tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44197176151829842202024-03-29T03:28:26.096-04:00Bread, Not StonesRebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-14629593964243292812016-05-23T11:56:00.000-04:002016-05-23T11:56:19.385-04:00Worshiping Alone: a milestone in the journey<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhI_5M0B29MoHz40XeQEB2yrAajznTYv2ZMM8lvYDMvZF3hyphenhyphen3cNyDiYAjPRLnPEVINWm_fjDPXjpkJ-XDPfcDCPEek1AiIMWsmt8EqTEbJiS8Qi6hc4ulZHCc7tVdbBWPCwNtRF-hlZOY/s1600/worshiping+alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhI_5M0B29MoHz40XeQEB2yrAajznTYv2ZMM8lvYDMvZF3hyphenhyphen3cNyDiYAjPRLnPEVINWm_fjDPXjpkJ-XDPfcDCPEek1AiIMWsmt8EqTEbJiS8Qi6hc4ulZHCc7tVdbBWPCwNtRF-hlZOY/s400/worshiping+alone.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">I have <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/08/loud-whispers-worshiping-with-children.html" target="_blank">written</a> and <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2013/12/the-sound-of-my-childs-voice-choosing.html" target="_blank">written</a> and <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/09/worshiping-with-other-peoples-children.html" target="_blank">written</a> about sharing worship with my son - the frustrations and the triumphs, the whys and the hows, the values and the hopes. <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2015/01/attachment-worshiping-sharing-pew-with.html" target="_blank">I wrote a piece about a year ago that was especially meaningful</a> to me about what it means to share space in the pew with my son week after week, while we were living overseas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All of that work and reflecting, hoping and teaching, has culminated in this new moment in our worshiping life as a family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The day has come that my son worships alone. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He is not really alone. He is surrounded by my new congregation. He is often sitting with friends. But he is not with me, because I sit in the front, or with my husband, because he has been traveling a lot over the past several months since we moved back to the U.S.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At 11 years old, my son has to get himself dressed on most Sunday mornings and get his butt in a pew without anyone hustling or hurrying him out the door. It is true that we live close to the church and that even though I walk out the door on Sunday mornings about three hours before he does, he still gets up early enough for me to “style” his hair. But once we are gone he is on his own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am usually seated in the chancel a few minutes before worship begins when I see him walking down that long center aisle looking for an empty seat or a friend. Bulletin in hand, he finds a place and gets ready for church. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I often loose sight of him once the service has started. It is a big sanctuary, and faces tend to blend in. But every so often I catch a glimpse of him in worship. Fascinatingly, he is not leaning on the adult sitting next to him. Neither is he laying down on the pew. He is not whispering too loudly “how much longer?” to whoever might be willing to listen. He is standing for the hymns, and singing them with joy. He is participating in the liturgy and, as far as I can tell, listening to the sermon. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Even when I watch him sitting with his friends in the choir on those Sundays that the 5th graders stay in worship, I see him participating. Yes, there is shuffling. Yes, there is whispering and giggling. But there is also participating, and singing, and listening. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A few weeks or so ago I wasn’t helping to lead worship, so we sat together in the sanctuary for the first time in months. He met me in my office and quickly grabbed “A Wrinkle in Time” off a bookshelf to take with him to worship. Bringing a book to read during the sermon was one of our compromises for the two years that we were a part of a church with no Sunday school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But that book just sat next to him in the pew the whole service. There was no whining. There was no laying of heads on laps. There was minimal fidgeting from a child who for a period of his life could hardly talk without jumping up and down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yet when the time came for the prayers of intercession towards the end of the service, he did scoot over closer to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, as I had often done to him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>For a <i>brief</i> moment, I saw the teenager and young man he is becoming. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am sure that all those moments together in the pew had a part in making this particular moment happen. But I also believe that being given the opportunity to rise to the occasion, to work this out on his own, and to show up as a part of the community of faith on his own also played a significant role. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">I know his worship life, and our worship life together, will continue to morph and grow. I am sure there are many bumps yet to come along this road. But for now I am celebrating this particular stop along the way. </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-5178647973483567492016-05-16T11:34:00.000-04:002016-05-16T11:40:01.078-04:00Time Traveling<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the summer of 2013, our family moved to Cairo, Egypt to serve as <a href="http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/world-mission/" target="_blank">Mission Co-Workers for the Presbyterian Church (USA) </a>living and working with the 150-year-old <a href="http://etsc.org/new/" target="_blank">Presbyterian seminary</a> there. Because of the sensitivity of our work and the moment in the life of Egypt, we didn’t share much online of our work and experiences while we were there.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span></div>
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<b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Now we are living and working back in the United States and are still trying to process all that we experienced those two years: church life, politics, culture, and of course the hundreds of windows we walked through into another time.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Part of our calling to Egypt came in the form of our then eight-year-old son’s obsession with all things Egyptian. <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/01/open-letter-to-rick-riordan.html" target="_blank">You can read more about that here.</a> <b>He was ready to spend lazy afternoons regularly wandering through the Egyptian Antiquities Museum off Tahrir Square. He assumed that trips to the Pyramids would be as regular as trips to the grocery store. He planned for Egyptian tchotchkes to fill his new Egyptian bedroom. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course, none of those things exactly happened. He did collect many different trinkets throughout our stay, which now decorate his new bedroom in Pennsylvania. He did get to the point where taking a book on a visit to the Pyramids was a good idea since big stones are really only impressive the first time you see them. He did spend enough time in the Egyptian museum that we no longer needed a guide to appreciate what we were seeing. But life in modern Egypt often gets in the way of immersing oneself in the ancient. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>There were moments, though, that were nothing short of magical. Moments when I felt the impulse to pinch myself - or maybe him - just to make sure we all knew it was real. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now that we are living thousands miles and thousands of years away from all of the spectacular things we saw and did over the course of two years, I am finally able to wrap my head around what made it so magical. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>First there is something to be said for the scale of the ancient world - both the immensity and the minuteness. </b>We walked through temples towering with columns covered in hieroglyphs…row after row - spaces built not just for worship but to hold a god in all its glory. We stood next to monuments so large that it is hard to imagine they were built by mere mortals, let alone by people who lived thousands of years before modern industry. We were in the presence of some of the most intricate and precise art I have ever seen made by human hands. The devotion it took to create such beauty and grandeur is hard to fathom. I suspect that when my son walks into our new church here in the US - grand in many of the same ways - that he remembers - as I do - what it was like to walk through some of the greatest temples of this world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>On top of all the remains of ancient Egyptian culture and monuments (literally) are layer upon layer of other ancient cultures that came and went as the greatest powers of the world ebbed and flowed through northern Africa.</b> Layers of Greek tombs and remnants of amphitheaters, ancient cave libraries, Roman baths and roads fill the city of Alexandria. There is no better place to be in order to grasp the cosmopolitan nature of the ancient world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Stepping back in time again and again brought reminders of how much of the Old Testament is rooted in ancient Egypt. </b>Though there weren’t biblical sites in particular to be visited, we walked through mud brick storehouses likely similar to those described in the stories of Joseph as he led the Egyptians through a season of famine. We saw depictions carved in stone of women dancing, tambourine in hand, just as Miriam did after the Israelites made their way through the Red Sea. And as we wonder what it really meant for the people of Israel to be enslaved in Egypt, we could see ancient straw encased in mud brick reminding us of the cruelty of the Egyptian task masters.</span></div>
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</b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>But to my own amazement, our son wound up being most fascinated by the ancient Christian relics and remnants that are also all over the country.</b> At one point in time, Egypt was the most Christian nation in the world, and throughout one can find places where pagan temples were converted into Christian places of worship, or even where Christian temples were built nearby in hopes of calling upon the longstanding sacredness of the place. Hieroglyphs are defaced so that Coptic crosses could sanctify temples. And deep in the desert, one can walk in the footsteps of the earliest Christian monks, whose devotees still live, work and pray in those same places. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We lived in Egypt in the midst of some of the most pressing events of the modern Middle East, and yet time and again we glimpsed memories and moments of the past. I continue to ponder how our son will will be impacted by those years living in a different place (and will write more about that soon), but I especially hope he will carry with him the memory of stepping into a different time as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">More to come...</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">An uncompleted colossus of Ramses II unearthed in the city of Memphis</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Capitals in the Ramesseum, on the west bank of Luxor</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Statue of Alexander the Great given to the Egyptian people on the reopening of the modern library of Alexandria</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Mud-brick storehouses behind the Ramesseum, on the west bank of Luxor</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Mud-brick from a mortuary temple next to the Bent Pyramid, south of Memphis</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Remnant of a Christian temple next to Dandera</span></li>
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<a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2Fblogger.g%3FblogID%3D4419717615182984220%23editor%2Ftarget%3Dpost%3BpostID%3D517864797348356749%3BonPublishedMenu%3Dposts%3BonClosedMenu%3Dposts%3BpostNum%3D0%3Bsrc%3Dlink&media=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-5YnQ6RcWhUs%2FVznnVaV_jPI%2FAAAAAAAABRQ%2FsQf_nKFxF34Vjsn89z2K4shgkfT2X2v_wCLcB%2Fs640%2FEgypt%252BCollage%252B3-01.jpg&xm=h&xv=sa1.37.01&xuid=qbX8cbnEyDFf&description=" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; left: 42px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; top: 1878px; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2Fblogger.g%3FblogID%3D4419717615182984220%23editor%2Ftarget%3Dpost%3BpostID%3D517864797348356749%3BonPublishedMenu%3Dposts%3BonClosedMenu%3Dposts%3BpostNum%3D0%3Bsrc%3Dlink&media=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-5YnQ6RcWhUs%2FVznnVaV_jPI%2FAAAAAAAABRQ%2FsQf_nKFxF34Vjsn89z2K4shgkfT2X2v_wCLcB%2Fs640%2FEgypt%252BCollage%252B3-01.jpg&xm=h&xv=sa1.37.01&xuid=qbX8cbnEyDFf&description=" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; left: 42px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; top: 1878px; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a>Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-66772416429087733332016-05-09T08:19:00.001-04:002016-05-09T08:19:24.597-04:00Feeding the Soil<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few months after I compiled my list of 1<a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html" target="_blank">00 Things Every Child Should Know Before Confirmation,</a> I brought it to my Christian Education Committee. I was nervous. I had already been serving there for several years, and had grown to value the way they shaped and built their Sunday School curriculum for children. Was it possible that it wasn’t working?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We sat at that meeting and compared my list to the three year curriculum cycle we they had been using for almost nine years at that point. If the goal of our children’s Sunday school classes was to nurture them in preparation for Confirmation, then it looked like we were doing that. <b>If a child attended EVERY Sunday over our 36 week program for three years, they would have mastered all of the items on my list. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Well, we all knew that wasn’t happening. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So began two conversations. One - how can we better equip parents to be their own child’s Christian Educator? <b>Two - how can we shape our classroom curriculum and experiences to be more mindful of how we use each moment that we do have children at church to shape their experience and formation? </b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYwOvi2dOsRlYLpXV42i_JRMxBxpQxdQi0jOIFHEkRkrhm6qfBJ2_4nm-gFY3t8H6MvpljTbtne85r4jVFJvCeWS94UEeTUTGRmpb1_SaG86KcRDCQG8lUgP8kxNRqbBakv7Y0Tm6k2wM/s1600/WJK+Book+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYwOvi2dOsRlYLpXV42i_JRMxBxpQxdQi0jOIFHEkRkrhm6qfBJ2_4nm-gFY3t8H6MvpljTbtne85r4jVFJvCeWS94UEeTUTGRmpb1_SaG86KcRDCQG8lUgP8kxNRqbBakv7Y0Tm6k2wM/s320/WJK+Book+Cover.jpg" width="207" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">When I originally blogged through this list, I didn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on this second question. My aim was to help parents feel equipped for this work. Equipping my congregation was a natural offshoot of the ongoing conversations and adjustments that we made together. But when I sat down to collect this list and these ideas together in a book, it seemed appropriate for each item to give tips on how we can use the classroom to teach these topics, to reinforce concepts, and even, in subtle ways, to prepare children to progress on their faith journey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>For each item in the book there is a section labeled Feeding the Soil, continuing with the image of helping our children <i>grow</i> in their faith. </b>These sections are primarily targeted to Sunday school teachers, volunteers, Christian Education committees and Christian Educators. I will be the very first to say that there is nothing earth-shatteringly innovative in these sections. Mostly they are commonsense solutions and suggestions born out of ten years experimenting in the classroom. These sections don’t present a lot of theory, but more straightforward and simple practice. For example:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Children learn how to use the Bible by <i>actually </i>using the Bible in the classroom. So resist the temptation to always ask ONE volunteer to look up and read that day’s story. They should all use a Bible every time they are learning about the Bible.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Children learn the iconic pieces of scripture by hearing and reading them often. Choose which Psalms you want to make sure children know, and use them as opening and closing prayers in the classroom.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Most parents <i>do</i> feel equipped to teach their children some of the most basic stories of the Bible (Noah’s Ark, Moses in the Bullrushes, etc.). So use children’s time in the classroom to dig more <i>deeply</i> into those stories or to encounter the stories surrounding them.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A couple of months ago I participated in a large conversation with local faith leaders on how to develop resources to work with children on interfaith relationships and education. After the gathering one of the Christian Educators from another local Presbyterian Church approached me to talk about how she was using my book to help her Christian Education committee rethink their curriculum and Sunday school programs. <b>They weren’t creating curriculum based on the book, but rather were using the book as a tool to think about what they want their programs to look like and how they are connecting the pieces in all the work that they do. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was exciting to hear about the book being used in that way. Here are some other specific ways the book could be a helpful tool in your congregation: </span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Use the list (summarized in the appendix) to identify what your congregation’s essentials are. This is my list. It is not perfect, and there are many, many more things that I would want children to learn and know over the course of their Sunday school experience. Brainstorm together what YOUR list would be. </span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">The list is also a great way to talk with Sunday school teachers and volunteers about how the work that they do even on ONE Sunday morning impacts the larger picture of a child’s Christian education and journey. In a moment when we no longer have teachers in our congregations committing to a full year of teaching week after week, it is essential that teachers understand how they are connected to what is happening EACH Sunday in the classroom.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">The book can also serve as the framework for the resources and educational opportunities that you create for parents. While it can feel overwhelming to think of all of the things that go into a well-rounded and holistic Christian education plan, walking through this book with parents is a great way to show them how equipped they already are to do this work. </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It has been fun hearing how folks have begun to use the book in their congregations. I would love to hear from more of you, especially if you have found interesting ways to use the suggestions in the book to impact the shape of your Sunday school curriculum. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, or if you want to know more about the book and how it came to be,<a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-every-child-should-know-book.html" target="_blank"> click here. </a></b></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-89838110662989464052016-01-11T16:26:00.002-05:002016-05-09T08:21:11.720-04:00Planting the Seed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "georgia";">During the past two years, as our family has lived overseas working on behalf of Presbyterian World Mission, we attended a small congregation with very few children. <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2013/12/the-sound-of-my-childs-voice-choosing.html" target="_blank">You can read about our choice to join that church here.</a></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "georgia";"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2013/12/the-sound-of-my-childs-voice-choosing.html" target="_blank"> </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There were many great benefits to being a part of this diverse and eclectic community of faith - and the only drawback was that there was no Sunday school for our son to attend. He was in Egypt for his 3rd and 4th grade years - formative years when children in thoughtfully designed Christian education programs are exposed to some of the great stories of the Bible. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, he was not leaving worship to attend Sunday school, and this meant that during our time in Egypt he likely heard over 150 readings from scripture (both the Old and New Testaments) as well as close to 80 sermons on those texts which in many other congregations he would have missed because of our collective tendency to remove children from worship about halfway through. It means he recited the Apostles’ Creed the same number of times, watched me put our family offering in the plate the same number of times, and prayed the Lord’s Prayer just as many times.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>It also meant that for the first time I felt a personal obligation to be his primary Christian educator. </i>Granted, in our previous congregation I was his pastor and helped to shape the curriculum that was used in his Sunday school classes, but with the hectic schedule of a pastor on any given Sunday morning, I relied heavily on my colleagues and the volunteers in our classrooms to mentor my child in the faith. </span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the first time we read the Bible together as a family (at least during Advent). For the first time we had a chance to talk about what happened at church that morning (on our way back from church on the Cairo metro). Even the experience of choosing the church provided some good opportunities to talk as a family about what we value in a faith community. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fortunately, it was also during this time that I was working on my book that has been released this month from Westminster/John Knox Press - <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-every-child-should-know-book.html" target="_blank"><i>100 Things Every Child Should Know Before Confirmation. </i></a>Writing that book gave me motivation to talk one on one with our son about different parts of the Bible and the Christian faith, often using him as a guinea pig for the ideas outlined in the book. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A significant part of the book is being thoughtful and intentional about the conversations we have with our children about the Bible and faith. When I blogged through these 100 things over the past several years, most of my focus was in helping parents and educators understand how the basics of Christianity are expanded on and developed through the process of Confirmation. In the book, my focus is more intentionally on how parents can be primary Christian educators for their children, just through a variety of intentional conversations about the Bible and our traditions as Christians.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For each item in the list there is a section entitled Planting the Seed, in which I give simple examples of conversation starters, family practices, and even encouragement not to gloss over the more difficult parts of scripture, to show how accessible many of these topics can be. </span></b></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"></span>For the Ten Commandments, encouragement not just to teach them to children but to help show children how we live them as a family</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"></span>For the Psalms, a suggested practice of sitting together and sharing with our children the parts of scripture that are particularly meaningful to us as adults</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is an important conversation happening in the church in this moment about the future of Sunday school. Some argue that a child gains just as much Christian education accompanying their parents in worship (as our son did) as they do in a classroom setting. For some, there is increasing anxiety over what is expected of our children in these days and how church and Christian education falls to the bottom of the priority list for parents who want to do all they can to help their children succeed in the world. For some, there is an honest naming of the ways that Sunday school has turned into a need to entertain children, sacrificing substance in the name of being the fun church. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An important factor in each of these conversations about the changing landscape of Christian education is how we can empower and equip parents to be active participants in their children’s Christian nurture. It is my hope that this book will be helpful in that work. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As systematic as the book is, these conversations, and a child’s growth, are anything but. The most helpful way for parents to use this book is to encourage parents to be prepared to take advantage of the unexpected yet important moments when we have a chance to talk to our children about faith, as small and insignificant as those moments might seem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This past vacation we found ourselves in conversation with family over lunch. I can’t even remember what the original topic was, but somehow the conversation came around to the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. (This is what happens when you belong to a family of pastors and biblical scholars.) As we made a variety of jokes or comments about the story, our son piped in, needing to repeat himself to make his still little voice heard; <b>he said, “The worst part about that story is Isaac understands that something strange is going on and asks his father to explain what is happening. He asks about the sacrificial animal, not knowing that he is it. Abraham even makes him carry the wood that he will be burnt on. What a crazy story.” </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a pretty thoughtful perception of the story, especially from a child’s perspective. I looked forward to sharing the story once I got back to work with my colleague who had shaped his Sunday school experience this past fall. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I told her the story we had over that lunch, she thought for just a few seconds and then revealed that his class had not studied Abraham and Isaac this year. “You must have taught him the story.” Really? That wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, and most likely he and I have talked about this story, read it in a children’s Bible together or even chatted about it on a Sunday when it was read in church. <b>But his response seemed so fresh and fully formed, it was hard for me to believe that these thoughts had simply been percolating in him since some unmemorable moment when I must have taught him this story.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So often we shape our children’s faith and experience of scripture in small moment after small moment. Sometimes it is we as parents who plant the seed that will grow into a new understanding, sometimes it is a Sunday school teacher, sometimes it is a pastor. In my own experience, I have clearly lost track of who has planted which seeds in my son's growing faith. <b>May we <i>as parents</i> feel confident in our responsibilities as a part of this community that shapes our children’s faith.</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArTKK3eLZwT_g0Fotn4akukAxebpc4-K9EBwunKDyCt4NK-Jn9XHiqxvJCOibWUuGXf07jbp0q84wfkkPk4DSm0tz0Pe3-jKcggcLy9mPVRQZnAtj7UZOzfgKu6ceNflke4PzPLFTJrM/s1600/WJK+Book+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArTKK3eLZwT_g0Fotn4akukAxebpc4-K9EBwunKDyCt4NK-Jn9XHiqxvJCOibWUuGXf07jbp0q84wfkkPk4DSm0tz0Pe3-jKcggcLy9mPVRQZnAtj7UZOzfgKu6ceNflke4PzPLFTJrM/s200/WJK+Book+Cover.jpg" width="129" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For more information about <i>100 Things Every Child Should Know Before Confirmation </i>check out the book page <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-every-child-should-know-book.html" target="_blank">on this website. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Things-Every-Should-Before-Confirmation/dp/0664260594/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452547182&sr=1-1&keywords=rebecca+kirkpatrick" target="_blank">Click here to purchase the U.S. version </a>; <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Things-Your-Child-Before-Confirmation/dp/0281072981/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452547182&sr=1-2&keywords=rebecca+kirkpatrick" target="_blank">Click here to purchase the U.K. version </a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am going to be posting more about the book over the next several weeks, as well as some reflections on our time living in Egypt. To be sure to keep up with new posts on Bread not Stones be sure to <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BreadNotStones//" target="_blank">subscribe by email</a>, or follow the blog on <a href="https://twitter.com/BreadnotStones" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BreadNotStones/?ref=hl" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-7094055946072069522015-03-04T04:19:00.000-05:002016-01-02T10:34:53.301-05:00Sour Grapes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">One of the things that I pride myself on as a pastor/parent is that I take the time to prepare my son for worship - pointing out to him changes or additions in the sanctuary that indicate something new or different will be happening in worship, making sure that he has his own bulletin and hymnal so that he can fully participate in worship with his father and I, even pointing out to him things that I think are strange or weird in worship, helping him recognize our worship habits or by noticing when we stray from them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Preparing children for special worship and for the sacraments is something that I have <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/08/loud-whispers-worshiping-with-children.html">written about before</a>, and I have an especially favorite and <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/02/remember-you-are-dust.html">popular post</a> encouraging parents to prepare their children to participate in Ash Wednesday worship services. <b>But sometimes I worry that my selective sharing of the benefits of worshipping with children, and my thoughtful essays on children in worship, might give the impression that our worship life as a family is full of success and only the rare frustration. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This is not the case. at. all. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So in the spirit of Lent, I thought I would share a story of our epic Ash Wednesday fail from just a few weeks ago. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">First, a little background. When we celebrate the sacrament of Communion at our church we use sacramental wine, not the Welch</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">s grape juice that I grew up with and that my son was raised drinking. It only took one swig from the tiny little glass cup the first time we received communion here for my son to swear off the cup. