Stopping to Think

  Preface:  This isn't "writing" per se, this is the first of three posts that will be lesson outlines from the VBS our church is conducting this week. The titles are,  Where Did I Come From? , Am I Important , and How Can I Be Okay? My hope in sharing is that if you work with kids, or simply are interested in answering these questions for yourself, you will be edified. How Can I Be Okay? Gold bean bag Do you ever feel broken? Like something inside of you just isn’t right?  The last couple of days the kids have been working on a verse, Gen 1:1, In the beginning, God created… The Bible starts not with people, not with some slog beginning with an immense hydrogen explosion, but with God. A speaking God. A God who speaks life into being What did God call his creation? Very good ( v31 ) Part of that very good creation was an image-bearer: people Kids, who made everything? God! So, who made you? God! So, who’s the boss? God is! Right, God is the boss. And he gave people a...

    Preface: This isn't "writing" per se, this is the first of three posts that will be lesson outlines from the VBS our church is conducting this week. The titles are, Where Did I Come From?, Am I Important , and How Can I Be Okay ? My hope in sharing is that if you work with kids, or simply are interested in answering these questions for yourself, you will be edified. Where Did I Come From? Have you ever wondered where you came from? Who made me? What’s our memory verse? Genesis 1:1 : In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Can you name some things God made? He made everything, stars and trees, elephants and bees, the stars and your knees! But did you know he didn’t make it all at once? Gen 1:2 Does anyone know what void means? Empty. But he was there Do you know what happened next? God did 2 things: form, and fill Form: 1, Light/Dark (eyes open/close); 2 water/sky (swim/jump action); 3; water/dry land (swim/pump arms) Fill: 4, Lights (can you name l...

This is a somewhat overdue follow-up to my post on Speaking With Your Kids . A while back, my children and I finished reading through The House at Pooh Corner  by A.A. Milne (you can see my mini-review here ). While there were things all throughout the book that struck me, this interchange near the end of the final chapter snagged my attention like a flashing red light: So they began going there, and after they had walked a little way Christopher Robin said:  "What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"   "Well," said Pooh,"what I like best----" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. What is that called? The thing which brought this particular exchange to my attention was the fact that what Milne, through the honey-stained lips of Pooh, describes is the...

How should we speak to and with our children? Realizing that a) I'm no expert and b) I'm mostly thinking aloud, I think we need to ponder these things. That is the intention of this blog, after all. To think aloud, and to invite you to join my thinking. On Conversing: Some form of this post has been stirring in my mind for many a moon, but what finally kicked me over the edge to put finger to keyboard was this article in The Atlantic . The focus of the piece, if you have not read it, is on early childhood education, preschool specifically, and the fact that though children are being taught  more information than every before, they are in fact learning  less. The author, a professional in the field, discuses various reasons for this, but then points to a number of things that provide a genuinely healthy learning environment for children. Here is a section: As an early-childhood educator, I’ve clocked many hours in many preschool classrooms, and I have found that I c...

I wrote a post about a year and a half ago on family devotions . While I have been pretty inconsistent and at times lackadaisical in my application of what I wrote there, I am encouraged as I look back over the last year plus and think of how much Scripture we've been able to read together at the dinner table.  However, as you may know, it's sometimes hard to discuss with your 2 year-old child the complex theological arguments of Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. Not that we shouldn't make that effort, but it just might be difficult. You'll have to do a lot of simplifying in your language, and trying to take abstract ideas and connect them to concrete realities. Some people are pretty good at this...I'm not. I need help. I have to learn how to talk and think like a small child, because that is a completely foreign world to me. And so, if you're in that same boat, I think it's good to martial some allies to your cause. Let me suggest three that I use. ...