Category: 2.NEW Testament
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Oh, Baby!
After a long delay between lessons the “My Friend Jesus” series for Babies and Toddlers is now complete. Hopefully, it will help parents and teachers share the story of Jesus with little ones. In this series infants and toddlers are introduced to Jesus and relate to him through various common experiences of childhood (celebration, helping,…
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Mustard Seeds and Matryoshka Dolls
Teaching Jesus’ parables to three and four year olds is challenging. Pre-schoolers struggle understanding abstract concepts. The figurative nature of the parables will largely pass them by because they usually think in more literal terms. This morning the class I was teaching tackled the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Jesus told a story about a…
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What Every Child Wants to Hear
A couple of weeks ago I taught a group of 5-8 year olds about the Baptism of Jesus. In the days leading up to the lesson I contemplated Matthew 3:13-17 and asked myself how the event might be viewed from a child’s perspective. What is it about this part of God’s Word that “makes sense”…
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The Puzzling Attraction of Puzzles
Disorder and exposed edges cause us to be tense and unsettled. We fervently scan for those straight edges to establish a boundary and begin to sort things out. We aren’t satisfied until everything is in its proper place and the picture is complete. It is no wonder we say we “work” puzzles. The process doesn’t…
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Unscrambling that Empty Egg
We often speak of emptiness as bad, but sometimes “empty” is good. That is the case of the empty tomb! Many of us re-tell the resurrection story around Easter time. I thought I would share my favourite teaching tool for telling the Easter story. And, yes, it involves plastic eggs. I did not come…