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We walk forward to receive the elements in one of the most unusual Communion traditions I have ever experienced. A tray of empty glass cups sits in the center of the aisle, and as you pass it you pick one up. The pastor breaks of piece of bread and gives it to you to eat immediately. Then you take your tiny cup and hold it out for the Communion assistant to fill from a silver chalice that is notched on one side for pouring. Then you drink from your little cup and leave it empty on a tray next to the baptismal font. Having both been the one pouring from the chalice and the one holding the cup, I can attest to the stressful nature of this method of sharing in the cup as a community. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>My son swearing off Communion wine means that I never have to worry about him holding his cup still enough to be poured into. But it also means that I am always a little sad to watch him pass the cup by. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will admit that the wine is sour enough that almost every time we share the sacrament I think of the wine mixed with vinegar that the soldiers offered Jesus on the cross - <i>certainly a far cry from the joyful feast of the people of God, which we are invited to at the table. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son walking past the cup has become a habit for us, and I hardly think about it any more.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So now to Ash Wednesday 2015. Our church comes together with a local Anglican church for Ash Wednesday, and this year it was our turn to meet in their sanctuary for worship. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son has been to his fair share of Ash Wednesday services, so I actually spent more time before the service talking with my parents (who were visiting us), who would actually be receiving ashes for the first time at that service. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We arrived a little early, and I walked my son around the sanctuary to look together at the icons, beautiful frescos, and one of the largest baptismal fonts I have ever seen in my life. We picked up our bulletins, found our seats, and looked at the order of worship service together to orient ourselves for worship. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I did all of the things I would encourage parents to do. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I hadn</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">t thought about the fact that we would share the sacrament together, but once we saw the table set for Communion, I realized that we would. <i>It wasn</i></span><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">t until the end of the Communion liturgy that it crossed my mind that I might need to give my son some instructions about how we would receive the bread and the cup. </span></i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fortunately we were sitting in the back (like good Presbyterians) and I could see that people were coming forward to kneel at the rail to receive the elements, and that while some people were drinking directly from the cup, others were dipping their bread into the cup - a practice called intinction. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son had never knelt for Communion at a rail and, I figured, had probably never seen people share a common cup. So I kicked it into gear and made sure he could see that people were coming up and kneeling at the rail, reminding him that I would be there next to him. <b>Then without really thinking I said, </b></span><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">“</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">some people are drinking from the cup, but you can just dip your bread in and eat that.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">” </span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I think that I realized at some point during our walk to the rail that the Anglicans were likely to also use sacramental wine, and I swear I mentioned this to my son. <i>But the damage was already done. He heard me clearly say </i></span><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">“</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">you can just dip your bread in and eat that.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">”</span></i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As the priest made his way down our rail, I demonstrated for my son how to hold his hands out to receive the bread. Right on the heels of the priest was our pastor with the cup. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You will remember from my description above that each week at church our pastor gives my son his bread and he walks past her beyond the cup and sits down. While she totally knows that he doesn</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">t take the wine at our church, she had never had the experience of not offering him the sacrament.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>At this point everything shifted into slow motion as she offers the cup to him, and I watch him dip his bread deep in the wine and, without thinking, put it in his mouth. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>By the time his lips closed his eyes were as big as they can possibly get (which is pretty big), and I could actually see the tears springing from the corners of his eyes. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I myself had already eaten my wine infused bread and knew exactly what he was tasting - sour wine. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son has a pretty sensitive gag reflex, and so I know that both of us at this point were just hoping that he could get it down without losing his dinner. As he began to silently weep, I wrapped my arm around him (still at the rail by the way) and could feel his little shoulders shaking. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Remember that we were seated in the back, which means that we were the last to be served. <b>I am sure that to the rest of the congregation it looked like my son was having a deeply moving and devout moment of worship as he encountered both the reality of his mortality in the ashes and the gift of grace and redemption in the blood of Christ, when really he was just trying not to throw up. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once we finally made it back to our seats, he and I had some difficult words with each other as he accused me of making him take the wine, and I accused him of not paying attention to me when I told him not to take it. Later, when he told the story to his father, who had been teaching a class that evening, he kept saying </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">“</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She offered it to me; what was I supposed to do?!</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son does not think the story is as funny as the rest of us do, and likely he will store it away in his memory as one of the times that I was at fault for a bad experience. It won</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">t be the first or the last. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Truth be told, he has been at fault for plenty of <i>my</i> bad worship experiences - complaining, whining, kicking, sighing, talking, refusing to sing, refusing to stand, refusing to pay attention. <b>I just try to not let them build up or color my ability to return to the pew with him each week. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I just hope that the next time he returns to a rail (probably when he is much older), whether in prayer or to receive the sacrament, he won</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">t just remember that sour wine and his salty tears, but he will remember that also that his mother was kneeling there next to him. </span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-91951140928765340302015-01-29T01:32:00.001-05:002016-01-02T10:35:13.018-05:00How Can I Keep From Singing: Five Hymns from "Glory to God" to Use with Children <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwrVylZtXJ0drAyObKm5_XJ0E_QRBph2E4VfZ0d-XLxAfuVrTzZERfahC_stkyyMX0UdJgTHl_ne_nnH5Pvaijje0r1ry0ZmsDLOCVvg4bvL_eNjy-ebX-2MSm4SPZ0SQR6-DeC5g9WIw/s1600/glory+to+god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwrVylZtXJ0drAyObKm5_XJ0E_QRBph2E4VfZ0d-XLxAfuVrTzZERfahC_stkyyMX0UdJgTHl_ne_nnH5Pvaijje0r1ry0ZmsDLOCVvg4bvL_eNjy-ebX-2MSm4SPZ0SQR6-DeC5g9WIw/s1600/glory+to+god.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">When I was a young child, I was part of a very small choir at our church called the Seraph choir. Four little girls with older siblings who were a part of the regular children and youth choir. Both choirs met on Saturday mornings (those were the days), and we would learn new music and generally work on our music skills.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>At one point our choir director (the assistant organist at our church) told us that she noticed on Sunday mornings, as she processed into the sanctuary with the choir, that we (us four little girls) were not singing along with the congregational hymns.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To encourage us to sing with the congregation, she started teaching us every Saturday morning the hymns that we would sing the next morning in worship. I am pretty sure that this one simple addition to our very simple children’s choir experience deeply affected my life. It developed my love not just for hymns but for congregational singing. It exposed me to some of the classic melodies of the Christian tradition as well as some of the most essential theological vocabulary of the faith. All starting at 6 years old. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We didn’t just sing the Sunday hymns, though; we also learned simple anthems and other fun pieces of music (including my favorite, the Chattanooga Choo Choo). One piece was Natalie Sleeth’s “God of Great and God of Small,” a beautiful description of the vastness and yet the attentiveness of God. Years later I still remember all of the words:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>God of great and God of small, God of one and God of all, God of weak and God of strong, God to whom all things belong…God of silence God of sound, God in whom the lost are found, God of day and darkest night, God whose love turns wrong to right.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Just as much as any Sunday school lesson, this piece of music gave me language to describe the paradoxical nature of a God both all-powerful and all-loving. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I loved and remembered this anthem so well that I used it a few times when I was serving in my congregation and we needed a simple but significant piece of music for young voices in worship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Flash forward now over 30 years, <a href="http://www.presbyterianhymnal.org/">and the Presbyterian Church (USA) has recently published a new hymnal for our congregations - <i>Glory to God.</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While I was anxious about letting the old “blue” hymnal go, I was pleasantly (and honestly deeply) surprised to see that the committee, who spent years working to assemble this hymnal, had chosen the hymn setting of “God of Great, God of Small” to be included in the volume (it is #19).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hymnals are wonderful resources to use with children. Now that this particular song is readily available to pastors and teachers, it can be used even more widely to help children understand the nature of God. <b>It was only on my second and third times through the new hymnal that I realized that several of the newly included hymns and songs in <i>Glory to God </i>are<i> </i>perfect for use not just in the sanctuary, but with children in the classroom and music rehearsal room. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Here are four more of my favorites:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>#462 <i>I Love to Tell the Story:</i></b><i> </i>This is an oldie but goodie that could be found in the old red Presbyterian hymnal, but was not included in the now old blue Presbyterian hymnal. But in the church where I grew up, they used the blue hymnal in the sanctuary and the red hymnal in the chapel, where we had Easter Sunrise services and other special events throughout the year. I don’t know why exactly, but I loved this song as a child. Maybe it was the catchy melody, maybe the chorus, maybe the earnestness of the lyrics. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Glory to God </i>includes several hymns like this - oldies that many folks were sad to see not included in the blue hymnal. There are not too many hymns generally about evangelism, and when I was a child I didn’t really understand that this is what the hymn describes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What I did understand was that when I sang it I was one of the people telling this Jesus story, and it seemed like a lot of people needed to hear it. What I absolutely love now as an adult is the third verse:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting, to hear it like the rest. And when in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, ’twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I loved singing this in the chapel next to old women who had probably been singing this song and telling this story their whole lives, and now were really starting to think about what song they would be singing in their next life.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This hymn can provide a starting or an ending point to a conversation with children about how we talk about Jesus in our lives. How do they tell the story? What does it mean not just to tell the story of Jesus’ death, but to really tell the story of Jesus’ love, as the song describes?</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>#205 Ubi Caritas (Live in Charity): </i></b><i>Glory to God</i> includes several pieces from the ecumenical monastic community of Taize, located in the French countryside. The Taize community developed a <a href="http://www.taize.fr/en_rubrique12.html">specific worship style</a> many years ago that consists mostly of repetitive sung prayers and song. <i>Ubi Caritas</i> is one of the most well known of the pieces that they have written. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Truth be told, some people love Taize worship and some people really don’t get much out of it, but almost all of the children that I have experienced Taize worship with typically find it more engaging than traditional worship. Unlike traditional hymns, Taize pieces are usually just two lines long, which makes them very easy to pick up. Obviously, then, repeating them several times makes it even easier for children to be able to fully participate in the congregational singing. By the third time through, the children’s voices are just as strong as the adults.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But Taize pieces can also be used as prayers in the classroom. What better way to end a class than to sing through this simple piece together with children:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>Live in charity and steadfast love, live in charity; God will be with you.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Isn’t this a great benediction for our children as we send them out into the world each week? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>#851 Come Bring Your Burdens to God: </i></b>Another category of music that was both included in the previous blue hymnal and in <i>Glory to God</i> is what I might describe as world music. I am not sure when I first learned this South African chorus, but a few years ago I started including it in our Wednesday evening contemplative worship during Lent. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>Come bring your burdens to God. Come bring your burdens to God. Come bring your burdens to God, for Jesus will never say no. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Something about this song really stuck with my son. He loved the idea of separate chorus and leader parts. We would find ourselves singing it all of the time: in the car, getting ready for school, at bedtime. One night after singing it over and over again together in his bed, I asked him what he thought the song meant by “Jesus will never say no.” Is that true? Didn’t Jesus say no all of the time? Does it mean that Jesus will never say he has no time for us? It was a fascinating conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Again, this is a short song with simple lyrics that would be great to warm up a children’s choir, giving children turns at the leader part.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here is just a hint of how into this song my son is: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>#340 This Is My Song: </b>I actually wrote about this “national” hymn a couple of years ago when I was <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/09/god-bless-whole-world.html">reflecting on how to talk to my then 7 year old son about September 11th. </a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>This is my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine. This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my homes, my dreams, my sacred shrine; but other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ever since I was a teenager I have struggled with singing national songs in worship. Now married to a Mennonite, I am even more conflicted. I love that <i>Glory to God</i> includes this song that feels so much like the rousing anthems that we sing on national holidays, but that speaks a hope and truth that we all know we should be teaching our children to value in an increasingly shrinking world. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While I was always a fan of including this hymn in worship on national holidays to supplement other hymns that might give the impression that we believed that God favors our nation over another, this new hymn can also be used as a beautiful poem and prayer in the classroom any time you are talking or teaching about children and cultures from around the world. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My only complaint in this hymn is the third verse, which was not written by the original writer. This is very typical for older hymns, and I am by no means a purist. But I want to offer here, for use in the classroom, an alternative third verse (which is sometimes included in the hymn) that continues the theme of peace and unity more than the current third verse does:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>May truth and freedom come to every nation; may peace abound where strife has raged so long; that each may seek to love and build together, a world united, righting every wrong; a world united in its love for freedom, proclaiming peace together in one song.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These are just a few of the new hymns in <i>Glory to God </i>that I am excited to be singing regularly in worship. <b>Most importantly, now that these hymns are included in this ubiquitous resource, they are easily integrated in the whole life of our children’s church experience. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Since many of you have probably been using <i>Glory to God</i> for several months now, which hymns have you started using with children in your congregation? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">...And because I can’t help myself, here is my list of honorable mentions: #100 Canticle of the Turning; #377 I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light; #488 I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry; #773 Heaven Shall Not Wait; & #821 My Life Flows On.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;">(<i>Glory to God: Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Songs</i>. Westminster John Knox Press. 2013.)</span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-23782729856551938402015-01-21T06:48:00.000-05:002015-01-29T01:32:43.649-05:00Attachment Worshiping: sharing the pew with one another <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs3BkcIXX2Qn5CBueCMXASU5NdHfiTSZc445ZCU27s30VM372-BJ_48gO1cUEe0MFHwwJ4AuTyfHZQM0IWFSVi_VltT0NMXRXkCUOra5kWvjtTrUqtwldLdx_01bXUEHzGeE_qvFDXKo/s1600/attachment+worshiping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs3BkcIXX2Qn5CBueCMXASU5NdHfiTSZc445ZCU27s30VM372-BJ_48gO1cUEe0MFHwwJ4AuTyfHZQM0IWFSVi_VltT0NMXRXkCUOra5kWvjtTrUqtwldLdx_01bXUEHzGeE_qvFDXKo/s1600/attachment+worshiping.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">It has been two years now since I left my work in congregational ministry— which means that for the past two years I have been able to consistently worship with my family instead of sitting in the “pastor’s” seat in the sanctuary. We have gotten into a particular habit lately, where my son sits in between my husband and I in the historic and weathered pews of our small congregation.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Frequently during worship I will feel my son grab my hand and wrap my arm around his shoulders. He is still about a head shorter than me, so often during the standing portions of the service he will slip in front of me with his back resting on my front so we can share a bulletin. Regularly he needs a simple reminder in the form of a firm squeeze on his knee to help him be still so as to not distract the kind people who worship behind us every week.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have not gotten too caught up in the attachment parenting pros and cons as a variety of people debate the benefits of baby-wearing, bed-sharing and other attachment practices. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But what I am is a huge proponent of <i>attachment worshiping</i> with our children:</b> doing what we can to make them feel safe and comfortable in that space; reaching out to them to make worship not just about a singular interaction between the individual and God, but something that we do as a community and as a family that connects us with one another; acknowledging that learning to be still and attentive in worship can be hard for some children (especially mine) and connecting with them physically in that space recognizes the ways their bodies yearn to move and wiggle. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>We tend to think of the most sacred places in our sanctuaries as behind the pulpit, table and font or even beneath the cross, but the pew is just as holy. The space between us and among us in the pew is sacred as well.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is inevitable that we form connections and attachments with those next to whom we sit in worship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I remember, when my husband and I first started dating while in seminary, how important it became (for me at least) that we sit together in community worship. While saving a seat for my “boyfriend” in worship might have come off as juvenile, there was something tangible and formative for our relationship in sharing that sacred space in worship together week after week.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As an associate pastor, I often sat in the front pew of the sanctuary next to our music director. Week in and week out we shared that sacred space together. While we were obviously part of a team of ministry staff, she and I became worship partners and sisters in faith because of the time we shared that sacred space together. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Included in that sanctuary, in the back, was a formidable row of widows who had made sure to worship with each other for years. While we would chuckle about their inflexibility toward moving around to other places in the sanctuary, I believe there was something holy in their commitment to share that space with each other every week.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even the Bible recognizes the bonds that are formed when we worship together. In Psalm 55, the psalmist laments a betrayal at the hand of a friend - a close companion, an equal - with whom he had worshiped. This connection had been so strong, which made the betrayal so much harder to endure.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I remember vividly from my youth when I stopped sitting with my parents in worship and began to sit with my friends instead. It was an important moment in developing my autonomy as a “worshipper,” but also in strengthening my connection to my friends who were on this same awkward spiritual journey with me.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A few years ago, when the high school students in the congregation I served were looking for ways to be better connected to each other, I suggested that they try sitting together in worship for a while to see how that changed their relationships as members not just of the youth group but also of the congregation. It was fascinating to watch how their relationships changed through that experiment. It was also great to watch the congregation’s positive reaction to their very public expression of friendship and connection.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We often lament how rigid people become about “their” pew and their inflexibility in the face of change. I choose, in some moments, to give these people the benefit of the doubt and to believe that their commitment to their regular seat in worship isn’t just about an aversion to change, but a recognition of the attachment that they have formed with those who share that space around them -some of them for years. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>So if this space is so holy and so vital to our relationships with significant others, with our colleagues, with our friends, with our community of faith, how much more important is it to our relationships with our children?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Worshiping together in this season of our lives as a family is about welcoming my own child into that sacred seat next to me in the pew, rather than resenting him or feeling like he has invaded my personal space.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this space, I hold his hands between mine to warm them up when the air conditioners are turned up too high in the summer. In this space, he puts his head on my lap when he is feeling sick or tired. In this space, he snuggles up to me for comfort when he catches a glimmer of understanding when a sad prayer concern or sorrow has been shared by the community. In this space, we wrap our arms around each other during prayer to help him endure an extended period of standing that his wiggly legs rebel against. In this space we whisper in each other’s ears - sometimes questions, sometimes jokes, sometimes complaints, sometimes instructions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This is holy ground. This is the mercy seat. This is a place of honor. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This antique and worn out pew, where generations have sat before us, is just as important as any classroom or cozy chair, any dining table or bedtime ritual that we will share. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The day will come too soon when I am back in that pulpit chair or he has started asking to sit with his friends in worship. But until then, I will fiercely guard this sacred space that we share and the sharing and attachment that happens within it. </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-44961968297749372522015-01-16T07:56:00.000-05:002015-01-29T01:32:53.899-05:00Broadening the Sunday School Canon: Ten Texts for Teenagers <div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNly6lo0-ZZU6kZjK8pzz_eghSDz_uMezv-tZUjaBGjXMiOFJhKpqPu6X0xPBC1Vh8iA6KBdsOc-kFwC9NMer4QcUbIqicKuOYrpACXHWwb1EGTVkySgSAqmJNjS4lHKHyOy1cZNinGWk/s1600/ten+texts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNly6lo0-ZZU6kZjK8pzz_eghSDz_uMezv-tZUjaBGjXMiOFJhKpqPu6X0xPBC1Vh8iA6KBdsOc-kFwC9NMer4QcUbIqicKuOYrpACXHWwb1EGTVkySgSAqmJNjS4lHKHyOy1cZNinGWk/s1600/ten+texts.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">Much of the time and energy I spent this past year working on my forthcoming book was devoted to revisiting the items I had chosen to be on my list of <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/05/100-things-your-child-should-know.html">100 things a student should know before Confirmation class.</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/05/100-things-your-child-should-know.html"> </a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Most of my choices for the list were inspired by years of teaching Confirmation classes and working closely with Sunday school curriculum curricula. But the final list came together one snowy winter night during our 2011/2012 holiday vacation. <b>In that moment the list was one part brainstorming, one part venting, and one part pipe-dreaming. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even though I spent two years blogging through this list, I didn't sit down to look at it as a whole until I started working on the book. With each chapter I wrote, I struggled with all of the things that were not included in the list:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Why am I including all three parables from the 15th chapter of Luke (the lost sheep, coin, and son) instead of including the parable of the Unforgiving Servant?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Do I include the story of Zacchaeus instead of the raising of Jairus’ daughter? An iconic passage from Isaiah, but not one of my favorites from Micah?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>How do we put limits on what we read or know or explore in the Bible?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have always tried to reiterate that the list represents not the maximum but the minimum of what a student should learn in those early years of Sunday school and of Bible reading at home with their parents.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But the truth is that we set limits like this all the time, both intentionally and unintentionally. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We use the term canon to describe the Bible - the collection of chosen and approved texts that were gathered together and called sacred over an extended period of time. It was this process of canonization that determined which gospels would be considered authoritative, which letters were authentic, which ancient epics were inspired. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But in pastoral and academic settings we frequently use another term as well: “the canon within the canon.” This phrase represents our tendency to fall back on a smaller selection of stories and passages within the Bible again and again.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sometimes we do this as individuals - connecting with certain passages more than others and returning to them again and again while never stretching ourselves to dig more deeply into unknown or uncomfortable parts of the Bible.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sometimes we do it as pastors and preachers - returning to the same passages and stories again and again in the pulpit, either through preference or simply due to a slavish dedication to the lectionary which itself has become a canon within the canon in its repeated three year cycle.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Often we do this as educators when we create curriculum and classroom experiences that return again and again to the stories that we know we are expected to teach to children - Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, The Nativity, Jesus Walking on Water, the Conversion of Paul. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The 80 items on my list that deal directly with the Bible pretty accurately cover the standard Sunday school canon. <b>My struggle in working so closely with this list was coming to terms with the finite amount of time we have with children in the classroom and the truth that this limitation forces us to make decisions not just about what we will teach, but also about what we will not be able to teach. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What I hope that I was able to do effectively with my list was to start to broaden that Sunday school canon just a bit by suggesting adjacent or complementary stories and passages that we can use in the classroom to enhance our “go to” Bible lessons. For example, instead of just teaching the story of Moses in the bulrushes, teach the story of Shifra and Puah, the midwives who spared the lives of many Hebrew babies.