-human creatures learn to survive by whatever means are in their best interest at the time but most of us are far removed from that immediate cause and effect. We don't live on the edge.

So man, responds to what we deem unwarranted and inappropriate physical and emotional trauma and rebounds, erring on the side of permissive. We don't have to respond like a creature in the wild. We're not fighting for our lives. We're not protecting our loved ones from imminent danger. We live safe, non-confrontational lives and we judge the rest of the world accordingly. We don't know how to correct appropriately and effectively so we don't do it. Life consequences aren't severe so we don't simulate any level of severity on our young.

Historically, and in the natural world, there is a place for correction and a place for appropriate reward. Appropriate effective correction (not violent) needn't displace appropriate praise and reward. Children need both. Both inappropriate praise and inappropriate correction can cause irreparable damage. We need the wisdom and skills to respond appropriately to individual differences in the context of the larger community but that assumes that we live in a cultural environment where everyone thinks the same way about what's acceptable behavior and what isn't. We don't. On top of that, if you look at where children spend most of their time, who's job is it to train children for life?

I'm not a fan of harshness, violence, war, killing. I don't know what I would be willing to fight for. I would rather live peacefully and compromise than fight. . . I would... but all this is cultural. Scripturally, it appears that there are things God was willing to fight for and argue about and punish for severely. There are things God expected His people to be willing to fight for, or was it just cultural? There are times when even Jesus came on hard and things He was willing to get violent about.

So what's happening? The cultural shift we're experiencing, from my perspective, is monumental. People are reacting to the fact that the scriptures are full of war and violence. They are. It's probably not bad to hate war and violence but scripture tells us there's a time to fight. Other generations seemed to be able to handle that. We can't. Why? There are aggressors, defenders, and victims of war...always...unfortunately. The age old question - "when is it justified?" For those who sift their culture through the scriptures they can look back and say, "God said..." For those who sift the scripture through their culture, "How can this possibly be God if God is Love?". Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time and a season for everything - even things we'd rather not do. So my faith says, "For everything there is a season..." Not just peace and love but war, too. Even violence - but I don't like it.

Sifting my faith through my culture or my culture through my faith, requires me to wrestle with God. Generation after generation, the clash of culture with faith forces us to wrestle with God. Jacob wrestled with God. He wrestled to make the God of his father his own God and he wrestled for God's blessing.

So we wrestle with God about all these cultural elements. "What do the scriptures say?" "What was cultural?" "Why did this happen?" I don't think it was an accident that the scriptures were set in the context of many centuries worth of cultural settings, though they don't seem dramatically different to us culturally and socially. They're full of all the same issues that every generation faces, yet God remains the same yesterday, today and forever looking for faithful men and women. As grandparents, parents, teachers, we can sift the scriptures through the winds of our culture or sift our culture through the winds of scripture and catch the grain that remains and let the wind blow the chaff away and I bet most of you can't even relate to that metaphor. A cultural shift. We need grain for bread and bread for life but even that analogy probably doesn't mean what it used to...at my house we're on a no-carb diet for pete's sake...imagine sharing the scriptures with a culture that doesn't eat bread...

If you don't follow David Wakerley at kidinspiration (Hillsong) check it out and add your comments. He recently posed a question that started an interesting discussion: "Should we be teaching/telling our kids the ultra-violent stories found in the Old Testament?" You'll find some good comments & diverse points of view.

I find that very much a cultural question but a pivotal question, if you will. I'd venture to say that our answers reflect the role scripture plays in our lives, in our world views, and how we wrestle with them when culture as we know it clashes with our faith. I'm not condoning violence nor am I condoning picking and choosing what we take from the scriptures and what we ignore. How we share those stories with kids reflects how we perceive children...but the wrestling is an on-going process if you're willing to wrestle with God.

Having those particular questions to wrestle with is indicative of something much much bigger that I'm trying very hard to get my head around and maybe when I do I'll try to put it into words and post more...

...go check it out...he also has a great list of resources...

After you read the post before this one...Here's a project for you...sit down alone or with other* parents, teachers, & volunteers and ask yourselves,

"What do I remember from the years before I started kindergarten?"

"What are the things (good & bad) that make me who I am that have roots in my early childhood years?"

"What are the things I did as a child that I still do today, a way of thinking, a passion?" What lingered through the years? If you'd grown up in a different location, with people around you who loved or worked at different things, with different social opportunities or playthings would you be different? We don't really know but I bet you can find connections. I'm not talking about making excuses for ourselves. I'm talking about climbing into the skin of a preschooler. You can specifically apply this to faith and the faith community, if you like but don't limit yourself...

Sure, you could sit and read a lot of scientific journals on the subject but you might find this approach much more fun ... plus these are your kids and you're the ones given opportunity to influence them...



