Teaching The Bible Interview / Book Reflections

James Donley Teaching the Bible Interview/Book Reflections After speaking with Tarah, a Director of Children’s Ministry, I was able to glean a number of insightful critiques of today’s children’s ministry. Between the reading from class and our conversation three topics stood out; the watered down children’s gospel, the tendency to always tell children the story without letting them experience it, and the overall structure of children’s lessons and children’s Bibles. Gretchen Wolff Pritchard wrote, â€Å"We must not give them a God who turns out to be just another grown-up— who says â€Å"There, there† without really listening to their fears of the monsters under the bed, who cares only about whether or not they are being â€Å"good.† We must not keep†¦show more content†¦Too often we want to teach the kids by telling them the story and the application without giving them a chance to experience it for themselves. She said that too often does she find herself going thro ugh lesson plans of solid text that is to be recited to the children telling them how they should think, feel, then act. â€Å"This limits the lesson, and takes away the opportunity for the children to invest themselves.† Pritchard agrees and states, â€Å"The Sunday school, on the other hand, has felt compelled to explain everything and thus to rob children of the opportunity to work out the meaning of the stories for themselves.† This ends with children who may know the story but not actually understand it. The last topic dealt with the overall structure of children’s lessons and children’s Bibles. Both Pritchard and Tarah were let down by how Children’s Bibles were structured. They seemed to favor certain stories over others and in many cases skip over sections of scripture. Pritchard notes that â€Å"The great hymns of Philippians and Colossians, the glory of the cross, the images of baptism, adoption, the Body of Christ, the great High Priest , the communion of saints, are utterly absent.† Tarah also notes that many of Paul’s letters, aside from Romans, tend to be down played. While this may be trying to take into account what a child is capable of understanding or retaining, it also, once again, limits the child and gives them an incomplete biblical understanding. I was