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But it is also important to remember that as students get older we can very intentionally expand not just our Sunday school canon but their biblical literacy as well.</b> In my experience there is less rigidity in our expectations of the biblical material that we teach to teenagers, and we also have the potential for more frequent Bible study opportunities as they begin youth group, hopefully in addition to more formal Sunday morning classes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Below is just a small sample of stories that provide a lot of conversation potential for youth. Again, these are obviously not the limit of what new stories you can introduce them to. <b>These ten texts below are really meant to stretch your imagination when it comes to choosing what we have time to teach and what we don’t have time to teach. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>In middle school, students are ready to be stretched and to know that you trust them to read more difficult parts of the Bible. </b>They are also still shaping their understanding not just of the Bible but of themselves as believers and as members of a community and a tradition. Here are some examples of stories that I have found success in teaching with this age group: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>1. The Second Creation Story (Genesis 2: 4b - 25):</b> We often conflate the two creation stories in our concept of how the Bible describes creation. Middle schoolers are primed and ready to start having conversations about how the Bible offers a diversity of images and how the Bible is not a linear narrative but a sometimes messy combination of a variety of traditions.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>2. Solomon’s Judgment (1 Kings 3:16-28):</b> We spend a lot of time teaching children about King David, but his son and heir Solomon often gets ignored. This story of Solomon judging between the two prostitutes is about as iconic a biblical story as you can get. Reading it with younger youth can give us a chance to talk honestly about why there are so many stories about prostitutes and how we “deal” with that as readers. It is also very appropriate to make them familiar with a story that can thematically be found repeated again and again throughout literature. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>3. Jesus’ Visit with Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42): </b>This story can help students expand their understanding of what it meant to be a disciple of Christ beyond the 12 men who traveled with him. While it has been used in the past to create archetypical understandings of how women serve in the church, it really speaks to all of our experiences of balancing between service and spirituality. It is never too early to start that conversation with young men and women both. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>4. Jesus and Pilate (John 18:28-40): </b>The Gospel of John provides some of the most unique gospel stories, and some of the most evocative. The philosophical dialogue between Jesus and Pilate in John 18 can open up a conversation with young people about the political elements associated with Jesus’ death. There are also a variety of dramatic interpretations of this story which can provide helpful conversation starters on how we imagine this trial really happening. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>5. Paul and the Unknown God (Acts 17:16-34):</b> This story of Paul addressing the Athenians could have been taken right from a Rick Riorden novel, as Paul travels through the city appalled at the number of statues dedicated to the Greek gods. Reading this together with middle schoolers can illustrate for them the mission that the apostles had in evangelizing among the Gentiles. It also provides some great theological language for articulating who and what God is for Christians.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>High School students are ready to wrestle with some of the hardest parts of the Bible, and honestly some of the hardest parts of themselves. </b>I have always believed that it is better for me to introduce students to difficult texts in a setting where they can ask questions and think constructively about how the Bible shapes their understanding of the world and of their life as a believer, rather than leaving them to discover these parts of the Bible on their own.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>6. </b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16 - 19:28): </b>This story, while difficult to read, shapes many people’s understanding of what the Bible says about sexuality. I have found that reading it together with youth can help them to move past the popular conception of this story to really examine carefully what is happening in it. This is not really a story about sex but rather a story about violence. Reading it together is an exercise in deconstructing the Bible and our expectations for what it says. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>7. </b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13:22):</b> Similar to the story above, this story can lead to helpful conversations with youth about sex and violence. Unlike the story above, the rape of Tamar eerily echoes some of the conversations we continue to have about violence against women today.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>8. </b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Psalm 51: </b>We always teach children Psalm 23, and it is obviously an important “liturgy” for them to be able to draw upon in times of grief or struggle. But the Psalms contain within them the whole spectrum of human experience, and repentance and seeking forgiveness is an important liturgy for the believer as well. Helping youth connect with Psalm 51 connects them with the language of sanctification and transformation through grace and growth.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>9. </b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:14-31): </b>There are not too many parables like this one in the Bible, which is what makes this parable so interesting to read with youth. It also provides a very clear message of our calling to reach out to those in need in the world, especially when we have so much to give. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>10. </b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11):</b> I honestly never read this story from the time of the early church until I was in seminary. The shock value of two church members dropping dead in the act of lying to the community provides an opening for discussing how we live together as a Christian community today. Do we hold one another accountable? Are we supposed to? Why don’t we?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What stories are you using when you study the Bible with youth? How are you broadening not just their biblical literacy, but their understanding of how the Bible relates to the church and to their lives? </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-53803841248230272982015-01-07T08:21:00.001-05:002015-01-29T01:33:09.220-05:00Reading the Bible at Home: 5 suggestions to help you fulfill that New Year Resolution<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">Recently our family took on the task of reading the Bible together <i>every day</i> for the first time ever. At breakfast each morning of Advent, we read a story or short passage from the New Testament. I used a list of suggested readings from the <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/04/five-steps-to-choosing-and-using-childs.html">back of my son’s Bible</a> and put a slip of paper with each reference into our Advent calendar.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nothing miraculous happened. We didn’t change into a different family. My son didn’t suddenly start begging for more church or even more Bible reading. We didn’t discover some previously hidden truth. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But what we did do was have 24 conversations that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. Sometimes they were about the nature and character of Jesus. Sometimes they were about where the Bible comes from and how it is translated. Sometimes they were about faith and faith expression. <i>One time they were about where to find the part of the Bible that talks about the mark of the beast. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A couple of weeks later our breakfasts have returned to their previous rhythm and conversations, and I am still thinking about how we might find a way to integrate daily Bible reading into our family routine. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For each family, finding the moment in your day or your week when you and your children are most open to the practice of reading the Bible together is a very unique thing. Breakfast works the best for us. It is the meal that we all eat together most consistently, and it is also a short meal, which means that we are under no pressure to have a long conversation about what we read. <i>The time it takes to eat a bowl of cereal is about the same time it took to read a short passage and ask and answer a couple of questions. That’s what works best for us at this moment in our lives. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For others, reading together at bedtime or after school or at dinner might work better. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But even if you figure out the best “moment” to start a practice of reading the Bible more together at home, how can you put together a plan of what to read outside of just starting with Genesis 1:1 and working your way to the end of Revelation?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Here are my five suggestions for plans to kickstart Bible reading together at home. Each example can be adapted or enhanced based on your particular needs and situation.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>1. Read straight through your child’s picture Bible: </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While I just pooh-poohed reading the Bible from cover to cover with children, there is a lot to be said for reading a Children’s Picture Bible cover to cover with younger children over the course of several days and weeks - typically ages 7 and under. <b>A picture Bible will cover the most well-known and beloved stories, and while it probably won’t give children a sense of the different books of the Bible, it will illustrate the over-arching story of the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament in a child-friendly way. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have mentioned previously that my two favorite picture Bibles are <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-First-Bible-Pat-Alexander/dp/1561483605/ref=sr_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420635559&sr=1-23&keywords=my+first+bible">My First Bible</a></i> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everlasting-Stories-Family-Bible-Treasury/dp/0811832589/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420635587&sr=1-1&keywords=everlasting+stories"><i>Everlasting Stories</i>.</a> Even though they are a little hard to track down, they are worth the effort. The next best choice would be the newish <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Story-Bible-Thisted-Arthur/dp/0806670495/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420635628&sr=1-1&keywords=spark+children%27s+bible">Spark Story Bible</a></i> that is published by Augsburg Fortress. If you want to read about a children’s picture Bible that I would <i>not </i>recommend, <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/04/is-childrens-picture-bible-really-bible.html">click here. </a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>2. Read through one single book of the Bible together: </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Bible is not a single book, but rather a collection of books some of which are basically short stories that are very manageable for children. <b>Make a plan to read the books of Ruth, Jonah and/or Esther together as a family. The easiest way to break them down into daily reading would be to tackle one chapter a day. Reading all three that way would just take 18 days.</b> Once you have tackled that, move to the New Testament and set a plan for reading the Gospel of Mark together. Reading half a chapter a day in Mark every day would only take a month. These kind of simple short term goals can go a long way towards creating a habit of regular Bible reading. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>3. Read a Psalm a day: </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Originally the psalms were used as songs and liturgy for ancient worship. We continue that tradition today as many communities and individuals sing or pray through the psalms on a daily basis. As a family you could use the psalms not just as a way to read the Bible each day, but as a means of daily prayer as well. While taking on this practice won’t improve your child’s awareness of many of the narrative portions of the Bible, it will go a long way towards teaching them the language of the Bible, the language of faith and the incredibly diverse language that the Bible offers when describing God and our relationship to God. <b>Reading a Psalm a day will give them a rich awareness of the different ways that we speak to God - in times of praise or in times of mourning, in our frustrations and in our penitence. Reading one Psalm a day would take you about five months.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>4.</b> <b>Read along with the Lectionary:</b> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Many congregations rely on the <a href="http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/">Revised Common Lectionary (RCL)</a> to guide the scriptural focus of worship and the rhythm of the church seasons. The RCL assigns one reading from the Old Testament, one Psalm, one Gospel reading, and one additional New Testament reading (typically from one of the letters) to each Sunday of the year. Readings are based sometimes on a season spent working through a particular book or on a specific holy day (i.e. Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Pentecost, etc.) </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8V4IjVzkuh4d0mK3-T0cvhUZteVNB21_xzEEIyQfndmasx0_AOE7bYQOM3EVT1ePr-JhtF-k8uuEIrRARFZZbL2_RMKqCyIKtMLkCfqzdQCaHSxMpCQ0raAhnt8G3bhDU1mwHel3tWA0/s1600/RCL+Spring+2015_thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8V4IjVzkuh4d0mK3-T0cvhUZteVNB21_xzEEIyQfndmasx0_AOE7bYQOM3EVT1ePr-JhtF-k8uuEIrRARFZZbL2_RMKqCyIKtMLkCfqzdQCaHSxMpCQ0raAhnt8G3bhDU1mwHel3tWA0/s1600/RCL+Spring+2015_thumb.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The benefit of reading the lectionary assigned reading through the year (especially when done prior to the Sunday for which they are assigned) is that both adults and children will be more keyed in to what is going on in worship on Sunday morning. Yes, we read these passages in worship immediately before they are preached on, but hearing them once earlier in the week helps us to hear them even more clearly when we are in worship together. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Older children and youth would especially benefit from this kind of regular Bible reading. Imagine reading the four assigned readings together throughout the week, having some simple discussions on them at home, and then sitting together in church listening to how your pastor has interpreted them for the community. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbj409az9vh4kqe/RCL%20Spring%202015.pdf?dl=0">Click here for a link</a> to a simple reading guide that I have put together that will take your family through the four assigned readings for the weeks of January 11 through May 24th of this year. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>5. 100 Things to Know - 30 stories from the New Testament: </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, if you are familiar with this blog, you know that I have assembled a list of <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">100 things from the Bible and the life of the community that I think children should know before they move on to their confirmation year.</a> Most of the items on the list would be covered in a traditional Sunday School program, but many of them should also be reinforced through regular Bible reading at home. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJsHF3MyqYncQ1ccWbM5YbmRxPD4uOZx3BeL9tMFtvFZz1qaHCitOIxnGJnCx8Ipt0SzzBePGEY5rlh7uZN23H0Xs354mS89pFm_MEBJn_zQql81md2CAd8l70HTrrQOJXwTGN22mRyo/s1600/30+Stories+New+Testament_thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJsHF3MyqYncQ1ccWbM5YbmRxPD4uOZx3BeL9tMFtvFZz1qaHCitOIxnGJnCx8Ipt0SzzBePGEY5rlh7uZN23H0Xs354mS89pFm_MEBJn_zQql81md2CAd8l70HTrrQOJXwTGN22mRyo/s1600/30+Stories+New+Testament_thumb.jpg" height="320" width="247" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The great thing about this list is that these are almost all memorable and familiar stories that you as a parent probably already know and are fully equipped to talk about with your children.</b> When we read daily with our son this past Advent, again and again he would mention to me that he knew about a particular story we read but had never read it for himself. For example, he knew that Jesus walked on water, but didn’t know the actual story from the Bible. This list is full of stories like that - the ones we assume our children know, but that we rarely take the time to work through with them. </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hzx6chzcx21s7ub/AABH8fAbJsujw1XB6wTDiBj5a?dl=0" style="font-family: Georgia; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0px;">Click here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b> for a link to a guide I have created that will take you through 30 items on my list from the New Testament. The list can be worked through in about a month’s time if you just read one gospel’s version of each story, or you can read through all of them over about three months time.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/05/100-things-your-child-should-know.html"> Over the next few months I will be sharing even more about this list and the ways parents can use it as I look forward to my </a></span><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/05/100-things-your-child-should-know.html">upcoming<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> book from SPCK.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Blessings on your reading together in 2015. As soon as we work out our own family’s plan, I will be sure to share it here! In the meantime, I would love to hear from you about what has worked for your family in the past, or what plans you have made for this new year. </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-77311455409487638882014-06-10T02:29:00.000-04:002015-01-29T01:33:23.967-05:00Nothing is Lost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUPloowcfpjMqXkT2IeeNjb83gKa-J4v7jIpBxWdv-x_dkIBCjqEG6cTnBnf_U0L93z4qL8NE21OtK1YXJ4YeeqqcXXu8ZWKzvUgZ69N5EN-vPRi06GvsCutGa685UtEpqVeLvOGpvis/s1600/feather-water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUPloowcfpjMqXkT2IeeNjb83gKa-J4v7jIpBxWdv-x_dkIBCjqEG6cTnBnf_U0L93z4qL8NE21OtK1YXJ4YeeqqcXXu8ZWKzvUgZ69N5EN-vPRi06GvsCutGa685UtEpqVeLvOGpvis/s1600/feather-water.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">Several weeks ago our friend and pastor lost her first pregnancy to a miscarriage. It had been a difficult pregnancy up to that point already, and so the entire community was walking closely with her and her husband expectantly towards the birth of their son.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>It obviously continues to be incredibly sad for them and their family as they grieve not just for the life of the child, but for all of the potential and promise that the child held within him. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I told my son what had happened, he was sad and yet relieved when he found out that Kirsten was okay. He told me that he was actually thankful when I explained what had happened, since he knew that sometimes when bad things happen to babies the mother also dies. Of course, it is his pastor whom he has the relationship with, and so she was his greatest concern. Even though he had been excited to welcome this new baby (who was potentially going to share his birthday), it was never really all that real for him. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After a few weeks, Kirsten and her husband Justin decided to hold a simple memorial service for their son - Joseph Michael - so that they could recognize his very brief life and God’s love and care for him in his death. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Immediately after the miscarriage, I sent her a note which included the words of a hymn written by Colin Gibson in 1994 - <i><a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~Serlewis/wshp/nthg.htm">Nothing Is Lost on the Breath of God. </a></i>Once they had made plans for the memorial, I asked if she would be interested in my son singing that hymn as part of the memorial service. </b></span></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nothing is lost on the breath of God,</i></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">nothing is lost forever;</i></div>
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<i><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">God's breath is love, and that love will remain,</i></i></div>
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<i><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">holding the world forever.</i></i></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">No feather too light, no hair too fine,</i></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no flower too brief in its glory;</i></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no drop in the ocean, no dust in the air,</i></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">but is counted and told in God's story.</i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nothing is lost to the eyes of God,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">nothing is lost forever;</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">God sees with love and that love will remain,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">holding the world forever.</span></i></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">No journey too far, no distance too great,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no valley of darkness too blinding;</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no creature too humble, no child too small</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">for God to be seeking, and finding.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nothing is lost to the heart of God,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">nothing is lost forever;</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">God's heart is love, and that love will remain,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">holding the world forever.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">No impulse of love, no office of care,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no moment of life in its fulness;</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">no beginning too late, no ending too soon,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">but is gathered and known in God's goodness.</span></i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So we started practicing every day for a week to get ready. Typically he is pretty excited to sing in church, but he told me that he wanted me to sing some of the verses with him - to be his backup singer for a little support. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>It was a precious week of practicing together: hearing these words of grace and love in his sweet little boy soprano voice; listening to his comments every so often about how sad the song was and us talking about what the words meant.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The night of the memorial he was more nervous than usual, and he kept telling me that he was worried that people wouldn’t like the song. He seemed to really understand the importance of this moment and the honor of being allowed to be a part of it.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He sat in the front row with me snuggled up close as we sat next to our friends. He sang his little heart out on all of the hymns for the service - Amazing Grace; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9QeTmRCpW4">Canticle of the Turning </a>(which I have since decided needs to be sung at my own funeral) and others. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It wasn’t until Kirsten got up to share her own brief homily and eulogy for her son that the sadness of their loss really struck him. <b>She shared what will probably be <a href="http://kirstenincairo.com/2014/06/10/dreams-of-a-son/">one of the most remarkable sermons</a> I have ever heard in my life as she wove the Old Testament stories of Joseph and his dreams as well as the New Testament stories of Jesus’ father Joseph’s dreams into the dreams that she had had for her own son Joseph. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I looked down at my son hunched over in the pew, and I leaned in to ask him if he was okay. I am sure he was shocked when he looked up and saw my own eyes full of tears, and he said, “this is just so sad.”<i> I told him it is very sad and we are here to be sad together. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>He sang at the end of the service, and it was indeed lovely and a touching way for him to learn how to give thanks for God’s presence with us in the most desperately sad moments of our lives. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I vaguely remember when I was a girl that my mom’s friend also suffered a miscarriage. I don’t remember us talking about it all that much, and I know for sure we did not gather as a community to give thanks for God’s presence with us through that tragedy of life lost. I hope that my son will remember his part in grieving this lost child’s life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>In the fleeting moments when I wondered whether or not experiencing and sitting in the middle of this kind of sadness would be helpful for my son in his understanding of grief and loss, I was reminded that it was also an opportunity to witness the embrace of community, the strength of our friends through their grief, and my trust and confidence in him to be a part of such an important moment. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>May all of these experiences serve him well.</i></span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-74033319219523050662014-06-04T06:17:00.001-04:002015-01-29T01:33:48.944-05:00Counting the Children<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">Several years ago I remember very off-handedly asking one of the ushers in my congregation how, if they take the attendance count when they are collecting the offering, do they count the children who have left before the sermon?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggTILrfUweKNzSuQVS7gbDHSUT8tu0Ze6aEymAB4UfcYffav9YnozZiURYzUZngp4cgB0U0zIEBK3mmCd9QMiVsC_tKcnvXK66NEBQMOrEbUBfWFHiG4txwcA172duB-VDpMbtO8Xc4_U/s1600/Counting+Children+no+title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggTILrfUweKNzSuQVS7gbDHSUT8tu0Ze6aEymAB4UfcYffav9YnozZiURYzUZngp4cgB0U0zIEBK3mmCd9QMiVsC_tKcnvXK66NEBQMOrEbUBfWFHiG4txwcA172duB-VDpMbtO8Xc4_U/s1600/Counting+Children+no+title.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The answer was simple. “We don’t count the children.”</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I gently suggested that the ushers might try to find a way to change the point in the service at which they take the count, so that the children could be included in the numbers.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This time the answer was a little different in a big way: “The children don’t count.”</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I asked for him to explain to me why the children shouldn’t count in the statistics that we keep about how many people were in worship on any given Sunday. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“They are not members.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I explained to him that they actually are what in our tradition we call “baptized” members of the congregation, even if they are not “adult” members. Then I asked him if when counting adults they are careful not to count any visiting or guest adults who could also be given the label of <i>not a member</i>. Of course he counts them...but it did make him pause.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>We actually talked quite a while about it, with him repeating to me that same phrase, “the children don’t count,” far too often for my comfort. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After a few more conversations together, we did start including children in that worship count.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Too often children don’t count, or rather we don’t take children <i>into account</i>, when we do many things in our churches: when we plan our worship services, when we schedule events too late in the evening for young children, when we don’t provide child care for parents, when we organize community meals that will not be appetizing to children, even when we plan new buildings or renovations that ignore the needs of children. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>In my experience, every time we took the time to think about how full inclusion of children and youth would impact a particular event, worship service, change in the structure of our community life/building, or even our overall vision as a community, all generations benefited.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The thing is, while the ushers were not counting the children in the sanctuary all those years, we were counting the children in every other place - counting them when they came to their fellowship and snack time, counting them in choir, counting them in Sunday school and counting them at youth group. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yes, there was the counting that takes place to help us know how to plan ahead...and to make sure that all children were safe and accounted for. <b>But mostly the counting was about measuring the success of our ministry. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Sundays when we were bursting at the seams were labeled a success. Sundays with low attendance or participation made me question almost anything and everything that we were doing as a church. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even though children were not included in the “official” worship numbers that the church kept, I know that most of the adults in worship were indeed counting the children each week, because it was how we <i>all</i> measured the growth and the vitality of our congregation. People would mention to me how proud and optimistic they were when the numbers were high and how anxious they were when the stairs to the chancel during the children’s sermon were empty.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I hate to admit that I was also so easily discouraged by small numbers. Obviously, with some perspective I can see that numbers, trends, and an obsession with definitive measures of success were not the healthiest way to think about ministry with any number of children and youth. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>What I really hate to admit is that in the midst of all of this counting, I sometimes short-changed the children who were there, the ones who made up that small number who actually showed up. My mind was the on the ones who had made a different choice that day, instead of on the ones who gave me the privilege of being a part of their life and their education that day. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Looking back now, I absolutely cherish the Sunday mornings or youth group evenings when I just had two or three students and we each had one another’s undivided attention. That is when the kind of effective ministry was done that I could feel in my heart rather than count on my fingers. Now I actually wish there had been more of those opportunities.