I love teaching kids the Bible.
Beth and I are talking more about it on the podcast this week, but I wanted to have a series of posts up for reference in case there are readers out there struggling with a Sunday school assignment, leading a youth or home group, wondering how to begin Bible learning with their toddler, or parents contemplating a family devotional.
Recently I was teaching kids about Jesus—Jesus, who knew the inside of people—he knew their deepest desires to be whole and healthy (Matthew 9, story of the woman with the bleeding disorder), he knew their thoughts and intentions, good or bad (Matthew 9, story of the paralytic man) and he knew their natural inclination towards sin—self and flesh instead of God (John 5:42). Mind, body, spirit, soul—this is what identifies a whole person, each one of us, and Jesus knew.
There is definitely more He knows, but I was teaching 8-12 year olds and tasked with the AWANA “God is Omniscient” theme with little other than Psalm 139 for my reference. You cannot go all seminary on these guys.
But why? Why is the homiletical, hermeneutical, exegetical approach so useless in teaching kids?
Well, because they are kids.
As I was growing up, my dad often preached at our little church. Before we’d leave the house, he was always scrambling for a “visual aid”—a prop that he would bring out during lesson time. Everyone knew when Roger taught, he would have something interesting to say—and show.
There are three questions I must ask and answer when I am teaching children:
- WHO am I teaching?
Kids—not adults!— and their importance in the kingdom of God cannot be overstated. They have the Top Spot.
Jesus knows the ins and outs of us. He knows the mind and the heart and purpose of a child—and they aren’t to serve as a practice board for more important sermons, nor a tabula rasa on which to chalk complicated theological equations.
A child is simple, simple in their taste, simple in their mind and heart. We’re called to drop our egos, ditch our big words and important liturgy. God wants us to reflect on the simpleness of children and to learn from them:
The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And He said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matt.18:1-5)
Even after Jesus explained how critical children and child-likeness are to the kingdom, the disciples rebuked people for bringing their children to Him. Jesus said, “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)
He had to correct them! As a teacher of kids, often your job will be undervalued, even by some disciples. Carry on!
If the key to understanding God’s kingdom is becoming child-like: Don’t you think, if we studied children, how they learn, how we ourselves were as children—if we dropped to our knees on their level, looked into their simple ways—we might understand a little better how to teach them?
- HOW am I teaching?
Remember the song, “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock”? At the end of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, He told the people, “therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)
When we teach children, we are helping them build a life from the ground up, on a firm foundation. Everything must be built stone by stone—and when I teach, I try to remember I am there to erect scaffolding for their growing faith. This means I must be aware of what is age-appropriate; this is foundation pedagogy. Eventually their faith house that is built on the rock will continue to grow with the help of the Holy Spirit that comes as we “remain in Him” (1 John 2:27).
But for now, we teach kids foundational truths as scaffolding, remembering their curious, inquisitive nature. Little kids love stories that pique the imagination! They understand concrete statements and the idea of good winning over bad. Middle-school kids begin to ask “why” questions—a good time to introduce more abstract concepts such as propitiation and grace. Teenagers begin to self-lead and express their faith, as they “remain in Him.”
No stage of development can grow independent of a solid foundation, nor do these things grow out of order. For example,
I prefer to tell an entire Bible story when I am teaching, as kids these days are sometimes quite Bible-illiterate. It’s just good pedagogy to meet them where they are and give them the meat and bones of scripture instead of theology nuggets and catechisms, which might mean something, but for the purposes of remembering and regurgitating and chewing on mean very little.
I try to think about what they know before I teach them abstract ideas that float around without any tether to their practical life.
Sin—yes, we know and can conjure up nasty thoughts and actions of our own, so it’s easy to compare my stories to David’s, Jonah’s, Elijah’s, etc. Winning victory over sin?—that is the exciting part, the Good Ending.
Grace? Well, that’s another story, only to be understood through our own life-long idiocy, our run-ins with Law, our abject need for Someone to rescue us from our poor decisions.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. (Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:11)
The Type of Scaffolding matters.
3. WHY am I teaching?
When I was a kid, the denominations I grew up in placed a strong emphasis on where you were going to go if you died this very night. Not that car accidents aren’t common or that people don’t die in them, but these were the kind of scare tactics that had me questioning my salvation on a weekly basis.
I was equally terrified of “sharing my faith”—my fear of evangelism (door knocking) itself seems possibly rooted in why I couldn’t quite be sure of my salvation and if I’d get into Heaven post-car accident.
Sometimes I wonder if this is why there are plenty of parents in my own generation who don’t feel a strong desire to teach kids the Bible. Perhaps they are unsure of what they believe, or maybe, like me, they felt scared away by the heaviness of what they would have to teach—and the souls that depended on them saving.
I have good news for you! God is not depending on you to save souls.
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
(Matthew 13:3-9)
Jesus told this parable to a crowd of people and his disciples came up afterwards to ask him what it meant. He explained to them that the different places the seed fell represented the heart condition of a person that comes into contact with the Word.
“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. They seed falling among the thorns reverse to someone who hears the world, but the worries of this life and the deceitful news’s of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the world and understands it.”
We, as Bible teachers, don’t save people. We just Toss out Seeds and Till Soil.
This is where we begin to lay a foundation for our kids: recognizing their Top Spot in the kingdom and the Type of Scaffolding they need, then Tilling Soil and Tossing Seeds.
I’ll talk about the practical side of teaching Sunday school to kiddos in the next post!
