I really like how the introduction lays out the Bible is not a book of rules or a book of heroes, it says how those are not true and then states what the bible is about. I think this is important, especially with a children's edition, so they do not grow up with these misconceptions.
The bible is a story. "There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all stories are telling one Big Story." This is a great way to put it. In a writing curriculum that many schools have adopted, students are to write "seed" stories, not "watermelon" stories. The idea is to close in on one small part and go into detail, if you create many seed stories about one event, then you will end up with one big story.
I didn't really know how to start this... so I'll wait for your comments and then comment as well!
I agree - it's a pretty awesome introduction. I like that it tackles popular misconceptions/misunderstandings of the Bible right away. "No, the Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story." And the overall message you get right away that it's a Story about Love.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested to see how this all plays out with the Old Testament books - in my actualy Bible reading I'm in Joshua for OT at the moment...and man does it NOT feel like a story about love! Honestly, I've fallen asleep listening to it the past few nights :-/ I also have a hard time predicting connections that can be made between the Old Testament and the story of Jesus...so I'm very intrigued already :-)
The focus on Love connects back to The Shack for me as well - that was one of the bigger themes that I came away with. The love that Papa, Jesus and Sarayu had for each other being a model for the type of relationship we should have with God and with each other is something that I've really tried to focus on since reading it.
btw I really like the watermelon analogy! That's also an interesting way to look at the Bible that I hadn't really focused on before.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking about The Shack too! How he loves his children, and comes to rescue them. I don't know if I mentioned it before while discussing The Shack, but I really liked the explanation that God gave Mack about how could she love everyone (especially murderers?). She said she loves all children, although it may be different, but none more than another. It really made me think of a parent with children... how can they choose who they love more? They can't, it just love in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI am really excited - I wanted to keep reading!
It was the introduction and the first story of this book that I read on Amazon that prompted me to get this book for my Godson. It is a simple, yet deep way of looking at the bible that I found to be powerful, both for children and for parents.
ReplyDeleteI have only read up through the 1st two stories and then I don't know what it will say. But I have been pretty excited to read through it too.
The writing of this intro also reminds me of Sacred Romance or Wild at Heart. Focusing on the love story between God and humanity.
One other thought that I've been pondering a lot lately that I am excited to explore is the idea of sharing faith with Eddie. I never thought it would be a complicated subject, but as he is starting to grow and grasp the world I realize that we will be begin to have conversations about God and church and the Bible.
ReplyDeleteHis current worldview of church is that it is an awesome playroom with more toys than he can imagine. Mostly, he goes directly to the nursery when we get there. Not by my choosing really, I'd rather him be in service, but its not the type of service that's easy to bring him to.
This past week, however, we attended the Lutheran church that we used to go to when we first came to town. At that church, he did attend service (for most of it) and was actually quite engaged. He recognized Jesus on the bulletin cover and he dipped his hands in the baptismal font and pointed to the dove etched on the bottom, saying "bird, mommy, bird"
He is getting acquainted with the symbols and rituals of faith and I realized at that moment that his first experiences with faith will depend on the stories and experiences that I give him and the example I set.
As we read through this book, one of my goals is to see if it will work as first intro to the bible for him.
At what point in your church do children stop attending the nursery?
ReplyDeleteI have been recently thinking a lot about children in the church. At ULC there currently is an abundance of children. They do have a children's service with activities for kids, but it is before service - so all the children attend service. It is not very engaging for children, but everyone is on their best behavior. The kids that need to have something to keep them occupied (coloring book, books, etc.).
There is more to this thought, but I have to go to work and blogger won't let you save comments as drafts... to be continued
I also thought back to my childhood experiences with church. Church was boring because it was not engaging for children, let alone adults. I attended weekly Sunday School, but it was after Mass. After being bored out of my mind for an hour, I had lost all of my attention and just couldn't wait for Sunday School to be over. But.. is that what we want for the young minds we want to teach? Is our goal really to keep them preoccupied? There has to be a better way!
ReplyDeleteAs I got older they had a special "Children's Mass" which children left for the 10-15 minutes of the sermon to have a children's story told. But how much to kids actually get out of 15 minutes once a week? I never attended this for 2 reasons: one, my parents went to the 8am Mass and it was only offered at the 10 am Mass; two, by the time it was offered I was in middle school and really didn't care at that point in time. I was more concerned with how many ceiling beams there were.
At what point should children become involved with service? Also, at what point to children start to understand the ideas of God and faith?
My first memories of church are very young .... 1. I was around 3 years old and I was jealous of my parents for taking communion. I wanted some "God Food" too. 2. I remember learning the Lord's prayer during a "Children's church" during the service when I was like 4.
ReplyDeleteI think that services as they are - are not very well designed for kids. Part of why I take Eddie to the nursery. But I have a dream of going to a service that is spiritual for me and him. I would have it be a family worship time, if I could design it. The simplicity and depth of many of the bible stories make them something you can learn from at any age -- I mean, we are doing a serious bible study using a children's bible.
I don't really have an answer for how or when to start teaching Eddie about faith but I would like his experiences be relevant to him and to provide him a foundation upon which he can build his own relationship with God that is authentic and meaningful.
I'm not sure if I can add much to this discussion because I had a fairly religious-less childhood. But that in and of itself lends some lessons I think.
ReplyDeleteMy early memories of church and religion are pretty isolated to those that I remember from going to church with my grandmas and with Toni's family. Needless to say, I got a wide range of Christian experiences between my Grandmother's Methodist Church, Maw Maw's Pentecostal Church, and Toni's Catholic Church. In some ways I think the variation was a good thing - not necessarily at the time, but later on in life when I could consider religion more seriously I didn't have any sort of misconception about there being only "one right way" to do things. On the other hand, that lack in consistency of going to Church or even just talking about God resulted in my having a very limited understanding of our relationship with God - and specifically MY relationship with God. One of the things that made me deeply question religion at a very early age was the fact that I would pray for Lee to be able to walk EVERY time I went to church with anyone. I was under the impression that if you were good and you prayed for something, God would make it happen for you. Obviously, those prayers went unanswered - which became the catalyst for my turning away from Christianity.
In all of this I think that there is a lesson I plan to act upon when I have children. I think that from the very beginning, by using stories and maybe even this Bible, I am going to expose my children to God and be very consistent about how I explain God's relationship with us. But, I think I will also be "inconsistent" about the type of experiences I expose them to - services, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, etc.