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The only number that truly counts is ONE - </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs a community to provide hospitality and safety; </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs adults who listen and mentor; </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs help finding their place in the hymnal so their voice can be heard amongst the congregation; </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs to be asked to contribute out of their gifts and energy; </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs help pouring a drink at a community meal; </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">one child who needs to know that they are expected, that someone is counting on them and looking for them each week. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>This is why the children count and how we should be counting our children.</b></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-83857038308771649722014-05-28T02:21:00.000-04:002014-06-04T06:22:49.210-04:00100 Things Your Child Should Know Before Confirmation - The Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ZMUwKZYsTRO6edg7YZ_D-NlUb43rbyE5Ao-TcPPXz5TLY9S66ns1xG_FYQaTBOQ2YB0a2S7XzfUjeJtMlaq7r54-vczASIoeHCUWQbhotI6LdW5gtyXBf07vk7UYsP-0s-FmZc8W_8I/s1600/Confirmation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ZMUwKZYsTRO6edg7YZ_D-NlUb43rbyE5Ao-TcPPXz5TLY9S66ns1xG_FYQaTBOQ2YB0a2S7XzfUjeJtMlaq7r54-vczASIoeHCUWQbhotI6LdW5gtyXBf07vk7UYsP-0s-FmZc8W_8I/s1600/Confirmation.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">I am delighted to announce </span><i style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">officially </i><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">today that I am working with <a href="http://www.spck.org.uk/">SPCK Publishing</a> on a new resource based on two years of writing about the basic information students should grasp about the Bible and the church BEFORE they start their time of preparation to be Confirmed as adult members of the church.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">You can find an index of all of the posts here. </a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Confirmation is a rite of passage in which students take the identity and knowledge that has been shaped in them for (in most cases) thirteen years of their life and do intentional work to transform that into a growing adult faith and an identity as an adult member of the faith community. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In many cases, Confirmation has instead become a chance to teach all of the foundational biblical and theological material that students have not previously been exposed to or intentionally taught. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The goal of these posts, and even more so my upcoming book, is first to help parents and educators think specifically and definitively about some of the very basic information that can serve as the foundation for a transformative Confirmation experience. Second is to give concrete examples for each item of ways to to engage children in conversation and exploration. Most of these ideas come from my own experiences as a parent and as a teacher in Sunday School and Confirmation classrooms. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For each item in the list (the content of which will be adapted slightly, as I have spent two years submerged within it) there will be the following sections:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>A brief description of the “Item”</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For each item on the list (much like I did on the blog) I explain the basics of the story, concept or practice, including the biblical reference when applicable. Often, what keeps parents from engaging children in biblical or theological conversations is that they think they don’t know enough. <i>There are two things to remember: one, you only need to know more than the children do, and two, it is okay to show your children that you are learning about these things together. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Conversations with Children</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will give at least one “talking point” for parents to use to start a conversation with children about this story or idea. Every story has multiple interpretations and angles. I will <i>just give one</i> that I think will be the most helpful to engage their interest, but conversations should not stop with just the ideas that I share. Sometimes this section will also give suggestions for particular moments in your family life together that lend themselves to these conversations. Every so often I will mention a particularly difficult aspect of this item and how to best help children understand it at different ages.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Community Activities</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This </span>section<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> will include ideas targeted directly at educators or </span>volunteers<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> who are teaching these stories or concepts at church. Sometimes they will be about how we structure classroom environments in our churches or how we provide a variety of resources to children when they study the Bible. For some, I give an alternative way to teach a particular story or idea in the classroom to help supplement curriculum that you are already using. Sometimes they will be about including children in the larger life of the congregation, teaching them how we live out the lessons from scripture in our community life. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Confirmation Questions</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally I will then take these ideas one step further to show how this foundational information can be a springboard for further conversation, exploration and questions in the Confirmation classroom. These reflections will be a resource for Confirmation teachers as well as parents of youth who want to find ways to continue to engage their children in conversations and to help them keep asking questions beyond Confirmation. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">~</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Over the next several months, I will continue to share here on topics related to Confirmation and how it fits in the life of the community and the growing faith of both children and parents. I am also pretty sure as I trim down the book for publication that I will share things here that are too broad or even too narrow to fit within its pages. </span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-13281424265041984902014-05-19T03:36:00.000-04:002014-06-04T06:23:07.617-04:00The Life of the Early Church: The Final 5 Things (out of 100) That Your Child Should Know Before Confirmation Class<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">After two years of blogging through this list of the <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">100 Things That Your Child Should Know BEFORE Confirmation Class</a>, I find myself here at the end with the topics that I always cover at the very beginning of this year of preparation for students choosing to become adult members of the church.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>While an important part of being Confirmed is making a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ, just as important is making a choice to live out that faith in the context of a particular Christian community.</b> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZJ_iCRcX19oSTVL0R6jhGQMV-WgACxbQuZkBdpO9p1RRCMtNLGv6wpVG63p0zQ4qI5AW3NRYf_F4gfAr1Sr1kM5Ji8jucDpjWwNmlb84JDn5VgZUvBr65_0OCV0dxZdysaC-jnJ0ysk/s1600/wordfoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZJ_iCRcX19oSTVL0R6jhGQMV-WgACxbQuZkBdpO9p1RRCMtNLGv6wpVG63p0zQ4qI5AW3NRYf_F4gfAr1Sr1kM5Ji8jucDpjWwNmlb84JDn5VgZUvBr65_0OCV0dxZdysaC-jnJ0ysk/s1600/wordfoto.jpg" height="314" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/04/moments-in-life-of-jesus-5-things-out.html">Two weeks ago, </a>I shared some of the questions that students are asked to answer in my Presbyterian tradition related to their declaration of faith. Here is the final question they are asked:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your prayers and gifts, your study and service and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While it may sound heretical, this question is just as important to me as all of the others. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Christian experience is rooted in community from its very start. To be a Christian outside of community means losing an essential part of how the Bible models faith expression and the practices of faith. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Unfortunately, Confirmation Sunday sometimes takes on an air of <i>graduation</i> instead of <i>commencement</i> as students (and parents) consider it a day of liberation from the burdens of Sunday School. I have actually had students tell me that their parents promised them they didn’t have to go to church any more once they were confirmed. Sadly, too often students and families do drift away, whether intentionally or unintentionally, after this rite of passage has been traversed. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Instead Confirmation really should be considered a day of binding - binding one’s heart and mind to Jesus Christ and binding one’s expression and experience of faith to the community.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So on the first week of Confirmation class we always start by reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12, as he describes our connectedness as individual members in the singular Body of Christ:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i> Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 1 Corinthians 12:14-20 (NRSV)</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By starting our year in this way we are always mindful of how each of these students will find their place, express their unique gifts, and learn from those who are different, as members not just of one congregation but within the entire Body of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>When students come to Confirmation class already aware of the following five items, our conversations about the history of the church, the way the Bible guides our relationships within the church, and the ways that the church engages with the world can be deeper and broader and have a more significant impact on a student’s ability and willingness to identify themselves as a member of the Body of Christ.</b></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #010000;">76. </span></b><b style="color: #232323; letter-spacing: 0px;">The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost)</b><br />
<span style="color: #232323; letter-spacing: 0px;">In addition to starting Confirmation class with a reading from 1st Corinthians, I also have students read together from Acts 2, which tells the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and the mass conversion of visitors to the city of Jerusalem that day. Students should know that the disciples were gathered together in a home when the Holy Spirit comes upon them like a mighty wind and lights upon their heads like tongues of fire. When they leave to go out into the city to preach they find that even though the very cosmopolitan crowd speaks a variety of languages they all seem to understand the disciples speaking in Aramaic. (okay they probably don’t need to know that they were speaking Aramaic, since I had to look that up myself) The Bible says that three thousand people were baptized, which is why we call Pentecost the “birthday” of the church.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>When students come already knowing the story of Pentecost, they can start to understand that though Jesus and his disciples were Jewish, there was a point at which the followers of Jesus began to structure their lives and their community in a different way from that heritage. <b>This also provides a great opportunity to talk both about the way that the church developed from this point on and the ways that we still today rely upon the work of the Holy Spirit to inspire our life together as church through the reading of scripture, worship, preaching and the sacraments.</b></i></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>77. </i>The Conversion of Paul</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are several aspects of Paul’s story that students should be introduced to before Confirmation class. The story of his “conversion” (a conversion not “from” Judaism, but “to” the messianic sect later called “Christian”) is one of the most important because it gives a sense of his call to Christian ministry and the development of the early church. The story of Paul’s conversion is found in Acts 9. Paul (or rather Saul as he is known in Judea) is a Pharisee who is persecuting the first Christian converts. During a trip to Damascus he is struck by a blinding light and hears a voice that says, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The voice identifies himself as Jesus and instructs him to travel (even though he is now blind) to Damascus. There he will find a man named Ananias who will care for him. Upon meeting this disciple, who touches his eyes, he regains his sight and is immediately baptized. Paul takes up preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, and his life-long ministry of evangelism and church planting around the Mediterranean begins. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>So much of what we believe about Christian theology and the Christian life comes not from the Gospels but from the writings of Paul (see next item below). It is important as students come to understand the teachings of Paul that they also have a sense of his life and ministry. <b>When they come with this story of his conversion under their belt, students can be introduced to Paul’s struggles as a Christian himself, his debates within the Christian community, and why so much of the New Testament is dedicated to his writings.</b> And, just as Confirmation class provides the opportunity to help students make the connections between the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament, they can also learn how to read the stories of Paul found in Acts alongside the writings and theology of Paul found in his letters.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>78. </b></span><b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Journeys and Letters of Paul</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are 21 letters (or epistles as we sometimes call them) in the New Testament. Scholars and church leaders have debated back and forth which ones were written by whom. The majority of them - no matter where you fall on the authorship issue - were written by the Apostle Paul. Most likely some that were thought for centuries to be written by Paul were instead written by his disciples and intentionally in his style. Regardless, these letters give us significant insight into both the ecclesiological (church) and theological (beliefs) debates in the early Christian communities. It is here where we learn about the expectations that were put on early church leadership, the ways that the laws of the Old Testament were either applied or abandoned, and the ways that the early church slowly developed unique worship traditions. Students should understand that Paul traveled along the Mediterranean as far as Rome teaching people about Jesus, and that part of that work meant also teaching them how to tell the story of Jesus, how to shape their life together and how to deal with conflict and disagreements within the community.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>One of the things that we do in Confirmation is help students understand what it really means to be a part of a community. Sometimes that means arguments, conflicts, change, and disagreements. Together in class we can look at the debates that the first Christians had as they tried to figure out what it meant to share a common faith and even sometimes a common purse and life together.<b> Confirmation is not about painting a rosy picture of the Church but about equipping young people to be engaged in the choices that really matter in the life of the community, to discern when conflicts and division are happening over non-essential elements of the Christian life, and not to be discouraged when there is conflict in their church experience. </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>79. Differences between Jews and Gentiles</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is no other topic I introduce in Confirmation class that causes more confusion and consternation for students than the explanation of the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles in the first generation of Christian converts. I know that they come understanding what it means to be a Jew. What I think they get caught up on is the idea that there would have been an actual name for anyone who was not a Jew - or what we refer to as a Gentile (our word comes from the Latin translation of the Greek and Jewish words used in the Bible for non-Jews, which mean “nations”). It may be because they themselves ARE Gentiles and never knew it. I am not sure. It is certainly not a complex concept, but one that if introduced early and often should not be as traumatic as it winds up being.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><b>In Confirmation class we can talk about the very complicated history of the early church wrestling with maintaining a Jewish identity while also opening the community to Gentiles. </b>What traditions were retained? What practices were set aside? What was lost and what was gained? What does the Bible tell us about what it means to practice our faith, to identify ourselves as disciples, and to spread the Good News outside of our community? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>80. </b></span><b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Book of Revelation</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so here we are at the very end. The end of this blog series (kind of) and the end of the Bible. I am not sure that The book of Revelation really fits in this group of five, when we think of it in terms of how Confirmation helps to shape students in their understanding of the Christian community both today and over the past 2,000 years. But it does relate to how we understand Christianity to be in relationship with the world around it. The book of Revelation (or in full, The Revelation to John) is often described as “apocalyptic literature,” a type of writing in which otherworldly beings reveal secrets about the future and/or the cosmos to ordinary mortals. Though it is the most easily identifiable exemplar of that biblical genre, it is not the only apocalyptic story in the Bible. Revelation describes the vision of John (probably not the disciple) on the island of Patmos and describes the coming of Jesus Christ again to the earth and all that goes into the final judgement of the world.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>We don’t spend much time at all on the Book of Revelation in Confirmation Class. But here is one of the reasons that I think students should be aware of it and have a general understanding of what it is, even if they have never actually read it themselves. <b>Confirmation has to be a place where students can bring the questions that are burning within their hearts or their brains - for many of them they have not had a safe place like this before where they can be pretty sure that they are going to get an honest answer. It is totally within the realm of possibility that in a group of ten students that one of them has been reading through Revelation and is either a little freaked out by it or maybe intrigued by it. </b>It would be very normal then for them to ask about it in class. I love it when students bring these kinds of questions and I love taking the time to answer them. The thing that is frustrating to me is when I have to spend just as much time getting the rest of the class up to speed on what the question is all about. It is one thing to help students think about Revelation more deeply than they have before. It is another thing to need to spend extra time making sure that all students understand the minimum information about Revelation needed to get anything out of the conversation. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Basically, this is the goal of this list, and it is why this list is not the maximum but rather the minimum that students should know about the church and the Bible before they start their Confirmation journey - <b>the better prepared they are the more they are going to get out of the limited time we have together, the deeper our conversations can be, and the better equipped they will be for a lifetime of faith. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today marks the end of blogging through this list, but not the end of the conversation that I want to continue both about how we prepare children to be youth who engage fully in their own Christian Education and how we can continue to do a better job at church and at home to increase their biblical literacy. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Later this week I will share more about how this list and my journey through it will be coming together in a book over the next few months. Stay tuned!</b></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-69802685565617803692014-05-07T03:04:00.000-04:002014-06-04T06:23:21.695-04:00The Parable of the Sower Explained: helping children recover from a bad Bible study experience<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">Last weekend our son attended a family church retreat with friends, and he had a great time. Leading up to it, I had mentioned to him that the children’s Bible study sessions were going to focus on the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9). His response: “Great! I like that parable.” I am not sure when he first learned it or made it a favorite, but it was a good sign that he was going to have a positive attitude about the experience.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When he came home, we spent so much time listening to stories about swimming, playing, talent shows, and exploring on the beach that I almost forgot to ask how the Bible study went. His response: “Actually, it made me feel really bad. I didn’t like it.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Really? I tried in the moment to ask a few questions to get a sense of what had upset him. Did something bad happen? No. Did you get in trouble? No. Did what the Bible says make you feel bad or did what the teacher said make you feel bad? <i>What’s the difference?</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2br4M_i1uAteoMADy20rgN8xnK4MnXReCIlGtussiZzU6zAXlCRcGULVEBYP1380TEtcUzG1nBt7JmybHaYrnaCV1fZOG0BByfnT53BOoi6pKoxRAWJbZFBJzga7b6Y_0oDIESi79yo/s1600/2345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2br4M_i1uAteoMADy20rgN8xnK4MnXReCIlGtussiZzU6zAXlCRcGULVEBYP1380TEtcUzG1nBt7JmybHaYrnaCV1fZOG0BByfnT53BOoi6pKoxRAWJbZFBJzga7b6Y_0oDIESi79yo/s1600/2345.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So we decided to give it a few days to settle, and I promised him that he and I would sit down together and re-read the story to see if he could</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> explain to me what happened. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Yesterday at lunch we read through the parable again to kick off our conversation:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>And Jesus told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, </i><b><i>some seeds fell on the path</i></b><i>, and the birds came and ate them up. </i><b><i>Other seeds fell on rocky ground</i></b><i>, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. </i><b><i>Other seeds fell among thorns</i></b><i>, and the thorns grew up and choked them. </i><b><i>Other seeds fell on good soil</i></b><i> and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One of the rare qualities of this specific parable is that it comes with an”explanation” as well:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>‘When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On the surface this seems like a fairly innocuous parable to teach children. I have included it in my list of <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/09/the-parables-5-out-of-100-things-your.html">“100 Things Children Should Know Before Confirmation.” </a>What could go wrong?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And then he told me...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I need to stop here and say that even though I am about to point out some mistakes that I believe the leaders of this study made, I might have made some of them myself. There are also some that I have learned <i>not to make</i> over the years. It is also important to remember that just as we as adults bring our own “baggage” and identity to our reading and understanding of the Bible, our children do as well. Is it possible that my son’s reaction to this class was 50% a result of his own struggles? Yes. We need to remember as teachers that children are not blank slates waiting for us to tell them how and who to be.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, for the weekend, each of the three sessions was devoted to talking about one (or two) kinds of soil described in the parable. Here is how he explained the soils to me.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Session 1- <b>Path - </b>Those who hear about God and do nothing about it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Session 2 - <b>Rocky Soil - </b>Those who hear about God and are happy about it and then something bad happens and they wonder why God would let that happen. <b>Thorns-</b>Those who hear and believe but they get too distracted and don’t do anything about it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Session 3 - <b>Good Soil </b>- Those who hear and believe and act on their faith.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>He told me that it was session two that upset him the most - and specifically the description of and conversation around the thorns. He was convinced that this was him. He is thorny soil. He told me that he is not a good Christian. That he believes the Bible, but he doesn’t act on it. He is too distracted. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Just a reminder that my son is nine. This seems like a pretty intense response to a children’s Bible study. But, as I mentioned above, he brings his own struggles and tends to be hard on himself. So I asked him to tell me more about what he meant. What is distracting him? What is it that he is not doing that he should be?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Video games - they gave that as an example of something that might distract you from acting on the word of God. He plays a lot of video games. It didn’t take much effort for him to believe that he was thorny soil...if this is what that meant. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So that was the distraction. But what was he not doing? “Telling people about God.” Ah. He said that when he had been to Sunday school at this same church, he often felt bad because they were always encouraging the children to tell people about God, and he doesn’t really do that. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I pushed him then and asked if it wasn’t the case (because he eventually revealed that he spent the first session worried that he might be the path) that when they talked about the good soil he saw himself reflected in that description as well. The problem was, he didn’t get to go to that last - good soil - session, because his friends had to leave the retreat a day early. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>So he was left there in the thorns to get all choked up in his distracting video games.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We talked for almost an hour to try to sort all of these things out in his mind and his heart.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>First, we talked about evangelism.</b> I told him that there are a lot of Christians who believe that telling people about God and Jesus is the most important thing that a Christian can do. It is important work, and it is their focus. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I asked him what <i>he</i> thought was the most important thing for a Christian to do. Helping people. That is his experience of Christianity. It’s how we talk about it at home and at our church. I asked him if he thought he did a good job helping people in need. He did...because he actually does. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We re-read the verse about the thorny soil, and I asked him what it would mean if we explained it as describing people who hear the word and believe that they are supposed to help others, but get too distracted by only helping themselves. That seemed pretty reasonable to him.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Being a Christian is lived out in many different ways, and so when we paint such a narrow picture of what it means to faithfully respond to the word, we communicate to children that faith expression and discipleship is a black and white endeavor, whereas in reality it involves a lifetime of sorting through the grey</b>. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Then we talked about video games and the Bible.</b> I told him that while the Bible speaks to us today and we can relate our modern experiences to this ancient book, I was pretty sure video games were not what Jesus (or the writer of the Gospel of Matthew) was talking about in this parable. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I also asked him why in all of this he never thought that he was the rocky soil - those who hear and believe, but as soon as tragedy strikes they doubt. It was simple. He had never experienced anything in his short and incredibly blessed life that would make him question the power of God. I gave him a tragic example, and he confessed that if indeed that happened he might turn into rocky soil as well. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>We try to relate the Bible to children’s experiences by giving them examples from their own lives, but sometimes those examples really are not apt or can over-simplify complicated issues of faith. </b>When the Bible says that <i>the cares of the world and the lure of wealth in the world choke the word </i>it is describing something that I would guess most children have not had a lot of experience with. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This is hard, because we validate their faith and their faith expression as being good, yet their experience with the depths of faith is usually very limited. This parable talks about some of the essential struggles that befall a human being when it comes to responding in faith. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Interestingly when I tried to suggest that each person at different times could be any one of these soils, that at some times we are more receptive and responsive to the word than at others, he balked. That is not how it works, he believes. A person only improves on their fertility as proverbial soil. Once you are good soil, you never go back. <i>His experience of faith just couldn’t help him relate to the concept of backsliding.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>We talked about why we teach this parable to children in the first place.</b> I told him that I believe this is an important parable to teach children, because as he grows in his faith he needs to understand that influences in the world and his own receptivity will affect how he responds to God. <b>Teaching him this vocabulary of faith will give him a language to express his growing and changing experience of faith. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The problem with spending three entire sessions on this parable is that instead of being able to make the larger point of there being different ways people respond to faith, the focus was on being able to actually identify and describe which people fit in each soil category - including themselves. The good news of the parable is in the cultivation of the good soil. That means that they ended two sessions with little focus on that. