Refining the message is closely tied into your integrated strategy. The goal of your integrated strategy describes what you want children and students to be when they grow up. With that goal in mind, what messages and what truths do the students and children in your church need to hear? What will best prepare them to be strong and independent adult Christ followers?
All of it? Everything? Sure. However, this creates a problem though. Since we only have about 40 hours a year (in some of the best case scenarios) to teach children, it isn’t possible to teach them everything. So as we face that environment of 1st-3rd graders, what messages do they specifically need to hear. When choosing from the entirety of the scripture, we must be selective. What about when they’re in the middle school environment. What are you going to do with those 40 hours a year? Will they be different messages from what the 1st-3rd graders are hearing?
You must refine the message.
In your effort to refine the message, you’ll need to take into account these three things.
- All scripture is equally inspired
- All scripture is not equally important
- All scripture is not equally applicable to every stage of life
What does this mean? All scripture is God-breathed, but not every verse in the Bible carries the same weight. There are certain passages and scriptures that bring more impact than others. When sharing your faith with a friend, there are certain specific verses that we tend to share because of their importance. When confronted by the religious leaders and asked what commandment was the most important, Jesus didn’t back down. Although every commandment was inspired, Jesus said that all the commandments could hang under loving God and loving others. Jesus wasn’t inclusive, he prioritized what was most important. Last of all, we need to filter what scriptures are appropriate for different ages. When teaching in children’s ministry, you’re going to glide over details pertaining to sexual sins. They don’t need to know it to realize the depth of God’s love and his plan for our lives. However, once those hormones are kicking in, these 6th and 7th graders need to know what the Bible says about sexual purity.
You have varying audiences. You have limited time. You have a goal before you. What are you going to say? Refine the message.
Kenny,
It’s amazing the initial pushback you receive from parents and traditional Sunday-school type folks when they hear that last point; “All scripture is not equally applicable to every stage of life”. It’s a shock and horror look. So many churches have gotten into a mindset that they MUST plow through the Bible in one, two or three years. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! (Never mind the fact that many, if not most of our adults have never read the Bible through completely themselves).
We would never expect a kid to ingest and understand an engineering textbook by the time they graduated 3rd grade. Why would we expect them to do so with something so grand as our entire scripture!
This one principle takes so much weight off of us, and does so much to help our kids understand the “big things” about our God. Thanks!
Dave,
Yeah, I wondering if I’m going to get any pushback even on this post. You make a really good point about a desire to force feed the kids the whole Bible in a three year cycle when most adults aren’t doing it as well. These are the same people that accuse a seeker approach church of being an inch deep and a mile wide… which is precisely what you get when you try to cover the entire Bible in 2-3 years… just my opinion though.
Even in the context of this, I do see the value in wanting kids to push through the Bible. There’s something powerful when you see the entire context of the Bible as a redemptive story. One way I attempted to do this was in a discipleship group for 3rd-5th graders I had on Wednesday nights. We studied the New Testament but they were required to have a children’s storybook Bible as well (one of those designed for 4-6 year olds). They grumbled at first at the though of having a “baby Bible.” However, I talked to them about being able to read the entire Bible in a month or two during our study. They actually got fired up and started tearing through their Bibles on their own time… but that’s off subject.
We do use 252 and My First Look, so we’re relying on ReThink to refine our message to some degree. We will probably add a discipleship level at some point and in this, we’ll spend some time discussing what message we feel the kids most need to hear and understand.
Kenny,
You’re absolutely right about story. I am such a huge believer in helping kids see the sweep of God’s story and their place in it. I’ve been really trying to reframe how I (personally) present God’s story to my own kids, how salvation fits in to that, and how they now participate in that story. I put together a summer curriculum a few years ago called “God’s Big Story” that tries to hit the highlights from Genesis to Revelation, to give kids an idea of the beautiful narrative we’re caught up in. I don’t want to minimize the importance of a child going through the Bible. But I think we agree that there are some parts that are just WAY too big for the expectations a lot of curriculum puts on our kids.
Great post, brother.
I like what you said about how you’re refining the way you present the big story to your own kids. What if every parent had this kind of vision… finding a way of presenting God’s story as an adventure. It reminds me of Don Miller at Orange 2008. He told a story about a dad who was losing his daughter to a deadbeat boyfriend. He set a vision for his family… to raise $20,000 in 2 years to build an orphanage in Mexico. As a family they went to Mexico to scope out the location and strategize raising the funds. In a few weeks, the daughter dumped the boyfriend. Why? She had a better adventure to be a part of. I love it.
Kenny my trackback didn’t seem to work so here is the link to my Refining the message post.
http://samluce.com/?p=2549