Teach them to your children....

I am sad, and to be honest, slightly appalled, at the way we "teach" kids the bible. I have had the privilege of serving in our children's ministry this past year and I love the kids, but I am deeply troubled by the way we are communicating God's story to them. (Now I am no professional and I don't know if I have any "answers" yet, but there has to be a different, more holistic way to gather with our children and teach them God's story.)

I am bewildered at how we will take a story from the Old Testament and use it to prove some catchy little christianese phrase when the narrative was vaguely about what we are talking about and we gave the children no context to put it (ie. the larger framework of God's working in history). In fact, it is weird to me that we do very little talking about God at all, but rather focus on stuff kids should do in order to make God (the One we barely talk about) or their parents pleased.

Please understand I am not saying we shouldn't teach our kids to live out what the scripture says, but if they don't know/see/experience the God that the scriptures point towards, aren't we doing them (and God) a huge disservice? I also understand that most of them are in the "concrete" stage of Piaget's development theory, but is it possible that we are selling them (and the Spirit) short on what they can grasp...is it possible we are being lazy in our retelling of God's story to the next generation....is it possible we have lost our way in raindrops of rules, sayings, and "application" such that we cannot see the vast ocean of God (and His continuity, and His faithfulness to His people, etc)?

I think I would be a little more ok with the approach that I am currently a part of if we taught the narratives again and again, at each age range in spiritual fomation, each time with greater angle of vision or depth of field. So as we help form Christians in our congregations, they always stayed connected to the larger picture. But most people get these stories in "Sunday School" as children and that is it. I think it may be why a lot of people don't know what to do with the Old Testament. (After all, it's old isn't it??) Maybe this is why the Christian calendar/liturgical cycles were created - to keep us reading the WHOLE of the story not just bits and pieces.

I am really wrestling with what all this means about how I pass on faith/God/the scriptures to my children. I don't think I do a very good job at presenting the story of God's working in history - and allowing for points of tension with no direct application other than to say, "Yep, look at God..I don't get it but look at what He's done (or who He is)."