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If I had three sessions to work with children on this parable, I might instead have spent one session on The Parable of the Sower, one on The Parable of the Weeds in the Wheat and then one on the Parable of the Mustard Seed - all of which come from this same chapter in the Gospel of Matthew. Each of them provides a different “growth”metaphor that taken together paints a broader picture of how Jesus talks about faith, how our faith grows and what faith looks like.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The more we talked, the more I realized that he was beginning to feel better, both about himself and about his understanding of the parable. Maybe a little too much “better.” So I made sure that he heard two more things before we were done:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>First, sometimes the way people interpret the Bible and teach us the Bible can make us feel bad, and that is a hard thing.</b> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Second, sometimes the Bible all on its own makes us feel bad, and that is because the Bible teaches us that God and Jesus have high expectations for us. Often we don’t meet them, but we never stop looking for ways to fertilize our own hearts and minds. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It would be too easy for me to be critical of the leaders of this Bible study and claim that they manipulated this parable to guilt my son into being a better evangelist. Chances are, something that I have said about the Bible and about faith in all earnestness has made a child (or even an adult) mis-understand or feel bad about their own life of faith. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The greatest lesson that was reinforced for me was not as a pastor and teacher but as a parent. When we teach children the Bible in the classroom the learning, understanding and growing don’t stop there. They flourish and bloom when we continue these conversations at home. We could have just let his experience go and assumed he would get over it </span>eventually<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. <b>By taking the time to really encourage him to re-read the parable and to describe his feelings, his impressions and his own </b></span><b>interpretation<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to me, we wound up having one of the most fruitful conversations about faith, the Bible and how we make choices in our lives than we ever have before. </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Even a bad Bible study </span>experienced<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> planted seeds within him that I am confident will in time grow into a deeper experience of faith. </span></span>Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-54636451986695823102014-04-30T02:57:00.000-04:002014-05-07T03:05:10.208-04:00Moments in the Life of Jesus: 5 Things (out of 100) That Your Child Should Know Before Confirmation Class<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">In Confirmation Class a primary objective is for students to affirm their faith in Jesus Christ. The liturgy that we use on Confirmation Sunday reflects just that.</span></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>I do.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Who is your Lord and Savior?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple obeying his word and showing his love?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>I will.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your prayers and gifts, your study and service and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>I will.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It took me a couple of years to figure out that I needed to do a better job prepping students as they prepared to answer these questions - certainly they are nervous standing in front of the entire congregation. There is also some kind of weird thing that happens when you expect 10 teenagers to respond spontaneously and in unison. Everyone expects the other to be the loudest voice, I think. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so as we prepared and practiced for worship, we went over the questions and answers and in particular their answer to “Who is your Lord and Savior?” For some reason it took a few tries for the answer to just roll off their tongues. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This led me to think even harder about what we were doing all year long to help them answer these questions, not just on that very special Sunday but every day of their lives. So I started posting these questions in our classroom and tried to refer to them as often as possible when our discussion or lesson did its part in helping them to answer.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Thirty-five items on this l<a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">ist of 100 things that a child should know BEFORE Confirmation class</a> deal directly with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ - and these are just the very basics that they should already know on the first day of class. In class we wrestle with who Jesus was, why and how we live as his disciples, and how his birth, life, death, and resurrection shape so much of our community life together.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The following five stories (collections of stories) in particular shape the rhythm of our worship from Advent all the way up to Holy Week, and are essential starting points for conversations about who Jesus was and what that means for us as his followers.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>61. The Stories of Jesus’ Birth</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These birth narratives or infancy narratives come entirely from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Neither Mark nor John include any stories prior to the start of Jesus’ ministry. In the first and second chapters of Matthew we read of the angel appearing to Joseph assuring him that his son will be the one that the scriptures had promised their people; the visit of the magi to the holy family in Bethlehem; the warning of Joseph in a dream to flee from Israel with his newborn child; the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod; and finally the sojourn of the holy family in Egypt and then their return after the death of Herod.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Luke gives us his own version of this story told from some different perspectives in his first two chapters: the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth and Zachariah; the visit of an angel to Mary and Mary’s response in faith; the companionship of Mary and Elizabeth while they were both pregnant; the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem because of the Roman census; the birth of Jesus in a stable; and finally the announcement of the birth to shepherds in the fields and their adoration of the baby.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we can talk together about why these two gospels tell such different versions of this story of Jesus’ birth. Is one right and one wrong? <b>Is it right to mesh the two together as we do every Christmas Eve and in many nativity scenes? </b>Can these stories give us insight into the larger message of each respective gospel? How do these stories serve as an example of the ways the writers of the New Testament included images and traditions from the Old Testament? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>62. Jesus Lost in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This story could also be included in the larger category of “infancy” narratives, even though it takes place when Jesus is much older. Jesus is twelve years old and traveling with his parents and their larger community to Jerusalem for the Passover celebrations. On the return trip, Mary and Joseph realize that Jesus is not among their caravan and return to the city to find him. After searching for three days, they find him back in the temple in deep theological and scriptural conversation with the teachers there. Even though his parents reprimand him, his response is fairly flip, telling them that it should have been obvious to them that he would be found in his father’s house. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The Bible is so bereft of stories of Jesus’ growing up, that we have come to cherish these rare glimpses into the ways early Christians imagined Jesus’ childhood. This story can provide some great conversation points in Confirmation class when we explore what it means that Jesus was a practicing Jew. Somehow that concept often eludes students. This story illustrates that it was important to show that Jesus was a part of the Jewish community and that his ministry should be understood in that context. Additionally, this story is a great way to talk about Jesus’ divinity. Did Jesus know that he was the son of God when he was a child? Did he already understand his calling to ministry? Was he born understanding the scriptures? <b>What happens when we have so many unanswerable questions about Jesus? Does that threaten our ability to believe in him? </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>63. Jesus’ Baptism</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus’ baptism in a similar way, even though there are some slight differences in details. The Gospel of John also includes some of the same elements as the others, without mentioning his actual baptism. John the Baptist is in the wilderness proclaiming a message of redemption, the coming of a messiah, and participating in what would have already been an established practice of ritual washing or baptism. Jesus inaugurates his ministry by coming to the place where John is preaching along the Jordan River and asks for baptism himself. In some accounts John refuses, saying that it should be Jesus who baptizes him. Upon Jesus’ baptism a voice proclaims Jesus the beloved of God, and the Holy Spirit comes upon or appears to come upon him like a dove. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class I always provided a gospel parallel of this story so that students could see all four gospels’ versions side by side. Looking at them all together we can talk about our Christian practice of baptism and how we rely on this story of Jesus’ own baptism to shape our theology of baptism today. <b>If baptism is about being washed of our sins, why would Jesus need to be baptized? How does the act of baptism mark us as beloved children of God? What role does the Holy Spirit play in our baptism?</b> Where is the power in baptism - is it in the community? Is it in the promises made? Is it in the work of the pastor who “celebrates” it? Or is it in the work of the Holy Spirit? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>64. The Temptation in the Wilderness</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that immediately following his baptism, Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness so that the devil might tempt him. While Mark gives us very little in the way of description when it comes to the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, both Matthew and Luke provide actual dialogue between Jesus and Satan. On three occasions the devil tries to tempt Jesus into abusing his power as the Son of God - tempting him to perform miracles, to test the power of God and to abandon God and worship him instead. Jesus resists each time and leaves the wilderness to begin his teaching and itineration. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>This story of Jesus’ temptation is how we begin the season of Lent - a season of reflection on our human condition, our tendency toward sin, and our need for redemption and connection with God through Christ. In class we can have even more conversations about who Jesus was. <b>What does it mean to be fully human and fully divine? What does it mean that Jesus lived a sinless life? Was he really tempted in the desert? </b>Could he really have been persuaded by the devil? How does Jesus’ human life connect us to him as human beings ourselves? As the one who forgives us our sins, what does it mean that Jesus was tempted as we are? What does it mean that we have a God who chose to take on our weaknesses? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>65. The Transfiguration</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Again the three synoptic gospels (Mark 9: 2-13; Matthew 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-36) tell this story that we usually read and remember on the last Sunday before the start of the season of Lent. Jesus takes three of his disciples up onto a mountain with him to pray: Peter, John and James. In the course of his praying he is transformed - or transfigured - before their eyes. His face and clothing begin to glow white, reminiscent of Moses’ transformation on Mount Sinai. Next to him then appear both the prophet Elijah (who was prophesied to return immediately preceding the Messiah) and Moses. Jesus speaks with them privately as the disciples look on. The three disciples are so overcome with joy at the sight of this event that they offer to erect tents or booths there on the mountain that they would all be able to remain there much longer in each other’s company. Finally from the clouds a voice is heard again declaring Jesus to be the son of God and encouraging them to listen to him. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>This story provides yet again an opportunity to talk about what it means that our understanding of who Jesus was and is, is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Old Testament and specifically in the prophetic writings concerning the coming of the Messiah - or the anointed one of God. In class we can talk about our expectations as followers of Jesus that we will have “mountaintop experiences.” Even for the disciples this was a rare and unusual event. What if we never have one? <b>What if the heavens never open to give us a vision of Christ? How do we root our belief and faith in ancient stories when even the people in the stories themselves struggle to understand? </b>When we do have a mountaintop experience, how do we handle the walk back down the mountain or a remaining life on the plains or even in the valleys?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>~</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Each one of these stories embodies the spirit of Epiphany when we focus on the centuries-old search to understand the fullness of who this man Jesus of Nazareth was, is and will be: Son of Mary and Joseph, Son of God, Promised Messiah, Prophet, Liberator, King of the Jews, Rabbi and Teacher, Beloved of God, fully human yet without sin. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>For each follower of Christ, each of these names, these identities, these traditions will have significance throughout a lifetime of faith. As students take this step of declaring their intention to be counted as one of those followers, a year or even a season of preparation aimed at giving them the fullest picture of Jesus Christ will equip and serve them well far beyond Confirmation Sunday.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>~</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I have just one more post left in this series that has spanned over the past two years exploring the foundational biblical literacy and religious awareness that should be nurtured in children as they prepare for their Confirmation. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I am working together with<a href="http://www.spckpublishing.co.uk/"> SPCK Publishing</a> to create a new resource based on all of these posts and the list with even more ideas for teaching children both at home and in the classroom. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>To be sure to get more information about about my book as it progresses and is published, be sure to subscribe to Bread, not Stones at the top of this page via Facebook, Twitter, RSS Feed or Email. Thanks!</i></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-79721668656126537282014-04-23T05:32:00.000-04:002014-04-30T02:58:52.376-04:00Five Steps to Choosing and Using a Child’s Study Bible<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">This fall as my son entered the third grade, we started to transition him from a children’s picture Bible to a children’s study Bible.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2014/04/is-childrens-picture-bible-really-bible.html">A couple of weeks ago, I shared some reflections on the characteristics of a typical picture Bible and its limitations as children get older. </a>This is a transitional phase for us, because there are some moments when it is helpful to have on hand a paraphrased child friendly version of a particular story and some ot</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">her moments when it is still nice to have illustrations to help illuminate the story for my son.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But now he knows that when I ask him to go and get his Bible to either read together or to get ready to take to church, that I am asking him to get what I would call his children’s study Bible. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>A children’s study Bible is essentially a modern translation of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) that also includes study guides, in text notes, child friendly maps, and even some limited illustrations throughout. </b>Often a church will give children this style of Bible when they enter a certain grade, but there is no reason why you as a parent can’t take the initiative and make this same transition together as a family. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Maybe there is one reason - choosing which particular Bible is right for your child can be a little overwhelming. So here are five pointers for choosing the right Bible and how each of these elements figures into how you and your child will use this Bible together and how they can use it on their own. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For my son, we purchased the<i> <a href="http://www.deepbluekidsbible.com/">CEB: Deep Blue Kids Bible</a></i>. I will be using it as an example for what to look for in a children’s study Bible. In the past I have also purchased both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Revised-Standard-Version-Childrens-Bible-/dp/0687054001/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398244196&sr=1-1&keywords=nrsv+children%27s+bible">NRSV</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Bible-NIV-Zondervan/dp/0310721970/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1398244251&sr=1-1">NIV</a> children’s Bibles, which takes us to the first decision you have to make when buying a Bible for a child.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>1. Translation<br />
</b>Deciding what translation you want to buy for your child has to be the first step, because that will then determine what other options are available to you. There may be different study versions of one translation, but there will never be the same “study notes” published along side a variety of translations. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I honestly chose the <a href="http://www.commonenglishbible.com/">Common English Bible</a> because I was interested in trying it out, since it is relatively new (2011). I personally prefer using the New Revised Standard Version myself as both a study Bible and a devotional Bible, because it doesn’t smooth over the quirkiness of Hebrew or Greek turns of phrase or idioms AND because it keeps some of the traditional language of the King James Version which makes it feel more familiar to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>The problem with the NRSV is that it is typically considered to be at a 11th/12th grade reading level. This means that children can read it but not fully understand what they are reading. So I went with the CEB because it is classified as being at a 7th grade reading level.</b> The New International Version is also often suggested for children, based on this same reasoning. The CEB is more recent and uses the same standards for gender neutral </span>pronouns for human beings as the NRSV does, which I appreciate.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I could go on and on about choosing between what works for me as an adult and what would work for my son, but instead here is a short video that we made to compare the NRSV and the CEB versions of Psalm 23.<b> This was completely spontaneous but totally makes the point of why it is worth starting a child with an easier translation.</b> (You can see here as well how he jumps right on the “study notes” that are included for the psalm. See step 3 below.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A good children’s study Bible will have multiple tools and guides at the front that should encourage children (and their parents) to use this particular Bible in the most helpful ways. It should explain to children how to look up a passage in the Bible using traditional chapter and verse notations and how to use the particular study notes that are included throughout.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn2Kia0YHok2Xgtq020gS2ueo5RIo4e4Ah3h5KXVT0kImZgUIq2TEq_P-QzkAEJMac5NfQRaR7DPF2AGNYId7TxNONucG9tOw636nwq9BD8oZD1guUec1n55fsKR6CLE8kPdahrGUEL4/s1600/IMG_4296.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn2Kia0YHok2Xgtq020gS2ueo5RIo4e4Ah3h5KXVT0kImZgUIq2TEq_P-QzkAEJMac5NfQRaR7DPF2AGNYId7TxNONucG9tOw636nwq9BD8oZD1guUec1n55fsKR6CLE8kPdahrGUEL4/s1600/IMG_4296.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>My favorite part of my son’s new Bible is the Table of Contents (see the picture to the right). Not only does it obviously show the order of the books of the Bible, which with greater use will become second nature, but it also gives a wonderful visual guide for the different types of biblical literature the Bible contains bracketing out: instruction (the particular way the CEB has chosen to translate the Hebrew word <i>Torah</i>), history, wisdom, prophets, gospels, and letters. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These front notes should help a child get excited about using their new Bible. The <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible</i>, does a nice job explaining in very simple terms the history of the Bible, where it came from, and how to use it. There is even a short explanation for each of the different kinds of biblical literature. A good children’s study Bible will also include a preface particular to the translation (see step 1 above) which if you are still debating which translation to buy is a helpful resource to read while you are standing in the bookstore trying to choose.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>3. The In Text Study/Devotional Notes</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are a few different categories of study aids that you will find throughout the actual meat of a children’s study Bible. Be sure to flip through and get a taste for all of them...or see if all of them are even included. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>First, you will absolutely want to make sure there is a child friendly introduction to each book of the Bible (see the photo above of the introduction to the Gospel of Matthew). </b>This will help a child (and their parent) understand more about what they will find in this book - what kind of biblical literature it is, what themes are in the book, what are its major characters, and even sometimes some information about the author or author motivation. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Authorship is a tricky thing when it comes to the Bible, and I appreciate the way that the <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible</i> is able to talk about the author without trying to explain who that author was, since most of the attributions we have for books were attached much later than the actual text. For the book of Psalms they write, “King David is named as the speaker for many of these lyrics...” which both moves away from a misconception that David himself actually wrote the Psalms, and helps children to think about what it means that so many of them are called “Psalms of David.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Second, a children’s study Bible will also have notes throughout the text to help engage a child on each page. Sometimes these notes will help explain a culturally unique part of the biblical text. Sometimes they will help a child relate a particular passage to their own life. Sometimes they will offer an interpretation of a particular passage. <b>These notes are where the children’s study Bible lives and dies, and you will want to read through as many of these as you can to get a feel of both the language they are using for children and how they are describing God and God’s relationship with human beings.</b> This really needs to be language that you are comfortable with, since you want your child to be able to read the notes on their own without you being there to explain away the explanations.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible</i>, I feel good about what I continue to read in the study and devotional notes. Obviously the book has a water theme to it. <b>The only thing that made me pause was their description of the notes that they call Umbrellas - “notes that give us help for difficult times by explaining how unhappy emotions and traits aren’t good for us.” Hmmm.</b> I wasn’t exactly sure what they meant, and so I looked to the back of the Bible (see step 4) to the section where they list all of the Umbrella notes found throughout. Here are some of the unhappy emotions that aren’t good for us: grief, depression, hopelessness, anger. I don’t really agree with a characterization of these being “not good for us,” since they are inevitable parts of the human experience and so well represented in scripture. So I spent some time reading through these specific notes and found that I was comfortable with the language that was used and the way these emotions are described and dealt with. This is an example of a publisher’s description not appropriately representing what the authors have done within the text. It worked out okay for me, since the notes turned out to be helpful. <b>But it could be just as easy for a lovely description of what’s inside the Bible to turn out to be a misrepresentation of unhelpful notes and theological commentary. So be sure to read through as much as possible yourself before setting your child loose with the Bible.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>4. The Indices and Study Guides at the Back<br />
</b>There are two final things that are essential for me when it comes to picking out a children’s study Bible - a kid friendly Bible dictionary and maps. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sometimes maps will be in the middle or scattered throughout the Bible, but most frequently they are placed at the back. <b>Children should be encouraged to use them as they are reading, taking time to stop and look up a place name or journey to help them have a fuller understanding of whatever story they are reading.</b> This will also mean reviewing the maps to help them know which maps they should use for which parts of the Bible - no need to consult a map of the Exodus when trying to locate the town of Bethlehem. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A children’s Bible dictionary should include a variety of different entries: words that a child will already know but which have a specific meaning in a biblical context (e.g. “offering”), words that they may not have encountered before (e.g.“exile”), and specific cultural words or groups unique to the Bible (e.g.“Sadducees”). <b>At the risk of coming off as a total nerd, I would recommend sitting down and reading through this dictionary- literally from A to Z - with your child so that they have a sense of what kinds of words it includes. </b>You can also have a conversation about where they might go beyond their study Bible to find more definitions since this is bound to be a limited resource. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I should note that the second word in the dictionary in the <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible </i>is “adultery.” I can totally understand its inclusion, because I am sure that my nine year old would need someone to define this word for him if he encountered it in the text. The problem is that the dictionary provides a modern definition for adultery rather than a biblical definition, which are two different things (especially from the perspective of women). This is not a big enough deal for me to nix this Bible. <b>What it does illustrate is that while this study Bible is a huge step up for him from a picture Bible, he will still have more steps to take in the future as he develops his relationship with and understanding of scripture and the world.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally a children’s study Bible will also have a variety of indices at the back that list the in text notes, suggested readings, and other reference tools. One of the things that I appreciate in the <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible </i>are the variety of reading encouragements that even come with checklists that can help us be a little bit more motivated in our regular Bible reading together. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>5. The Cover<br />