*Not sure if it's best to have a variety of adult personalities, gifts, skills & interests for this or whether it doesn't matter. I'm not focusing on nature vs nurture here, I'm asking what lingered over the years and what would have been happening between 3-5 yrs old to make those roots run so deep? Something I remember from early sunday school when my grandmother was teaching: the finger game "here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, see all the people" and a book that's still a Mennonite children's book God's World and Johnny. Gosh! I remember this one too! I remember being in choir of older kids and trying to sing louder than all the other kids. I remember lots but maybe another time...have fun with this...

for parents and those who work with parents & children

"Spiritual Lives All Their Own" an article by David Ratcliff from Christianity Today.

"The Myth of the Perfect Parent" by Leslie Leyland Fields also from Christianity Today

Toddler Stories from the Gospels

Sharing God's stories with the smallest - in some senses "the least."

In some ways God is an abstract not a concrete, although once a child's imagination kicks in God is probably more real to children than He is to us. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here and take it out of context. (God is not another imaginary friend. He is God. He is very real)

And don't underestimate the significance of regularly picking up a Bible (or Bible story book) to tell one of God's stories. That's concrete. First thing in the morning? Bedtime? Naptime? Mealtime?

Does a little child follow a word for word read from that soft black book? Perhaps. But probably more importantly they know you are close. You are happy to be with them. You are making time for them. You are sharing a story with them. Sharing time with them, telling God's stories is important to you. You're building a foundation on a lot of different levels.

There are all kinds of children's Bibles and Bible storybooks on the market- probably more engaging than that tiny black and white text in a picture-less soft black book. Should I use a children's Bible or Bible storybook or should I read scripture verbatim? Beware of watering down the scriptures or changing what the scriptures say but if it's a fun way to understand God's truth, God's stories? 20 years ago I would have said absolutely - read it verbatim from that soft black book. Did my toddlers follow the story? Probably not. (I used Bible story books, too.) Would they eventually remember phrases they heard over and over year after year? Probably. I guess you'd have to ask them...

Let's use Luke. This is Advent. Let's take the story of John the Baptist because it's the first story - but it's a hard one.

Who are the key characters in the story? Who will show up later in the scriptures? Are there any objects I can use- tastes, smells, things to touch? Can I use pictures, puppets, faceless puppets, dolls? What are the words or images that would be familiar to this age group of children?

Here we go. . . A long long time ago in Bible times, there was an older man named Zechariah. He loved God very much. Elizabeth was his wife. They did what God told them to do. Zechariah went to work everyday to worship God in the temple. Today, it was his turn. He burned some incense. [burn some incense, turn the lights down]] The other workers stayed outside.

All of a sudden there was an angel standing near Zechariah. Zechariah was soooooo afraid.

The angel said, "Don't be afraid, Zechariah. When you prayed, God was listening Elizabeth is going to have a baby boy. Name him John. He will be so much fun for you! Lots of people will be happy. He will grow up to be a great man but he will have special rules to follow. He will bring many people back to God and get people ready for Jesus."

But Zechariah said, "How can I be sure that what you're telling me is true?"

The angle Gabriel said, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. He sent me to tell you this. If you don't believe me then you won't be able to talk until all these things that I've told you happen."

The people waiting outside began to wonder, "Why was it taking him so long?" When Zechariah came out, he couldn't talk! Then the people knew he had seen a vision from God.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were pretty old. But they soon found out they were going to have a baby just like the angel told Zechariah. ["going to have a baby" is a familiar phrase to lots of toddlers & preschoolers. You could include a mom who is going to have a baby, a grandma, a grandpa in your audience. Maybe an older woman who is going to have a baby. "Elizabeth was an older lady like ____ but she was going to have a baby like ______." You get the idea. The rest of the story is in Luke 1:57. This might be way too much for young toddlers but not for preschool.

What will toddlers remember? How animated you were, how much fun they had listening to the story, the incense, the guests, maybe that this was a story about someone "having a baby", your props, the angel, maybe the old man, the old lady, maybe not being able to talk...maybe...

But each time they hear that story a little more of the story will make sense to them. They'll remember a little more.

During the Christmas season point out things in everyday life that the kids might hear in the Christmas story. Visit a live creche or a farm. Point out a donkey, a cow, straw, someone who is going to have a baby. Point to the stars. Bring them to worship so they can hear lots of singing. Go outside on a hillside at night.

Will they remember and connect these things to the story? Maybe, but again, you're building a foundation. Sit outside in the dark. Have someone turn on the car headlights. Isn't that similar to what the shepherds experienced but without electricity? Does a toddler know the difference between electricity or not? No, but they might remember the experience, the surprise, the light in the darkness.

Take a LONG walk - not as long as Mary & Joseph's but... you get the idea...

