To Tell You the Truth
I’ve recently written, very carefully, Bible lessons about Samson, and Sodom and Gomorrah. When the Holy Spirit highlights a lesson idea I go with it but I have to admit to some hesitancy. I respect parent sensitivity to particular topics and believe the lessons we teach should be age appropriate.
When I was growing up my Dad led family devotions every night. We had a big, weighty Living Bible embossed with a gold Cross. There were full page colour photographs of the Holy Land interspersed throughout. We each had a turn at reading a passage of Scripture and my baby sister, who did not want to be left out, would ‘read’ a photograph. ‘It was a hot day. And there was a palm tree and some water. And a donkey wanted a drink.’ So cute. Dad would explain the Bible passage and over the years we covered pretty much everything. Even circumcision. Growing up in the Church I sat through many sermons with grown up content. (There was no concurrent child minding or Kid’s Church in those days.) I don’t remember ever being concerned about any Bible story although the fate of poor Jephthah’s daughter stayed with me for a while (Judges 11:30-39).
So I read with interest Heather Shumaker’s book, ‘It’s OK to Go Up the Slide, Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids’ (Shumaker, H. 2016.Penguin Random House. New York.) One rule was particularly noteworthy. ‘Rule 16: Share Unfair History’.
‘Learning human history is emotionally charged work. We can’t relegate it to history class. At some age – individual for each child – kids should be upset by upsetting history. Mixed up feelings of anger, horror, sorrow, remorse, and guilt are natural reactions. We can’t change unpleasant history, but we can guide children to develop compassion.’ (p. 262)
Now, more than ever, children need to learn about the true stories of the Bible. ‘All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ We have seen such an attack on God’s Word, particularly on foundation truths such as Creation, which even some religious leaders are now calling a myth!
Those of us in Kid’s Ministry have the wonderful opportunity of not only sharing the true, historic stories of the Bible, but of opening them up, and revealing to children how they apply to their lives right now! Of course we use our common sense and look at the ages of our kids and teach accordingly. The Holy Spirit is always guiding and helping us. He gives us revelation on how to present Godly concepts in creative and engaging ways.
Shumaker says children identify with other children (p71.) and she’s right. The story of Rhoda forgetting to open the door to Peter in Acts Chapter 12 has been one of my favourites since childhood. (It’s just the sort of thing I would have done!) Teaching from a child’s perspective will help us remain sensitive. We must teach our kids that God is in control, He is faithful and trustworthy. Kids are good at discerning what is fair and what is unfair. They care deeply about justice. Kids need to know God not only cares about it, He is a God of justice. (Isaiah 30:18)
I’m so grateful to my parents who decided they wanted our family devotion time to be the first place we learned about the most important issues in life.
For lessons about children’s experience in Old and New Testament times check out Crucial Kids 1 https://cooeekidsministry.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Crucial-Kids-I.pdf
and Crucial Kids 2 https://cooeekidsministry.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Crucial-Kids-II.pdf