</b>This is the final decision that you often have to make when picking out a children’s study Bible. All of the steps above need to take precedence over this step, even though the cover will be the first thing you might encounter or that might attract you or your child to a particular Bible. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The <i>Deep Blue Kids Bible</i> comes in a variety of bindings in an attempt to appeal to different age levels and different kids. Despite all of the exciting choices, I went with the burgundy imitation leather binding. For me this really had more to do with how long I would like my son to use this Bible rather than whether or not I thought it would appeal to him. <b>At a price tag of $25+, I would really like this Bible to work for my son until he is ready for his next Bible, which means 7th or 8th grade. So a cool cartoon cover that might work for him at 9 will probably seem a little lame by the time he is 14. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This again is a personal decision that is really more about your own child and what it will take to help them be excited about using their new Bible. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When my son got a glimpse this week of these different bindings he seemed a little disappointed in the one I had chosen. I asked him if he would have preferred a different one. Trying to be positive, he said, “No, because this one makes it look like a real Bible. I like that.” <b>That really is the best endorsement that he could have given, because for the first time he is using a real Bible all on his own. I am glad that this cover helps him to realize and appreciate that.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What Bible have you found that works with your children and your family? What is the most important tool you have found to help when reading the Bible together with your child?</span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-3128276850463118852014-04-15T02:13:00.003-04:002014-04-23T06:41:14.587-04:00What Wondrous Love is This?<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">I am reposting this reflection from 2012 on how we talk about the death of Christ with our children. As we move through this Holy Week, may it serve as an encouragement for all of us who will sit in a pew next to a child this Friday.</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">I can’t tell you how many times I have been forwarded the following joke:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">Little Timmy was struggling with his math schoolwork, to the point that his parents had enlisted tutors and taken other extreme measures. Their final decision was to enroll him in a Catholic school to see if greater discipline might help the situation.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">Timmy came home from school the first day vowing to redouble his efforts in math from now on. When his parents asked him what happened at school to change his attitude, he told them that after seeing that guy nailed to the plus sign at the school, he knew that he needed to take math more seriously.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">While this could actually turn into a reflection on sending your child to a religious school with absolutely no background on the basics of Christianity, instead<strong> it provides a helpful starting point for my own inner wrestling with how we have discussions with our children (at different ages and stages in their faith development) about the death of Jesus.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">Jesus’ death on the cross, while probably part of our children’s religious consciousness (unlike little Timmy’s), is actually pretty disconnected from their experiences in the world. If we consider Jesus’ crucifixion to be at its most historic an act of capital punishment, it almost seems strange that we give our children multiple books, including the Bible, that in one way or another recount his death. Looking through the “religious” section on my son’s book shelves, I easily found at least five picture books that depicted Jesus’ crucifixion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"><strong>Why Jesus died is a very reasonable question for children to ask, and one that I have found they especially like to save to ask their parents in some of the most intimate of moments.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"><strong>I know that when my son first asked me why Jesus died, I answered very simply, telling him that he died because he loves us. That seemed like a pretty reasonable answer, but one that I knew would not be enough forever.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">My son is now eight years old, and it has been a few years since he first asked me about Jesus’ death. I asked him this evening if he could tell me why Jesus died. He told me that Jesus died because people thought he was lying about God. People didn’t like the things he was saying, and they thought he was lying about being God’s son.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"><strong>I asked him what it means to us that Jesus died on the cross, and he told me that it means that Jesus saved us. Then he turned and looked at me and said - how? Saved us from what?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">This is when the questions are not so easily answered. My son’s simple question, “How” has been answered in so many different ways over so many hundreds of years that it overwhelms even me to think about the very best way to try to describe it to him. So instead I sent him to bed so I could collect my thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">I could tell him that because of our sinfulness as human beings, we needed someone like Jesus to come and atone for our sins. But what does an eight year old really know of sin?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">I could tell him that as human beings we are separated from God and need a way to bridge that gap and reconcile us to God. But as a child he feels very much connected to God. Do I really tell him that in fact there is a chasm of separation between him and God no matter how close God might feel to him?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">I could tell him that as sinful human beings God was obligated to punish us, but that Jesus took our place and took our punishment on our behalf (the punishment that scared little Timmy into math submission). But how does that connect to a God that we have described to him as loving and forgiving?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">I could tell him that Jesus came as a mighty warrior to defeat the powers of evil in the world, and through his death waged a cosmic battle with the devil. But how is that connected to the Jesus of peace, love and nonviolence that we have taught him about so far?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;"><strong>I will admit to wrestling myself with how I understand Jesus’ death as it is related to my own faith. I bristle at the idea that God would demand a blood sacrifice in order to be willing to forgive our sins. I sympathize with those who experience the death of Jesus as divine child abuse. I contemplate the sovereignty of a God who could not act to save the life of his own son.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 17px;">I have found comfort personally in words found in my own Presbyterian tradition that speak to our Christian faith as a whole and to the limits of our human understanding of Jesus’ reconciling work on the cross. The Confession of 1967, a statement of faith written at a moment when our world seemed to be at a peak of dysfunction and disconnection, gives me words to describe the indescribable:</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #7f6000;"><em>God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the Scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd’s life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the powers of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for man. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work.</em></span> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">In reflecting more on these words today, I think that I have come to a better understanding of how I will describe the “how” and the “why” and the “from what” questions that my son has about Jesus’ death and our salvation - the image of a shepherd’s life give for his sheep.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In the morning I will explain to him that the world is full of pain, of people treating each other badly, of people disappointing each other and disappointing God. Unfortunately, I think he will probably be able to understand this all too well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><strong>But then I will tell him that Jesus came to teach us how to act better, how to treat each other better, how to love God better, how to be better. And to help us do that, he has stood between us and the world.</strong> He has stood up to the wolves that have come to threaten his flock. As God’s own son…as God on earth…he has shown us what we are to do for those that we love. We give our lives for them. We take the hit. We bear the burden.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><strong>So I guess my answer for him has not changed all that much from when he was in preschool. Jesus died because he loves us.</strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Even though I came back to the same answer, I believe there is value in the wrestling with what all of this means to me. Some day he will not simply take my word for it, but will want to seriously wrestle with this himself, and I want to be part of those conversations as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I am looking forward to the insights and the questions that he will bring to this life-long conversation when he is a precocious 13 year old, a rebellious 18 year old, an idealistic 23 year old, and eventually a parent himself. <strong>I want to hear how he will answer his own child someday. It is just a guess, but I am pretty sure love, and not punishment, will be at the heart of his answer.</strong></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-24323856341904336502014-04-09T02:28:00.000-04:002014-04-15T02:15:23.852-04:00Is a Children’s Picture Bible Really a Bible?<div style="font-family: Georgia;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXzUXo4ulhq0JMlphNgIYclOlPM18bMMfCOiYEnpdIA114I172YiRwFXqWQNnKAfP8kWN1wFbtee8djaMllux-wUlO32-tdnasVlq2RMikbEWC6h0nouZOXj1f-SOu1lfNZ5FDRkS9Iw/s1600/photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXzUXo4ulhq0JMlphNgIYclOlPM18bMMfCOiYEnpdIA114I172YiRwFXqWQNnKAfP8kWN1wFbtee8djaMllux-wUlO32-tdnasVlq2RMikbEWC6h0nouZOXj1f-SOu1lfNZ5FDRkS9Iw/s1600/photo.jpg" height="320" width="268" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A couple of years ago as I was reading a popular religion/faith blog I came across comments from several parents who were so frustrated with their church or THE church that they had decided to take a break from church for a while and were using <i>The Jesus Storybook Bible </i>as a substitute for Sunday School. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The full title of this children’s Bible is <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Storybook-Bible-Lloyd-Jones-Feb-22-2007/dp/B008KTRTF2/ref=sr_1_1_title_2_pap?ie=UTF8&qid=1397024120&sr=8-1&keywords=jesus+storybook+bible">The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name. </a></i>The “his” in the title refers to Jesus, and for each story, especially those from the Old Testament, there is a paragraph on how this story relates to Jesus Christ. I purchased it recently and found reading it a little like sitting through an extended children’s sermon where the children think the answer to every question asked is Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While there are many favorable reviews on Amazon for this children’s Bible, there are plenty of scathing reviews that mostly boil down to “this is not a Bible.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I totally agree. It is not a Bible. It is a children’s picture Bible. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/04/caution-this-book-is-not-for-childrenor.html">In a review of the Brick Testament I did two years ago,</a> I named three characteristics of a children’s Bible that we need to keep in mind every time we recommend, purchase, read, or gift one to a child. They are also the three things that make it different from the actual Bible. All three of them can be applied perfectly to <i>The Jesus Storybook Bible. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>First, a children’s picture Bible is never going to include every story from the actual Bible.</b> It is inconceivable that it would. There are just too many stories. Some of them are not all that interesting, and some are not all that appropriate for young children. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The Jesus Storybook Bible</i>, with its mission of telling a larger story of sin and salvation in scripture resolved finally in the life and death of Jesus Christ, chooses Old Testament stories that help to tell that story. <b>The truth is not every story in the Old Testament whispers the name of Jesus, and so the ones that don’t are not included.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For example, most children’s picture Bibles include the story of Jacob and Esau and the struggle over Esau’s birthright. It is a good story for children because it is about relationships between parents and siblings, about making mistakes, and about living with consequences. The author of <i>The Jesus Storybook Bible</i> instead chose to include the story of Isaac and his two wives Rachel and Leah, with a focus on the struggle of Leah. Normally, I would be all about focusing on the matriarchs in a children’s resource. But the way this story is told focuses on Leah’s difficult life as the “ugly” sister which is soon forgotten when she realizes that she will be the great, great, great etc. grandmother of the Savior of the world. (The Bible never indicates that Leah knew this would happen.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Second, a children’s picture Bible is going to paraphrase stories or other passages to make things shorter, to make the language more modern and easier for children to understand, and to simplify when there are extraneous details that don’t necessarily affect the overall story. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The Jesus Storybook Bible</i> is entirely paraphrased. In my admittedly quick reading of it, I never came across language that felt biblical to me, though even through its paraphrasing I was able to identify the interesting ways that the author helped to characterize Jesus with Old Testament language: prophet, king, servant, prince. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The strangest paraphrasing choices came when the author includes paraphrases of both Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer which work so hard at paraphrasing that they lose the poetic beauty that has made them so meaningful to people of faith for thousands of years. The best part about including something like the Lord’s Prayer <i>in its context of Jesus teaching people how to pray</i> in a children’s Bible is that you can remind a child that this is the same prayer that we use in church today. Reading from this version, you would be hard pressed to convince a child that they had ever heard it before.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Finally a children’s picture Bible is almost always going to provide an interpretation of the story, resolve unanswered questions, and potentially provide a lesson to be learned-- which, frustratingly and yet liberatingly, the Bible rarely does.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The Jesus Storybook Bible</i> is singularly focused on this particular feature of children’s picture Bibles. Characters’ motivations, including God’s, are presented very, very clearly. Everything that is included in this “Bible” is intended to provide either a reason for or a preview of the coming of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. Every mistake made by Old Testament characters will be made up for in the saving death of Jesus Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Reading the Old and New Testaments together are a vital part of understanding the Bible as Christians, and indeed there are many themes from the Old Testament that are carried over into the New Testament. For my taste though, this particular children’s Bible makes some interpretive leaps which, though I might be willing to entertain them in a conversation about salvation and our relationship with Christ, should not be presented to children as “coming from the Bible.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In one instance the author inserts dialogue from God that is not a paraphrase or summary of anything in the biblical text but entirely an invention of the author. It is one thing to add interpretative information, but to represent that interpretation as the words of God leaves me a little anxious. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here is the quote, which comes at the end of the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden in the book of Genesis: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: ‘It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I’m going to do battle with the snake. I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I’m coming back for you.’”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is a commendable (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christus_Victor">if not Christus Victor style</a>) sentiment, but it is just not from the Bible. The author does nothing to make that at all clear. I would argue that even an adult not intimately acquainted with this story could mistake this quote as something that is actually taken from the Bible. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Children’s picture Bibles can be expected to add additional dialogue between human characters to explain motivations and points of view in order to help children better grasp the story. I also understand that these picture Bibles will have to paraphrase words the Bible attributes to God so that a child can better understand them. But please don’t put words in God’s mouth. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Would I include <i>The Jesus Storybook Bible</i> in a church’s children’s library? Yes. Would I use it as the official “Bible” that I would give to a young child from her church to encourage biblical literacy? No. Would I use this as the primary curriculum for my child’s religious education? No. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While that may seem harsh, I would answer “no” to those questions for the majority of children’s picture Bibles on the market today, because almost all of them fall into these tendencies of omissions, paraphrases and interpretations.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here are links to my two favorite children’s picture Bibles, both of which unfortunately are out of print: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-First-Bible-Pat-Alexander/dp/1561483605/ref=sr_1_32?ie=UTF8&qid=1397024176&sr=8-32&keywords=My+First+Bible">My First Bible</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everlasting-Stories-Family-Bible-Treasury/dp/0811832589/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397024291&sr=8-1&keywords=Everlasting+Stories">Everlasting Stories</a>. They are worth tracking down from independent sellers and used book stores - especially if you are looking for a children’s picture Bible that sticks pretty close to the text of the Bible and doesn’t add too many interpretive notes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Picture Bibles are lovely and important vehicles to introduce young children to the stories of scripture through imaginative illustrations and creative storytelling. I think that children should be exposed to as many picture Bibles as they can be when they are young. I believe churches should have shelves packed with all kinds of retellings of the Bible created for children’s eyes, ears and hearts. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But the day will come, especially as their reading comprehension improves, when they need to be introduced to an actual Bible, and we should be mindful that our work is not done after we have read through a picture Bible with our children. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In two weeks I am going to share my experience of doing just that when we gave our son the <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Common-English-Bible-ImageFlex-Cover/dp/1609260325/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top">Common English Bible:Deep Blue Kids Bible</a> </i>this past fall when he started 3rd Grade. This represents a new phase for our family and we continue to learn how to do it better with plenty of mistakes along the way.</span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-19844806743996365292014-04-02T04:55:00.000-04:002014-04-15T02:17:03.937-04:00Iconic Stories of the Gospels: 5 (out of 100) Things Your Child Should Know Before Confirmation Class<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Samaritan Woman at the Well - He Qi</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">When I was just past Confirmation “age,” I attended a large national youth convention. It was memorable for me for two reasons. One, because, though I didn’t recognize it at the time, it was when I first sensed a call to ministry in the church. Two, because, even more importantly, it was the first time a story from the Bible really came alive for me and significantly impacted my faith.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">In all of the posts in this series,</a> I hope that I have been able to convey the ability of a fruitful confirmation experience to help students experience the Bible and the church in a new way not just for that one year, but for the rest of their lives.</b> Yes, as children and younger youth, we teach them the stories and we help build on their own personal experience of the church, but in Confirmation they are able to ask questions of the Bible, apply the Bible to their own experience, and even gain an appreciation for the beauty that is in scripture and be moved by it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>All five of these iconic stories from the Gospels are moving and meaningful in their own way, and in Confirmation class we can dig deeper into them to reveal a beauty that goes beyond a Sunday school version of the story. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was the story of the Samaritan woman, or “the woman at the well” (#67 in this list) that I experienced and understood in a radically new way at that conference. The story was told through liturgical dance (something that if done well can be very moving), and I for the first time could see myself in the scripture as though it was me who was experiencing this good news of Christ’s living water. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I have to believe that this was the result of the many in-depth conversations I had as a student in my Confirmation class not just about the Gospels and the message of Christ, but about the representation of women in the Bible and the significance of this particular woman’s conversation with Jesus. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For that experience and for those conversations I am forever grateful. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here is what students should come knowing about these five Gospel stories and how our conversations in Confirmation class can build off of them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>66. Jesus turns over the tables in the temple (Matthew 21:12-13)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is actually one of the stories from Jesus’ life that most students come to class knowing. Maybe it’s because it is such a short story. Maybe it’s because it is so out of character from the sweet and gentle Jesus they typically learn about in Sunday School. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Matthew’s version is slightly longer) we read of Jesus moving immediately from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) to the temple and casting out the money changers and the merchants selling animals for ritual sacrifice, saying, “My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (paraphrase).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we can ask a lot of questions about this story, some of which we have answers for and some of which we struggle with alongside generations who have come before us. Why does Jesus seem to act so out of character here? Is it actually out of character for him, or do we just not read (or teach to children) the more edgy stories of Jesus’ ministry? What is the point of this outburst? Is he saying that these operations would be okay if they were located </i>outside <i>the temple...just not inside its walls? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>What does this mean about how we handle money in the church? Should the church function like a business? Should the church sell things to raise money? </i><b><i>If Jesus walked into your church and saw the youth group running a bake sale outside the sanctuary, would he flip the table over and send snicker-doodles flying everywhere?</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>67. The Woman at the Well (John 4:4-42)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This story of the Samaritan woman is as long as the previous one is short, which is probably why fewer students are familiar with it. If you are not familiar with it yourself, it is absolutely worth the ten minutes to read it in its entirety. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But to summarize: Jesus travels into an area usually avoided by devoted Jews because it took one through Samaria, where because of geopolitical struggles over the previous centuries there lived a group of people who practiced a slightly distorted version of the Jewish faith. Jesus is undeterred and even stops at a public well at noon and speaks there with a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What follows is the longest conversation Jesus has with any one person in any of the four gospels. He and the woman debate theology and in particular the promised coming of the Messiah. He reveals himself to her as that Messiah, and she in turn evangelizes in her local village and brings her community to come and meet Jesus for themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>In Confirmation we can talk about the role of women in the Gospels. Why are so many of them unnamed? How does Jesus treat women compared to how women were treated by others in that ancient culture? </i></b><i>What does it mean that Jesus seems to know all about this woman? In our relationship with Jesus, do we feel like Jesus “knows” us as well? How does the writer use the image of water in this story? How do these images of water influence the way we understand our baptism? If we too are touched by the water of baptism will we never be thirsty again? What does it mean that the water of baptism is “living” water?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>68. Call of the Disciples (Luke 5:1-11)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jesus’ disciples are sort of a rag-tag group of men who came to him from a variety of social locations and positions in the community. But despite their diversity we still tend to think of them primarily as a group of fishermen - most likely because of this story of Jesus calling them to follow him and the stories of them fishing together after Jesus’ resurrection at the end of the Gospel of John.<br />
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According to Luke, Jesus came to Lake Geneseret (aka the Sea of Galilee) and was pressed upon by a crowd of people who wished to hear him teach. He asked a local fisherman (Simon) who had come in from a full day of fishing to take him out in his boat so that he could teach the crowds from there. At the end of his teaching, he asked Simon to put out further into the water and to lower his nets for a catch. Simon told him that they had been fishing all day and had caught nothing, so there was little hope that this time there would be any fish in the water. But of course his nets immediately filled and more help had to come out from the shore just to pull them into the boat. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Of course Simon and his friends James and John were impressed. Simon knelt at Jesus’ feet and declared himself unworthy of him, and Jesus invited him to come join him and to now fish for people instead.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>When students come to Confirmation already knowing this iconic story of call, it can serve as the foundation for a conversation about their own call both to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to other service in the church either ordained or as a lay person. </i></b><i>Does Jesus only call the perfect and the equipped? How does God use the unique gifts we are each given to serve the church and the world? What does it mean to leave something behind, as the fishermen left their nets behind, in order to answer Christ’s call?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>69</b><i>. </i></span><b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Zacchaeus the Tax Collector (Luke 19:1-10)</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this classic Sunday school story, Jesus comes to the town of Jericho and as always is mobbed by those who want to hear him teach. A short man named Zacchaeus, who is also a tax collector, decides to climb a tree to get a better view. Jesus sees him in the tree, calls him by name, and tells him to come down so that he can give dinner to Jesus and his friends. The crowd is shocked that Jesus would go to the home of a tax collector (sinner). Zacchaeus promises Jesus to give half of his money to the poor and to compensate four-fold any whom he has cheated in the course of his work. Jesus names him a son of Abraham and declares that salvation has come to his house.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we can dig deeper into some of the more unique cultural elements of first century life. While we may not like paying taxes, we do not have the same baggage when it comes to the morals of tax collectors. Because the Bible often describes the inclusiveness or radicalness of Jesus as a man who eats with tax collectors and sinners, students can learn in class what that characterization would have meant for the first hearers/readers of the Gospels. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>What does it mean that Jesus associates with those who the world calls unclean, bad and immoral? Who would be “tax collectors” in our world? Do we as Christians seek out these people to offer grace and love or do we try to disassociate ourselves from them just like Jesus’ first followers did? </i></b></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">70. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1 - 7:29)</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These three chapters in the Gospel of Matthew contain a unified collection of Jesus’ major teachings. Chances are if you think you know something that Jesus said or taught it came from the Sermon on the Mount. Here is where we get our Christian understanding of forgiveness, of prayer, and of reconciliation. The speech contains a variety of examples of how Jesus sought to reinterpret the laws of the Old Testament. Of course, he would probably say it was less of a reinterpretation and more of a corrective interpretation for how the law was intended to be used. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Again, just like the story of the woman at the well, if you as a parent are not familiar with the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, you should take the time to read it for yourself and together with your child. You will be amazed both at how familiar it all sounds AND at how overwhelming it is to see all of these expectations for the believer in one place. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we can spend time looking specifically at what Jesus teaches in terms of how the believer behaves in his or her private and public life. </i><b><i>It is not just enough to declare faith in Jesus Christ, but one who chooses to walk this path needs to know that it is not an easy journey - we are expected to love our enemies, to resolve disputes with our friends quickly, to not judge others, and to let our light shine brightly in the world. </i></b><i>How do we do all of these things? Are we supposed to do all of these things? Can you call yourself a Christian and choose to ignore some of them? To whom are we accountable? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We are just two more posts away from completing <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/p/100-things-your-child-needs-to-know.html">this list.</a><b> I am excited to share that the entire list, my reflections on it, and more suggestions and ideas for parents and educators is coming together as a book over the next several months. I will keep the blog updated with news as we get closer to publication. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To be sure not to miss out on these updates, take a minute (at the top of this page) to sign up for updates from Bread not Stones via Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed or email. Thanks!</span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-31473032408070889202014-03-26T02:07:00.000-04:002014-04-02T04:56:09.644-04:0012 Developmental Steps for Children & Youth in the Life of a Congregation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">I usually write about the things that our children and youth should</span><i style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> know</i><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and how we can teach it to them at home and at church. <b>But I have been thinking more recently about all of the things that we need to teach our children to be able to </b></span><b><i style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">do </i><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">as they grow in maturity as a member of a community of faith.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So I thought through the ways that children develop in their capabilities as members of the community and came up with twelve markers (based on age and area of competency) to help us all think about how we are nurturing and encouraging children in their role as members of the church. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is not intended as a critique of children who have not yet taken these steps, but as an aid to examining how we share our expectations with children and youth and the opportunities we give them to meet or exceed those expectations.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>In my experience, children and youth are ready for many of these things much earlier than we would think. They are simply waiting to be asked to rise to the occasion. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1. By the end of <b>elementary school</b>, a child should be able to <b>follow along</b> in a worship bulletin on their own, understand the cues for sitting and standing, and be able to use the worship resources as needed throughout the service - song book, hymnal, Bible, etc. This skill is obviously best nurtured when children are regular participants in worship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2. By the end of <b>middle school</b>, a student should be able to <b>slip in and out of the sanctuary</b> during worship without being noticed. This can come in handy if they need to excuse themselves to the restroom, if they are helping with programming outside the sanctuary during worship, or if they just need to take a break to be able to make it through the rest of the service. Honestly, this is a skill that many adults lack, and in a youth it shows their growing appreciation of the sacredness of worship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3. By the end of <b>high school</b>, a youth should be able to <b>greet and welcome a visitor</b> to the worshiping community. This could mean a hearty handshake and hello during the passing of the peace. It could mean making space in the pew for a stranger who needs a seat. It could even mean noticing when someone can’t find a hymnal and offering theirs.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>BIBLE SKILLS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">4. By the end of <b>elementary school</b> a child should be able to <b>look up a passage in the Bible</b> using the regular notation for chapter and verse, e.g., Matthew 5:19. This skill is developed by following along with scripture readings in worship, looking up passages on their own in Sunday school, and reading the Bible regularly at home. </span></div>