If you do things like that with kids before they hear the Bible story, they will have more to bring to the story when they hear it. Infants? Toddlers? Preschoolers? Everything you do or don't do is creating a foundation for what's to come - not just cognitive knowledge but emotional and kinethetic memories - something tangible they can associate with the words they hear in God's stories. It can't hurt.

Instead of thinking about the things little children don't understand, think about what they do understand. Every time you read or tell the story build on it just alittle. Build on their understanding of and knowledge of God and Christ Jesus. And never underestimate God's Holy Spirit or the power of His Word. John moved in his mother's womb in the presence of Mary and Jesus - both much younger than your toddlers ... anyway... more to ponder..

Stories in Acts

Stories for children from Acts:

Somewhere near the beginning of Acts in Acts 2 we have a promise: "And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."

In Acts 7 Stephen speaks to the Sanhedrin (who is bringing charges against him) recounting God's Old Testament story with Israel including Abraham and promises to his descendants, Moses as a child and a youth ...children are the fiber of the OT narrative. They inherit God's promises.

But let's say you list all the stories in Acts - a continuation of God's story after Jesus returned to the Father. Who was there? Any chance there were children around when that story happened or would children have heard the story 2nd hand - adults talking about it after the fact? If they were there, what would someone under 5 notice (see, hear, taste, touch, smell)? What would make sense to them? What would they remember? How about someone under 10? A pre-adolescent? A teen?

This is my favorite:
Acts 21:3-6. This was clearly a family affair. I wonder if this was the norm or whether it was the exception. How many observations can you make from this story or rather this very short passage? Was it just cultural or is there something more here?

Tools for change

Every time I read a book like this the overwhelming question is, "What do I do with this? How do I need to change? Now what?"

What do we do with a book like this? Do we put it on the shelf and dust it off 5-10 years from now and say, "That was a great book!" or can we use it as an agent for change to better align ourselves with what the scriptures say and what God requires of us? How can we use this to better reflect the God we serve?

The only way books like this will change us is for people, particularly groups of people working with children, to examine our own thoughts and attitudes in light of the thoughts and ideas we find in the scriptures. Hopefully, we change how we think and ultimately how we act to better reflect Godly, Christ-like, scriptural attitudes, and understanding. Books like this deserve groups of parents, seminar students, ministry professionals, and caring community members taking 18 chapters worth of time to read, ponder, and talk about the thoughts, ideas, and implications that these authors share. Especially if you have a thinking, reading community. Some of it is dense reading but most of it is pretty straightforward. Hey! Jenny leaves to go back to school today and I've finished the book!

One person is one person. One person is only the beginning. It takes wise leadership and it takes one community after another to change church society and culture and ultimately the larger community. Social gospel, social change? Maybe, but if it better reflects the nature of God and as a result more people turn to Him, isn't that a good thing? Which comes first, individuals changing or changes in administration/leadership? We serve a God who requires us to do, not just know - as individuals and as organizations. Whether or not we know and what we know is reflected in the choices we make and in our actions.

I think that when we see our attitudes and actions in conflict with the scriptures either as individuals or as an institution and we try to express or explain the things we need to change to someone else, one of the biggest challenges is not just convincing others but using language that cuts through the understandings and perceptions that put our listeners on the defensive, language that cuts through all the understandings that keep them from hearing.

I can read through this book (or the scriptures) and say, why is this so different from what I already know or what I'm already doing? Or I can read through this and see very distinct differences. Maybe some of it is timing and the work of the Holy Spirit but in 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 Paul talks about words. This whole post-modern generation (maybe every generation) struggles with definitions - language- to show differences, neccessary changes in our cultural thinking to hopefully better reflect the God we serve. At the same time we use care with our language when we want to focus, not on the differences, but on the faith we share.

Solomon tells us there is nothing new under the sun so maybe it's not trying to unveil something new but to keep returning to something very very old and helping people see and hear Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through His Word.

May Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be glorified generation after generation and give us grace and wisdom to hear His Word and do His will.

more food!

You'll read the last post and think I planned this. I didn't. Saw these in my inbox from amazon this am. I've not read the books. But I was impressed by the growing variety of tools for CM out there.

The fact that there's a book of science devotions was what originally caught my eye.

Then I saw all these books using food, cooking, and tasting. You know how we talk about concrete learning and 6 senses with kids? Ok, five senses. (Maybe we are teaching with six senses but, ah, another blog post.)

Again, I haven't read them but check these out: 1, 2, 3, 4, and there are more on some of these pages.

Enjoy!

And remember when you're making something as a lesson or craft activity you can always make extra so you have something for kids to deliver to someone else. Not sure how copyright works with this but it might be fun to give the kids opportunity to take the recipe home if they want to share the food and the story with a family member or a friend.