Connecting Development and Deeper Faith
Many teachers spend a huge amount of time studying child-development experts such as Goldman, Stonehouse, and Piaget, along with their theories of developmental education and stages of moral development. When it comes to Sunday school, the idea is to create lessons that while they are rich in Bible depth, they are also appealing and applicable to kids according to their ability to receive information and act on it. In other words, the goal is that kids actually remember the lesson you teach and you see a change in their actions because of it!
A Lesson From Kid-Jesus
Remember when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover? At the end of the celebration, Mary and Joseph started the journey home with a caravan of family and friends. They arrived at the Hebrew version of Motel 6 when Jesus’ parents realized that he was MISSING. They lost God!
Three days later they located him in Jerusalem in the temple. Luke tells the story in his writing: “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47).
Jesus listened. Jesus asked questions. Jesus, through his questions, was causing teachers to challenge their beliefs. A child was teaching the teachers. Kid-Jesus was the coolest.
Explore Faith Together
This event illustrates how important a role children play in their faith discovery — and in ours. Give kids opportunities to grow their faith by exploring it together with them.
- Encourage kids to ask questions. And don’t pretend to always know the answer. Why did God give dogs tails?
- Open your mind and learn from your kids. Sometimes the most profound and surprising insights come from young minds because they see things in a much more concrete, simple way.
- Make faith exploration an element of your class. Ask open-ended questions. Challenge kids to exercise their faith. Stretch kids beyond what even they think they can do.
R.E.A.L. learning is a learning philosophy, which also happens to be a nifty acronym, that can help you remember the important aspects to Sunday school that works. Your lessons should be
Relational
Experiential
Applicable and
Learner-based.
Check out this video to hear about how DIG IN, a Sunday school curriculum currently in development, is hitting the R.E.A.L. Learning nail right on the head.
2 Comments
-
Thank Kylee, for the encouragement. It’s also interesting to note that out of the nearly 200 questions Jesus was asked, He only directly answered three. The other times He told a story, replied with another question, or just didn’t respond at all. Was Jesus avoiding the answer, or was He encouraging people to dig deeper than just finding pat answers? You’re right. He was a good listener. So good, in fact, that He knew just the right questions to ask- questions that got to the heart of the matter.
-
Author
I think you nailed it, Aubrey. Have you ever seen a little kid say “sorry” just to appease a parent, then see the parent ask “What are you sorry for?” By responding with a question, the child must dig a little deeper and wrap their head and heart around what they are really saying. The parent’s goal is usually to make sure they aren’t saying sorry just for the sake of saying sorry. I think this is the same strategy Jesus used. In the video I linked, Joani says, “Even the pharisee’s could spout Bible verses,” but that doesn’t mean they knew it in their heart. Jesus was on to something, and he was definitely causing people to think. I love your perspective!
-