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5. By the end of<b> middle school</b> a student should be able to <b>read and teach a simple Bible story</b> to a younger child or group of children. This skill is directly related to a student’s ability to comprehend and understand a narrative from the Bible and to convey it in their own words. Again this comes from practice especially in a congregation where youth are encouraged to work with and mentor younger children.<br />
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6. By the end of <b>high school</b> a youth should be able to <b>apply a story from the Bible or a piece of scripture to their own personal experience. </b>This is the next step in reading comprehension: beyond retelling or explaining a passage to actually being able to apply the Bible to their own lives or the lives of others. Granted, not all of the Bible is easily applicable. But, for example, if they were engaged in a conversation about the parable of the Prodigal Son, they should be able to understand the story as it related to a time when they themselves have received or offered unearned forgiveness, and reflect on how that might relate to the grace offered to them from God.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">7. By the end of <b>elementary school </b>a child should be able to <b>sit in the front of the sanctuary or chancel</b> for the majority of worship without being a distraction to the congregation. Many elementary age children are able to do much more when it comes to leading the congregation in worship, but sitting as a part of a choir or worship team without drawing undo attention to themselves is an important skill that we often overlook.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">8. By the end of <b>middle school</b> a student should be able to <b>clearly read scripture</b> for the community as a part of worship. Many students will be ready and capable of doing this much earlier, but by the end of middle school this should be second nature. Again, this skill can only be nurtured by giving them practice and experience. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">9. By the end of <b>high school</b> a youth should be able to <b>serve as liturgist</b> for the entire worship service. This is the end result of a natural progression of giving youth opportunities to practice different worship leadership skills throughout high school. Even the most self-conscious teenagers have told me that standing in front and speaking church and doesn’t make them anxious, because they know they are loved by their community. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>CONGREGATIONAL LEADERSHIP<br />
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</b>10. By the end of <b>elementary school</b> a child should be able to <b>host a visiting child</b> during a Sunday morning. This can mean taking a visitor by the hand (literally or figuratively) to a Sunday School classroom, helping them know where to sit in a larger fellowship gathering, making small talk with them, and basically doing whatever they can to help the visitor have a good experience at church that day. This is the kind of skill that is developed by clearly expressing our expectations to children - explaining what it means to provide hospitality and making sure to thank a child at the end of the morning for their willingness to help the teachers and Sunday school leaders that day. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">11. By the end of <b>middle school </b>a student should be able to <b>volunteer side by side with adult volunteers</b> in the congregation. Often we put a bunch of teenagers to a task as a group and hope that the gift of being together will motivate them to be helpful to the community. Ghettoizing youth in the congregation does little to help them learn to be productive <i>adult </i>members of the congregation. I have seen middle schoolers very effectively lay sod at a Habitat House with adults from the community, work in tandem with adults to decorate the church for Christmas, and even co-facilitate crafts for young children at a church fellowship event. Working side by side with adults who are not their parents helps them feel like their time and skills are just as valuable as those of the adult person with whom they are serving.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">12. By the end of <b>high school</b> a youth should be able to <b>participate thoughtfully in a committee meeting or Sunday School class </b>with adult members of the congregation. As soon as youth realize how valued they are in our aging congregations, they will take their role and contribution seriously as they share their ideas and opinions in the larger conversations that happen in the church. They have opinions, and they can learn to articulate them well--and by giving them opportunities to do so, adults can learn how to truly hear them and take their sharing to heart.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What expectations do you have for your the children and youth in your community? How do you help them rise to the occasion?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span>Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-33320272295271756422014-03-19T04:08:00.001-04:002014-03-26T02:09:48.985-04:00The World Religions: 5 (out of 100) Things Your Child Should Know Before Confirmation Class<div style="font-family: Oswald;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;">I have written a few times before about being part of a family that is “inter-religious.” You can find these posts <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/12/benefit-of-buddhist-brother.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/06/little-buddha-raising-child-in.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/10/yoga-children-peace-of-christ.html">here</a>. Obviously, we are motivated to talk in our home about what it means to be a part of a religion that is not Christian.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnpNkzxKnjNFoAgjtoavcyO4Wc30Br_c5D1_DGVw94r1YTCAOLmruOPFiYhmJavTuEI7phzWxtHE1wtMHkUHElkxDvVEjLD2ARyb54z-0mId3tefqR_ZAWVXy1okJZYOj3zJo0QRwiV4s/s1600/IMG_4175.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnpNkzxKnjNFoAgjtoavcyO4Wc30Br_c5D1_DGVw94r1YTCAOLmruOPFiYhmJavTuEI7phzWxtHE1wtMHkUHElkxDvVEjLD2ARyb54z-0mId3tefqR_ZAWVXy1okJZYOj3zJo0QRwiV4s/s1600/IMG_4175.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">prayer beads from my brother</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Of all the conversations that we have together with our son, these are the ones that seem to repeat most often. For example, no matter how many times we explain what it means to be Jewish, he will ask the same question again a month or so later.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Interestingly, he hardly ever asks about being a Buddhist. He only knows one, and I think he just trusts that his uncle knows what he is doing, so he doesn’t worry about it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>When I work with students in a middle school, high school or Confirmation class, I instinctively want to teach them to respect and even appreciate other faith traditions. And yet, most youth these days have a decidedly post-modern perspective on the world, which means that they are already comfortable with differences and differences of opinion. They don’t usually need me to teach them respect...they need to hear from me why is I have chosen and why they may choose to be a Christian in the midst of a diverse religious landscape. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When my son asks again and again about what it means to be a different religion, I choose to believe that he is not so much interested in whatever religion he is asking about that day as he is in understanding why we have chosen ours. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Certainly there are moments when misperceptions and prejudices about other religions need to be named and corrected in class. Not all youth are postmodern, and not all of them are being raised in homes that would welcome open conversations about other religions. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I only ever touch briefly on world religions in Confirmation class, but have had some wonderful and in depth conversations with high school students using<a href="http://www.faithaliveresources.org/Products/130495/which-way-to-god-leaders-guide.aspx"> this curriculum which I really enjoy from Faith Alive Resources. </a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In Confirmation, students just need to be aware of the most basic elements of the major world religions, so that they can easily make comparisons between the experiences they have in their practice of Christianity and the particulars of other religions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>96. Christianity<br />
</b>It is important that students understand that Christianity is a global religion that has the same kind of geographic and historical elements to it that we often use to define other world religions. At the most basic, students should have a sense that Christianity began in the first century in Palestine and soon spread throughout the Middle East and into Northern Africa and Europe. They should understand that Christianity is one of the three primary monotheistic religions. They should also understand that of the major world religions Christianity is the only one which believes in the incarnation of God in human form - Jesus of Nazareth.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we actually spend a significant chunk of time on the history of Christianity and how it has developed over the past 2,000 years. <b>When students come with a larger sense of the Christian story, it is then possible to talk about the way that the Church has been involved in the development of western civilization, the mistakes that we have made as the Church, and the way that we as Christians live in a religiously plural world today.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>97. Islam<br />
</b>I started teaching my first Confirmation class in the fall of 2002, right around the first anniversary of September 11th. Of all the world religions, this is the one that needs the most correction or explanation for students. Frequently they come to class with misperceptions or even just false information that they have gleaned from a variety of sources. So while there is a lot that I hope students don’t come knowing (or thinking they know) about Islam, here are the things that they should know. They should know that Islam is a monotheistic religion, founded by the prophet Mohamed. They should know that Muslims trace their ancestral heritage to Abraham and that their scripture is the Koran. They should also know that while Islam started in the Middle East, there are Muslims living all over the world. </span></div>
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<i>In Confirmation class when we move through the stories of Genesis and the patriarchs (and matriarchs) we can pause for a time to talk about the stories of Hagar and Ishmael. These stories are rarely included in the rotation of Bible stories that we teach to children, and so in Confirmation we can broaden the story and help students better understand the connections between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. <b>In Confirmation class we also talk a lot about the significance of scripture in our life of faith. Talking about the ways that Muslims respect and care for the Koran can provide some helpful perspective on how we treat our physical Bible. </b></i><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>98. Judaism</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For many years part of our Confirmation class included a visit to a local synagogue for Friday evening worship. It was always a helpful experience. Judaism is one of the hardest of the world religions for students to wrap their heads around, I believe, because it is so closely connected to our heritage as Christians -with one significant difference. Before they step into Confirmation class students need to understand that Christians and Jews share the tradition of the Old Testament...that the primary characters of the Old Testament would all be considered Jewish (though this is an oversimplification of the development of the history of Israel and the faith of the Israelites)...and most importantly that Jesus and his disciples were Jewish. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class we spend a significant amount of time in the Old Testament talking about themes of covenant, exile, liberation, promise, redemption, atonement and messianic hope. All of these theological elements are our inheritance from the Jewish tradition. <b>In Confirmation class we try to put the stories of the New Testament in the context of the first century Jewish community who would have heard Jesus’ parables, his sermons, and his interpretation of the law all with the Old Testament in mind. </b>In class we can also touch on the ways that the Christian church has significantly persecuted the Jewish community over the past two thousand years. What does it mean to be inheritors of that history as well? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>99. Buddhism</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My brother would be the first to tell you that much of what you think is Buddhist is not - most significantly, the rash of mindfulness-oriented movements that litter the religion table at your favorite big box bookstore. The most vital things that students should understand before they come to Confirmation class are very simple. Buddhism is the only one of the five major world religions that does not orient their worship towards a divine being. More simply put, Buddhists do not worship any god. Probably they will come knowing that there is a Buddha, but it is unlikely that they will really understand what it means to be a Buddha. They should understand that Buddhism developed in Asia and while it is still significant in that part of the world, there are Buddhists living around the globe. Since on most days I myself can’t remember the eightfold path or the four noble truths, I think that it would be a stretch to think that they would as well.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class, when everything is going just right, we can find the time to talk about evil and suffering in the world. We can ask questions about why a good God would let such bad things happen. As part of these conversations we can confront the misperception that being a Christian is an insurance policy on a charmed life. We can confront the prosperity gospel that tries to convince us that if God blesses us then we will have personal and professional success. This can be the perfect opportunity to talk about the Buddhist concepts of life and suffering - in that all life is suffering and they follow the teachings of the Buddha to do what they can to alleviate the suffering in their lives and in the lives of all other living beings. <b>What would it mean if that were our chief aim as Christians - in everything we do to seek to alleviate suffering? Would we live our Christian lives differently? How many times in his life and miracles did Jesus seek to alleviate the sufferings of others? A lot. </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>100. Hinduism</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hinduism may be even harder to quantify for children and youth, but here are some of the basics that they should be able to grasp - Hinduism is the ancient religion of India and the root tradition of Buddhism. Hinduism is not a monotheistic religion. A variety of different traditions and gods make up a pantheon of possibilities when it comes to how one practices Hinduism. Hinduism is also where we find the origin of the concept of reincarnation.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation we obviously talk about what it means to be a monotheistic religion. For the first time, though, students may be introduced to the fact that the earliest believers of the Old Testament didn’t exactly believe that the God of Abraham and Moses was the only god that existed. Rather, they believed that theirs was the only God they should worship. This is a significant difference in how we understand what it means to worship one God alone. When we talk about worshiping the same God as a Jew or a Muslim we know that though we have different experiences of the same God, it is still the same God, and we believe the only God. <b>When we as Christians relate to Hindus, we have to consider what it means for a faith to believe in an entirely different set of gods than we do. Does that change our willingness to learn from that tradition? </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>I think it also bears mentioning that the theological concept of reincarnation is very much a part of our popular culture. It would not surprise me at all to hear a group of students talking about “who they want to be/what they want to do in their next life.” Without being an alarmist or a party-pooper, I think it is important to name for Confirmation students that we don’t believe in reincarnation, but rather resurrection. Not that resurrection is a simple concept to grasp...but that is a whole other conversation. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The final question for this specific set of concepts or themes, which is technically the final five items in this list of 100, is how do we actually teach our children the basics of the five world religions? Even I struggle to know the best way to represent a tradition that is not my own. Fortunately there are several books out there for children that do just this. I am listing several of them below which I have found helpful and know you will as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Of course as we have also experienced in our family, children learn even more from personal connections than they can from reading a book, so don't </span>hesitate<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to nurture these diverse relationships in your family and community. It will make for great conversations. </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Enjoy!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjG_u6R9ZpjqxeVnnairLqWqBEfrHwHolQvR2dTot3Qic-nDG9XyiGkohYRqTuj1LJRsqooa9OwZM4d4Kt1Q4SoUeECobYQSqB0oWtpC9HqVLwQYW1KvZMt8IEhSx_K2TqNH61fhi1qZo/s1600/DK+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjG_u6R9ZpjqxeVnnairLqWqBEfrHwHolQvR2dTot3Qic-nDG9XyiGkohYRqTuj1LJRsqooa9OwZM4d4Kt1Q4SoUeECobYQSqB0oWtpC9HqVLwQYW1KvZMt8IEhSx_K2TqNH61fhi1qZo/s1600/DK+book.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/World-Religions-Faiths-Explored-Explained/dp/0756617723/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395153439&sr=8-2&keywords=children+and+world+religions">World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored and Explained</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWB-BmVdwI3Atu92Kf5Xt2TpWBF08G1rtqV9Ss94dz9VAem-hFGJfeDuvBnGwpKTdV9jrclxx03daXfKXUc_e4U6ya11IZKOuM7-_t7pCago2NaW5c0WarLZAETq0kSPue6fgC-oLtIqI/s1600/Sacred+Stories.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWB-BmVdwI3Atu92Kf5Xt2TpWBF08G1rtqV9Ss94dz9VAem-hFGJfeDuvBnGwpKTdV9jrclxx03daXfKXUc_e4U6ya11IZKOuM7-_t7pCago2NaW5c0WarLZAETq0kSPue6fgC-oLtIqI/s1600/Sacred+Stories.jpg" height="200" width="141" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Stories-Wisdom-World-Religions/dp/1582703345/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395215483&sr=8-11"> Sacred Stories: Wisdom from World Religions</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesp2ART-M8DnaCtvX2HJrGDUaXJaFjMwUHROzSXv8N-vxyIUMZHeXalllho-DhJwyQFSMvTjCFZZyagalOvZfoTj92eLG1ZgevYkoriO4mGIiyoNNw61JlSbqJUoSd6DI5F3udHmJe8M/s1600/perfect+stranger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesp2ART-M8DnaCtvX2HJrGDUaXJaFjMwUHROzSXv8N-vxyIUMZHeXalllho-DhJwyQFSMvTjCFZZyagalOvZfoTj92eLG1ZgevYkoriO4mGIiyoNNw61JlSbqJUoSd6DI5F3udHmJe8M/s1600/perfect+stranger.jpg" height="200" width="129" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Perfect-Stranger-Essential-Religious-ebook/dp/B002AVU2SW/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395153620&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=religious+ettiquett">How to Be a Perfect Stranger: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People's Religious Ceremonies</a></span></div>
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Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-55466129741997431622014-03-12T03:23:00.000-04:002014-03-26T02:10:12.452-04:00The Last Temptation of Christ or Why Church is Sometimes All Joy and No Fun<div style="font-family: Georgia;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Every first week of Lent, as we hear the story of Jesus’ temptation for 40 days in the wilderness, I can’t help but recall the way that Martin Scorsese depicted this scene in his controversial interpretation of Nikos Kazantzakis’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">novel <i>The Last Temptation of Christ</i>.</span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Jesus prepares himself for this time of trial, he draws a circle in the sand out of which he will not move. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Scorsese</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> films it from above, and from the arial vantage point we can see that it is not just any circle but rather a perfect circle which could never be drawn by a human hand, only by the divine. That always impressed teenagers when I showed the scene in class.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The controversy surrounding the film, of course, was not the depiction of Jesus’ temptation in the desert but rather a final temptation offered to him as he hangs on the cross. I remember as a child hearing adults around me talk about the movie and the people who were planning to protest showings of it around the country. Many too easily criticized the film because it it shows Jesus having intimate relations with a woman (or rather, a few women). Sex, then, is what we think the film is about--this is the “last temptation” that Jesus has to face. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kazantzakis’s book, though, is not really about sex at all. He uses the story of Jesus of Nazareth to explore the theme of the flesh verses the spirit. <b>His Jesus wrestles with this nagging sense of divinity that is growing within him, with the pain that will come with submitting to its call, and with the apartness that it makes him feel from his fellow human beings. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>When Jesus succumbs to this last temptation, it is about being normal again, about having a family, about lifting the burden of so many expectations from his shoulders. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To be honest, the movie ruined Willem Dafoe for me forever. His Jesus is just so angst-ridden, so troubled by his inner struggle, so frustrated by the misunderstandings of those around him. Dafoe’s (</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Scorsese</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">’s/Kazantzakis’) Jesus may find divine joy in life, but he is not having any human fun in the living. This is his final temptation. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>In her recent book about the state of modern parenthood, <i>All Joy and No Fun</i>, Jennifer Senior describes this same struggle: that while parenthood holds brief moments of joy, the day to day living of it, wrestling with the expectations, facing the disappointments, loosing one’s autonomy, make most moments void of fun. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>As I parent I often experience being at church with my child as all joy and no fun. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yes, there are beautiful moments of joy: experiencing my son’s baptism, sharing the sacrament of Communion with him, listening to him him sing in worship, helping him light a prayer candle at an evening vespers service, watching him connect with an elderly church member who treats him as another grandchild. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But for each moment of joy there are many moments that are very un-fun: not being able to keep him from crying during worship and knowing that some people are waiting for me to remove him from the sanctuary; needing to play tic tac toe with him during the sermon to keep him from squirming in the pew next to me--which means that I walk away from worship not feeling like I was present; arguing with him about being well-behaved during the Christmas Eve nativity after his shepherd’s crook has been used for nefarious purposes; seeing him almost knock over an elderly member of the congregation while he is playing tag with his friends in the church hallways. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I know that church is not always fun for him either, and not just because his mother is the pastor.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It used to be the highest compliment we could garner to have a child or parent tell us that Sunday school was fun that morning. Fun was the goal. Fun was the benchmark that parents used when deciding whether or not to make our church their faith home. I have even caught myself asking my son, when we visit a new church, if he had any fun in Sunday school, as though that would be the sign that it was a good morning.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Honestly, we could never compete in the fun factor when the mega-church down the street installed slides as the means for children to reach their Sunday school classes. Now that is fun. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Chasing the ever elusive “fun” in our families means that more often than not we are pulled away from regular participation in a faith community. </b>I had a friend tell me once that on any given Sunday morning his young daughter is just as likely to ask to be taken to the pool as she is to church, and honestly, taking her to the pool just sounds like more fun. So that is what they do instead. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>If so much of our lives as parents or as families is not fun, why would we make time in our busy and burdened schedules for one more thing that can be un-fun?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Why does Jesus, in <i>The Last Temptation of Christ</i>, resist this last temptation in the end?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Because of the joy.</b> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jesus (of the Gospels, not of the film) was willing to bear the burden of the cross because of the joy that comes in the resurrection. Jesus was willing to feel apart from his disciples because of the joy that comes through union with God. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The question is whether or not we as parents, who in theory want to raise our children within the church, are willing to bear the un-fun burden of that kind of discipline in order to experience the joy of sharing the life of faith with our children. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last week as we began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, I chatted before worship with the pastor who was co-leading the service with me at our small downtown congregation. He serves a church with far more young families than ours, and yet he pointed out to me that it was unlikely that any of them would make the trek in from the suburbs with their children that night. Even his family had stayed at home. I honestly had contemplated not going myself until my pastor had to call in sick and asked me to fill in for her. The potential for un-fun abounded.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And yes, my son did leave the pew to come and tell me about something that had struck him as funny right in the middle of the imposition of the ashes. Yes, he did read a book about children who morph into animals instead of paying attention during the sermon. Yes, he was the only child in attendance. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>But I would suffer it all again to hear him singing “What Wondrous Love is This,” clear and bright, as we stood in the front pew together. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I focus on the joy, because it is those moments of joy that will serve as the foundation of his growing faith, and my growing faith as well. <b>The temptation is to forget the joy, and to fail to recognize the power of the joy. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lent is about as un-fun a church season as you can have, and so we can only make it through if we set our faces firmly towards the joy that will come in our celebration of Christ’s resurrection. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Lent is a season of confronting our limitations and our temptations. May this Lenten season, for me, be a time to resist the temptation to undervalue the joy of accompanying my son on his journey into faith. And may joy abound for all of our sakes.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!<br />
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!<br />
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss<br />
To bear the heavy cross for my soul, for my soul,<br />
