CliffsNotes Christianity
Praying Psalms, Planning Help, Hard Questions, and No Playdoh
Hey friends.
You did it! You made it to the weekend (well, almost). I’m not sure if it’s the stage of life our family is in, or if I’m just getting old (maybe a bit of both?), but by the time Friday rolls around I’m running on empty after a week of early morning alarms, afternoons checking homework, and trying to keep my dad game on point. Thankfully, God’s showing off with a breezy, sun-kissed afternoon outside my window, so I feel a second wind coming! It’s amazing how much a little sunshine can go toward clearing your head and making life seem lovely again. Here’s to spring coming soon!
One underrated thing about sunlight streaming through windows is that it creates lovely little pools of warmth on my couch to sink into with a cup of coffee and a good book. While I was tempted to continue down my Brandon Sanderson rabbit hole, I set him aside to get back to How to Teach Kids Theology. This book’s so good that I spent like 3 minutes considering if I should start looking for a new kids ministry gig, but then I decided I’d leave it to the pros like Sam and Hunter. :-) I’ll pass it along to you and the kids leaders at my church so you can keep doing the good work!
Their fourth chapter is all about the value of story in teaching kids a robust theology. They use the language of “CliffsNotes Christianity” to describe a problem they’ve seen in kids ministry over the years. While CliffsNotes are full of information about whatever book it covers, it’s more helpful in gathering information about that book than it is in helping you understand what the book is trying to say. This is great for helping you ace an exam in college where you need to regurgitate character names, plot points, or info about the setting of the story. It’s terrible for talking about the book over dinner with friends and sharing how a particular story made you feel or taught you about yourself. Obviously, you can’t understand a story without having a solid grasp of the information (characters, setting, story beats, etc.), but the beauty of the story is more than a list of factoids and trivia.
The danger, the authors argue, is that we’ve taken this same CliffsNotes approach and filtered how we teach kids the Bible through a similar lens. We’re so caught up in teaching them information about God, that we miss setting that information inside the story of God (who he is, what he’s done, and what he’s doing now). It’s information without any real meaning. A relationship with no romance. It’s not bad, but it’s incomplete. There’s more there for us to teach, and more for them to experience.
So how can we tackle this problem? They argue that the key is telling good stories. Story is what will grip their hearts and invite them to experience the grace and mercy of God in a meaningful way. They give us quotes from Eugene Peterson and Jack Klumpenhower (both solid choices for patron saints of kids ministry!) along the way as they work through the elements of story we should always be looking for as we teach through the Bible (creation, fall, redemption).
Perhaps most helpfully, they examine the value in connecting every story to God’s bigger story. They work through several specific questions to consider as you build lessons, and along with each question use a specific passage to demonstrate how to do it faithfully. These are applications you can put to use almost immediately as you’re writing lessons, or looking through curriculum you’re already using. They’re not asking you to burn the curriculum you’re using, but they’re asking you to consider whether or not that curriculum is working to help your kids see the larger story of God as you work through a new story each week.
Finally, they provide two important exhortations that are vital for anyone teaching kids. First, don’t skip the hard stuff! Are there some stories that are difficult to teach young people? Absolutely. Does that mean we should pretend they’ve not there? I hope not. Our kids are faced with difficulty, anxiety, suffering, and hardship all the time, so let’s not exclude them from the parts of the Bible that show them how God’s people dealt with and walked through similar difficulty. There’s value in teaching about God’s faithfulness in difficulty as they face similar moments.
Second, we must spend time preparing to teach each week, especially when we’re working through some of those more difficult passages that we’re not skipping over anymore. God’s given us the call to make disciples (Matthew 28), and we should take that seriously! We want to do everything in our power to make the story, God’s glory, and our need for Jesus clear every time we teach. That means we’re taking time to marinate in the passage we’re teaching. We then balance our preparation with the certainty that God’s Spirit is at work both in us as we teach and the hearts of our kids as they hear his message. We trust that he’s faithful to draw kids to Jesus, whether we knocked it out of the park or fell flat on our face.
Sam and Hunter are still in their groove here, and demonstrate a real interest in helping kids ministry leaders think about both the content of what they’re teaching as well as what they’re missing. Super easy to read, full of wisdom and encouragement without brow-beating us, and examples of how to put what they’ve shared into practice. I’m about halfway through, and it’s on it’s way to joining the pantheon (Klumpenhower, Kennedy, Machowski, etc.) of great kids books that belong in the kids ministry starter kit. We’ll keep rolling next week. Have a great weekend!
Praying Psalms (Discipleship)
“Can we really approach God with confidence? Can we actually bring Him our smallest, most earthly requests? There’s a Psalm just for these questions, and the 19th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon helps us discover its riches.” My pal, Jeremy Linneman, has a piece over at For the Church on prayer this week. He unpacks what it looks like to pour out our heart to God when life feels like it’s too much, and reminds us that God also pours himself out to us when we ask. He has a little help from Charles Spurgeon (ever heard of him?) along the way. If this doesn’t get you excited about reaching out to the Lord in prayer, I’m not sure what will.
Planning Help (Kids/Special Needs Ministry)
“As I was planning and praying, I thought it would be fun to create a ministry planning calendar for all of us to use in 2025. I came up with ideas for each month broken into three categories: to do, to plan ahead for, and to pray over.” Is tomorrow March 1st? Yep, sure is. Does that mean it’s too late to start planning the rest of the year? Not at all! Sandra Peoples, our friend and special needs ministry leader extraordinaire, put together a monthly breakdown of her year and how she’s planning what to do, work toward, and pray for. You can listen to this convo as a podcast, or read through the transcript (different brains need different avenues!), as she walks through each month. It’s easy to feel defeated when you already feel behind on a year of planning, but this resource can help get you back on track and working toward a future-facing excitement for the rest of the year. Dig in!
Hard Questions (Parenting)
“So what does it mean that we are made in God’s image? This is something that we teach our children and should teach our children. It’s what the Bible tells us. But they might ask, “What does that really mean?” Here’s another quick, helpful video from Crossway’s Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions series. This one tackles what it means to be made in God’s image. You can watch the whole thing (less than three minutes) with your kiddos, and spark some conversation with them. Some of these big topics are easier to dive into with kids if you have a jumping off point. Consider this the diving board you didn’t know you needed. Enjoy!
No Playdoh
Nothing spikes my anxiety by me walking into a room and seeing my kids with hands full of slime, sand, or whatever new, terrible invention has come to ruin my carpet, couch, or kitchen table. The good news is, they can’t get it out if they can’t find it. Haha! Hope you find a high shelf that your kids can’t reach.