To bear the heavy cross for my soul.</i></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-14771018744738354872013-12-18T01:45:00.000-05:002014-03-12T03:30:13.709-04:00The Miracles of Jesus: 5 (out of 100) Things Your Child Should Know BEFORE Confirmation.<div style="font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="color: #232323; letter-spacing: 0px;">The other day, while walking home from church, my son asked me if I ever wonder whether or not the things in the Bible actually happened.</span><span style="color: #232323; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He said, “...like the story of the bush that was on fire and didn’t burn. That just can’t happen.” </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2z7W5i8WODs6AMOi1aSIUe3KYGsKajiJxfCPmOW9pXXQ5tFLfYm2U3tA4QAj1HiBShsaej3Ez0dl9yhMG-jZ6QSgIK1Fk4tkYMvXBL_JCaI6aeg4F16juiqPSkSMjKo0nTtLHsKTJb2E/s1600/IMG_0966.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2z7W5i8WODs6AMOi1aSIUe3KYGsKajiJxfCPmOW9pXXQ5tFLfYm2U3tA4QAj1HiBShsaej3Ez0dl9yhMG-jZ6QSgIK1Fk4tkYMvXBL_JCaI6aeg4F16juiqPSkSMjKo0nTtLHsKTJb2E/s320/IMG_0966.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I told him that yes, there are some things in the Bible that are hard to explain and hard to understand AND which seem impossible to us. But the Bible is not just a story of what is possible for us, but there are also parts that tell us about things that are only possible for God to do. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He wasn’t all that satisfied with this response...so I tried again.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I told him that I can’t really understand everything that happened in the Bible, but what I know is true and I know is real is that these stories were important to the people who came before us. They told these stories to teach each other about God, and this means that we continue to teach them and hear them, and they should still be important for us today. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This, for some reason, made him feel much better. He could understand the real people who told these miraculous stories even when the miracles themselves were too hard to understand. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Often when we teach the stories of the miraculous works of Jesus Christ from the gospels, both teachers and students get caught up in the plausibility or the probability of each one. We try to figure out how you fillet a fish into that many parts rather than trying to find the meaning behind a story of abundance. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Confirmation is the perfect time to really wrestle with the miraculous moments in scripture - especially those done at the hands (and feet) of Jesus. <b>When students have been taught the stories of Jesus’ miracles as younger children, they have had time to integrate the details into their understanding of who Jesus was. In Confirmation they can then wrestle with their faith in Jesus as a miracle worker and the question of what they can do when the miracles seem too hard to believe. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Can you believe in Jesus without believing in miracles? For some the answer will be yes. For some it will be no. For some students this will not be a pivotal moment in their year of discernment, but for others this may be the lynch pin that helps them make an informed decision about their faith. <b>These conversations require time to be devoted to this deep exploration and practice in struggling with our faith. This is why it is vital that all students come ready to have these conversations and knowing the following stories from all four of the gospels. </b></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>51. Feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:30-44)</b></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We actually do a pretty good job overall in teaching miracle stories to our children either at home or in Sunday school - and especially this miraculous feeding story found in Mark, Matthew and Luke. While each gospel has its own twists on the story, the basic premiss is the same: Jesus has been teaching at length to a large crowd of people, and when the time has come for them to eat there is not enough food. The disciples urge Jesus to send the people to go find food on their own. Jesus urges the disciples to take the meager supplies they have and make it stretch to feed the masses. <a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/07/tough-texts-miracle-of-generosity.html">I have written before on this particular miracle and how we talk to children about it here.</a> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Confirmation class a miracle story like this is especially interesting to talk about, because there are many interpretations and some reasonable explanations about what might have happened. Some argue that the miracle in this story is not that something was created from out of thin air, but that in seeing the generosity of the disciples, others pulled out what they had brought, and it turned out that instead of the perception of scarcity the crowd was astonished by the reality of abundance. It is a lovely way to try to explain away a miracle, and so it is important to not teach this interpretation as fact, because students will cling to it a little too easily.<b> Miracles are supposed to make us uncomfortable, and you shouldn’t ease that burden too quickly. Instead, you can pull from this interpretation the valuable concepts of scarcity and abundance and talk about what it means that Jesus tells us that we are to live abundantly.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>52. Walking on Water (Matthew 14:22-23)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I think many of these miracle stories are so prevalent in children’s Sunday school because they make wonderful visual images. In Matthew’s version of this story (which occurs immediately following the above feeding miracle) the disciples have been sent away from Jesus to spend the night on their fishing boat while Jesus spends solitary time in prayer. Jesus comes out to them on the boat, walking on the surface of the water. At first they mistake him for a ghost; then Peter (always wanting to be the most faithful) asks Jesus to call him out so that he too can walk on the water. When Peter inevitably sinks, Jesus chides him, “ye of little faith,” and we are left to wonder what exactly Jesus was trying to achieve through this violation of the laws of physics. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>One of the things that we often forget in this time of waning biblical literacy is that there are many expressions in the English language that come directly from the Bible, and their meaning is colored by the stories from which they are taken. Two come from this story. Characterizing someone as being able to walk on water has become a way of describing someone who is perfect, someone who can do no wrong, someone who is beyond all other people. In Confirmation we talk about what it means that Jesus was human and divine at the same time. Were these kind of sensational miracles a way to remind readers of the gospels of this? <b>Yes, Jesus was human in that sometimes he just needed a little alone time to rest from the pushing in of the crowds and the whining of his disciples, but lest you think he is fallible, here he is walking on water to remind you that he is also divine. </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The second phrase that is pulled from this story is Jesus’ comment to Peter - O ye of little faith. In Confirmation we can really wrestle with what Jesus meant by this. Did he mean that if only Peter were more faithful, he too would be able to walk on water? Did he mean that if Peter had more faith, then Jesus would have been able to help him walk on water? Did he just mean - as we tell all children when they are learning to swim - that they just need to trust themselves, and they will float in the water and not drown? </i></span></div>
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<b>53. The Raising of Lazarus (John 11:1-45)</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This story, found only in the Gospel of John, is one of the weirdest in all of the gospels. In John’s gospel, Jesus has a particularly close relationship with Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. This is why it seems especially strange when, upon hearing of Lazarus’ poor condition, Jesus waits to go to him until he has died. It does allow for a wonderful scene between Jesus and the sisters and occasion for what many students have come to know as the shortest verse in all of scripture - “Jesus wept.” Jesus goes to the tomb, asks for the stone to be removed, and calls Lazarus to wake up and come out - which he obediently does. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>This story provides a wealth of questions to pose in a Confirmation class, both because of its weirdness and John’s particular way of telling it. In Confirmation class we can take a story that students might think they know and ask them to do a closer and slower reading of the story. When they do that, hopefully these are some of the questions they will have: <b>Does Jesus really let Lazarus die just so he can perform this miracle of resurrection? Does God let bad things happen to us today just so we can later experience God’s grace? </b>Why does Jesus weep if he knows that Lazarus will be resurrected? Does God weep at our loses with us? Is God affected by our pain as Jesus was affected by the sadness of Mary and Martha? Does Jesus sometimes do things just for show - just for the spectacle?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>54. Water into Wine (John 2:1-11)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Like the story of Jesus walking on water, the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding seems a little out of sync with the other miraculous deeds he performs. What is the lesson to be taken from a miracle about restocking the open bar at a party? Jesus, his disciples and his mother are in attendance at a local wedding, and when the wine is just about to run out Mary comes to Jesus to compel him to solve the problem. Jesus’ response to his mother is often read as being a little rude, but he complies and turns several containers of water into superior wine. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>I never understand why couples choose this story as a passage to be read at their own wedding, since it doesn’t address the idea of marriage at all; it is, though, a great springboard for a Confirmation class to discuss the uniqueness of the Gospel of John. John is all about signs and miracles (including the raising of Lazarus mentioned above). It is both a great way to teach students that each gospel has its own color and theological perspective on the life and ministry of Jesus and to help them talk about what kinds of signs we recognize in our world today. <b>Are there signs that Christ is coming again? Are there signs that God is at work in the world? Are there signs that the Holy Spirit is still among us today? Who gets to recognize these signs and who interprets them?</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>55. The Healing of the Paralytic (Luke 5:17-26)<br />
</b>There are numerous stories of healing miracles in the Gospels, but we tend to teach children this one more often, because it involves a group of friends. Often healing stories are just about Jesus and the sick person, or Jesus and the blind man, but in this story Jesus is not the only one who acts. Here a group of men take action to secure healing for their friend by extraordinary means. Jesus is teaching in a home that is packed full, and yet these men know that Jesus is the only hope their paralyzed friend has for healing. So they choose to take him up (prone on his bed) to the roof of the house, pull open a hole in the tiles, and lower him down to Jesus. Jesus witnesses the faith of the friends, and upon the forgiveness of his sins the man is healed. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>This story opens up a lot of questions about how faith, prayer and healing all work together in our lives today. We pray for our friends and family when they are sick and dying. <b>We talk about the power of prayer and the support we give each other in prayer. Yet unlike the faith and intercession these men make on behalf of their friend, which compels Jesus to offer healing, our faith and our prayer is sometimes not enough.</b> This can lead to questions about how we experience Jesus today. Does the risen Christ still work miracles of healing? We thank God when someone gets better; should we curse God when they don’t? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Miracles are hard to understand, hard to believe, and hard to find. It can take just one miracle not given or one moment when Jesus seems late to the party, for a person to struggle with their faith and their understanding not just of how Jesus acted 2,000 years ago, but how God acts in our lives and in our world today. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>We throw the word miracle around all the time. In Confirmation class students can gain valuable tools to bring to these hard but inevitable conversations and struggles, but only if they come to class primed to have these important conversations.</b></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-18781919962745991902013-12-03T14:42:00.000-05:002014-03-12T03:30:40.183-04:00The Sound of My Child’s Voice: Choosing Our New Church Home<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKd-u92E982l4XxiVWXrqav4DjyXsJD6johiRcRp0hBVzivehYrHTN9i8RVVcM-_cp27NmDRcUyBtOcK_Es_Rp7lyF4YWySF-7_zBB42vOfsNz4OlLsRp1c2u1obZ4sfDQIHndJ7mPsk/s1600/Owen+and+Josh+Advent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKd-u92E982l4XxiVWXrqav4DjyXsJD6johiRcRp0hBVzivehYrHTN9i8RVVcM-_cp27NmDRcUyBtOcK_Es_Rp7lyF4YWySF-7_zBB42vOfsNz4OlLsRp1c2u1obZ4sfDQIHndJ7mPsk/s320/Owen+and+Josh+Advent.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2013/07/finding-church-home-for-your-family-or.html">A few months ago I wrote about our family’s task of finding a new worshiping community for the next couple of years. </a>While many families struggle for months or even years to find a church where they feel comfortable, spiritually fed/challenged, and at home, it didn’t take us nearly that long, for the sole reason that in the community in which we live we really only had two options to choose from. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That means that we have been able to bounce back and forth over more than one Sunday (because every church has an “off” Sunday once in a while) to get a real feel for the life of the community and the worship style of each.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Both are lovely churches. If only one of these had been available to us, we would have been satisfied with our new church community. Picking one over the other doesn’t mean that one was bad and one was good. In the end it was about where we felt the most comfortable, where we felt the most fed and challenged, and where we felt the most at home. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let me describe each briefly...</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first church we attended pretty regularly at the start of our search is distinctively ecumenical and non-denominational. What this means is that members there come from a variety of Christian backgrounds and participate in worship leadership, education and prayer bringing with them the particular habits of their tradition. Honestly most congregations today are probably just as diverse, <b>but with no single tradition providing a backdrop for the worship life of the church, week to week we can never be sure what our worship experience might be like. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This meant that some weeks there is liturgy, and some weeks there is none. Some weeks multiple readings from scripture, some weeks just the text to be preached on. Some weeks a full praise band is amplified so loud that I can hardly hear myself singing, some weeks there is just a piano and guitar. Music actually takes up about the first 30 minutes of the service, and each week after about fifteen I relent and let my son sit down and read his book or draw in his notebook.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The first time we celebrated the Sacrament of Communion the liturgy was so sparse that at first I thought the pastor was just mentioning that we would be having Communion later in the service - nope, that was it. </b>Sermons are organized around a thematic series, sometimes a few weeks in length, sometimes a couple months. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This community has many of the qualities that a lot of young families like us look for in a church.</b> It is always brimming over with members week to week. People have to squeeze into pews just to ensure everyone has a seat. Children are everywhere as well, underfoot, playing in the yard, crying and whimpering from a pew in the back. It is the kind of full and family vibe that a lot of churches wish they had. Children’s Sunday school happens each week, with the children dismissed right before the sermon. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Honestly, the biggest draw for us to this congregation is that we have friends there. It is good to sit in worship with friends and for our son to have friends he can walk to Sunday school with and play with after church.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The other church we have been attending could not be more different if it tried.</i><b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This church is rooted in a combination of Presbyterian and Lutheran traditions, even though I suspect again that congregation is much more diverse. <b>It is a much smaller congregation; frequently we all sit just on one side of the sanctuary to make it feel a bit fuller. </b>There were many weeks this summer when our son was the only child in attendance. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are no screens or projectors. On most Sundays there are not any musicians and the hymns are sung a cappella. <b>But there is liturgy - there is even a bulletin so that I can show my son where we are in the service and he can participate in what is happening. Each week we hear all four scripture passages from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Common_Lectionary">Revised Common Lectionary</a> - Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel.</b> Sermons are guided by the movement of the liturgical year and respond to the breadth of the biblical witness. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>There is no formal education program for our son, and so he sits with us through the entire service each week.</b> Sometimes he listens to the sermon. Sometimes he occupies himself in other ways. We are working on that. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have friends and colleagues in this church as well, but none of them with children our son’s age, and so he occupies himself during fellowship after worship. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I think that the choice we have had to make is similar to the one that a lot of people struggle with in choosing a church these days. There are elements to both of these communities that I value and appreciate. I wish I could take from each to create the perfect church community for us. <u>But the most important lesson to learn in choosing a church is that none of them are perfect. </u></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I<b>n the end we have decided to be a part of this smaller and decidedly more traditional of worshiping communities. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here is why:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>First, I knew that I loved liturgy, but didn’t really understand how much until I didn’t have it anymore.</b> Maybe I am strange, but there is something different that happens to my soul when I pray a congregational prayer of confession and hear the words of grace and forgiveness from the lector, than when a worship leader simply reminds us in between praise songs that we are in desperate need of the blood of Christ to save our souls. I also like standing with my son to recite the Apostles’ Creed each week, feeling connected to the ancient nature of what we are doing together as a modern family. I like hearing the rhythm of his voice during intercessory prayer as he responds to each petition, “Lord, hear our prayer.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Second, at the first church the children were almost always dismissed from worship before the first (and sometimes only) scripture reading. Church for my son really was just standing up and singing for a half an hour before he left for Sunday school. <b>At the second church he and I flip through the Bible together looking up psalms and prophets, letters of Paul and passages from the Gospels.</b> He carries his new Bible with him to church, and when he needs a distraction he sometimes even reads the illustrated notes found around that day’s passages. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Third, when we sing hymns that I remember loving as a child, I can hear his tiny and clear voice singing next to me. <b>The music may be “old fashioned,” but I swear he sings louder, probably because he can finally hear his own voice.</b> I like that after a hymn the adult sitting in front of him will often turn around and tell him what a nice job he did. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Finally, I mentioned in my advice to church shoppers that it is important for parents to take into account their own spiritual needs when choosing a church for their family,</b> and the clincher for us really did come down to my own needs and the ways I was and was not being encouraged and fed by the preaching at these two different churches. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I know that our choice is not necessarily the one that most families would make. <i>If you read enough blogs and articles about the shifting nature of the church you might think that we are clinging to a tradition and a worship style that is rapidly on its way out, or that aging churches are out of touch with what people and families need from church these days. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Here is what we need from church as a family today - I need to be able to hear my son’s voice. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I need him to learn that prayer can be beautiful, meaningful and thoughtfully prepared for the worshipping community. I need to hear in his voice the echoes of generations who have spoken the same words of faith and petition before him. I need him to hear the full witness of scripture in the presence of a community. I need his visual impressions of faith not to be images projected on one more screen in his life, but shaped by the presence of the table, font and pulpit. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>I need him to know that church is not just about what you get out of it, but about how his voice adds to the life of the community. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This week he and my husband led the congregation in lighting the first Advent candle. On our walk home from church he told me that one of the older women came up to him after worship to tell him that he did a good job and that she loved the sound of his voice. He said to me, “I really like that she told me that. It made me feel good.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>I really like it too. </b></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419717615182984220.post-18305494239503920422013-11-06T01:23:00.000-05:002013-12-04T06:36:24.771-05:00Anabaptists, Infant-baptists, and the Baptism of our Son<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqLUdiRXLDHKiYHSZ3pvAxLI2NFjawEfeb13GY6KCchqZAMyOe4aNMhHGqKGhbN15MdFx5pYUFG-Qme8U4WJtgMtVuB6260vErcDavinsa8JioJX63u1PcAeAe_8V5WTns3aohhDQOZA/s1600/baptism+pic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqLUdiRXLDHKiYHSZ3pvAxLI2NFjawEfeb13GY6KCchqZAMyOe4aNMhHGqKGhbN15MdFx5pYUFG-Qme8U4WJtgMtVuB6260vErcDavinsa8JioJX63u1PcAeAe_8V5WTns3aohhDQOZA/s320/baptism+pic1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>I have
written before about what it means to live in an </strong><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2011/06/eight-essentials-for-ecumenical-family.html"><strong>ecumenical</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="http://www.breadnotstones.com/2012/06/little-buddha-raising-child-in.html"><strong>interfaith family</strong></a><strong>, but I stumbled across the following short essay that I wrote before I
created this blog and realized that I have never shared here the story of our
son’s baptism and the nuances of that decision for not just our nuclear family
but our extended families and our church families as well.</strong> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">Here it is...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">A few years ago my husband and I took one of the youth from
my congregation out to lunch. She had questions, and we were appropriately
deemed experts she could turn to in her struggle <strong>as she engaged in a yearlong
inquiry into leaving the Presbyterian Church to become an Anabaptist.</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">My husband and I are experts because, as we like to joke, I
am an ethnic Presbyterian and he is an ethnic Mennonite, both of us having
decidedly chosen as adults to remain in our respective traditions of origin,
each of us serving as pastors in those traditions as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">We came to this lunch armed with all of the historic and
modern conflicts between our traditions, ready to entertain and inform her with
a friendly point counter-point. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>We talked about the difference between communities of grace
and communities of piety; the difference between adult baptism and infant
baptism; the difference between holding pacifism up as a standard and resigning
oneself to being a pacifist in a non-peace church tradition; the difference
between strict standards of ordination and the priesthood of all believers; the
difference between a liturgical and a non-liturgical tradition; the difference
between a congregational and a Presbyterian polity.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">We talked about how though we come from different
theological traditions, when it comes to social issues we have more in common
with each other than with some of our fellow Mennonites or Presbyterians. She
shared her concern about ordination standards within the PC(USA), believing
that gays and lesbians should be welcomed into full leadership in the church.
We painfully shared with her that, though she may not have encountered this up
close within the Brethren church she had been attending, gays and lesbians are
entirely excluded from membership within most Anabaptist congregations. We then
also talked about what it means to choose to stay in a tradition with which you
might have some significant disagreements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>We also talked about the ways that our traditions complement
one another.</strong> That by prioritizing different moments in the life of the
believer, we often come up short of a full understanding of the entire journey
of faith. That by elevating liturgical and leadership elements in the
Presbyterian Church, we lose the ability for lay people to feel empowered in
spiritual leadership; that by minimizing the need for trained and ordained
clergy in the Mennonite church, the nuances and consistencies within worship
can be lost. We value the way that our traditions hold each other accountable,
and that has lead to a relationship of respect, not conflict, in our marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">But then I asked her a pivotal question that turned this
civil and enlightening luncheon into a 16<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup> century smack down.
<strong>“They are not telling you that you need to be rebaptized, are they?” She
indicated that they were not insistent, but had offered it as an option, if she
chose to join.</strong> I was so livid I started quoting lessons from this poor child’s
confirmation class, reminding her that there was no need to be rebaptized since
God was the primary actor in her baptism, and I was pretty sure God did not
need a do-over. I reminded her that she had already confirmed her infant
baptism, and to be rebaptized would mark her confirmation as invalid as well. I
would be so proud of her to have made an informed and prayerful decision to
join a different faith tradition as an adult, I told her, but please, please do
not get rebaptized.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">It was at this point that my husband had to chuckle and
reminded us that <strong>this was the exact agreement we had struck when our now nine
year old son was born – that we would baptize him in the Presbyterian Church,
allowing him to experience and develop his faith fully immersed in the
sacraments, while also teaching him the traditions of the Anabaptist tradition,
knowing that some day he might choose as an adult to be rebaptized as a
Mennonite.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">It is important for me to point out two things. First, I
must acknowledge that our son may grow up to choose neither to be Presbyterian
or Mennonite; he may choose to not even be Christian, or to not practice any
faith whatsoever. Second, I should also sheepishly acknowledge that this was
probably the exact heretical pact that my ordination committee was concerned I
would fall into when they scrutinized my baptismal theology after learning of
my engagement outside of the church.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>It is also helpful to remember that the name Anabaptist, the
identity claimed by the Mennonites, Brethren and Amish, means precisely
“rebaptizer.” It was this act of rebaptizing adults in the community, while
simultaneously refusing the practice of infant baptism for their own children, that
shaped them into a tradition colored by persecution and martyrdom.</strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">For my husband’s family, this remembrance of the historical
trials of their tradition is an important part of their identity as Mennonites,
and to see this next generation being returned to the very practice against
which his own ancestors died protesting made for a </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia Italic","serif"; line-height: 115%;">slightly</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">
elevated air of tension in the family. In an attempt to alleviate the tension
and in good humor, my mother-in-law gave me a photocopy of a reformation-era
woodcut illustration of a Mennonite wife and Reformed husband showing the wife
holding the severed head of their child, killed by her own hands to avoid the
dreaded pedo-baptism. I have included it above. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">Fortunately, it was also around this time that the World Alliance
of Reformed Churches and the Mennonite World Conference engaged in a time of
reconciliation, with the WARC admitting to the atrocities perpetrated by the
church against the Anabaptists. In the spirit of a new era of cooperation, we
all came to terms both with our son’s baptism and with the possibility for
rebaptism by his own choosing at a later…much later...moment in time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>The day of our son’s baptism was one of great celebration.
The small congregation where my husband was pastoring cancelled their worship
service for the morning and blended in among 250 Presbyterians to witness to
our son’s baptism and to join in committing themselves to raising him within
the Christian faith.</strong> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">Both Presbyterians and Mennonites joined us in a class after
worship that morning where we talked about the differences in our traditions
and the ways that my husband and I live together within these two traditions.
Most of the Presbyterians had no understanding of the historical persecution of
Anabaptists, and I believe it was helpful for the Mennonites to hear the
seriousness with which Presbyterians take their responsibility in the baptism
of children in the church community. One of the most striking and poignant
moments of that day came when the Mennonites shared that they did not need to
have the traditional service of child dedication for our son in the Mennonite
church. What we had done together that day was sufficient.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>The question is, will it be sufficient if he decides to live
his adult life as a Mennonite? Will it be sufficient enough that he does not
feel he needs to to be rebaptized? I have no idea.</strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">We are still trying to figure out how you actually go about
authentically raising a child in two Christian traditions that, while they have
some significant differences in our eyes, seem very similar in the eyes of a
child. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;">We have already started talking to him about why his
decidedly Mennonite grandparents are affiliate members of a Presbyterian Church
in the community to which they have retired. Further down the road we will also
share with him that his Presbyterian grandparents are faithful participants in
a para-church organization that supports closeted gay and lesbian Mennonites
and their families.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><strong>Whether he identifies himself as a Mennonite or a
Presbyterian, and whether or not he chooses to be rebaptized, I hope that he
learns to articulate the nuances of his faith, to value how we live out our
faith as a family, and to find ways to both complement and challenge whatever
faith he chooses.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
Rebecca Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493403285461273189noreply@blogger.com2