For Christian education and nurture leaders.
Wading into the Bible
By Eleanor Snyder
Every summer my family spends time at our cottage beside a small lake in eastern Ontario. We love this peaceful setting for many reasons, but especially for the water that rejuvenates our bodies, minds, and spirits.
As toddlers, the children would dip tiny toes in the warm rippling waves on the sandy beach. The beach offered a safe place to explore the water’s edge. Later, equipped with water wings, then life jackets and lots of parental supervision, they headed into deeper water to practice their newly acquired swimming skills. Before long, we placed a raft even farther out, where they enjoyed hours of diving and tag games.
Always looking for more adventure, our teens eventually began to swim a kilometer to a small island with tall evergreen trees, huge rocks, and a sturdy diving board that dared brave souls to take the plunge. Here our children honed their diving skills and frolicked in the deep water. As young adults, they continue to enjoy deep water to this day.
“Scripture,” wrote sixth-century theologian, Gregory the Great, “is like a river, broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.” Just as children learn to trust and enjoy the varying depths of the lake waters, so they learn to trust the Scriptures as the source of living water that can nourish them throughout life.
Deepening encounters with the Bible
Teachers, parents, grandparents, and other significant adults in the congregation
serve as “life-guides” engaging children and youth in the biblical
story at ever-deepening levels. To introduce young children to God’s
story, we rehearse and retell the basic Bible stories through song,
finger plays, and story figures. Children witness our love for God as we
learn and tell the stories with creative joy.
A story is told of a little girl who was caught jumping with both feet on her favorite storybook. Her mother was appalled that she would treat a book so poorly. But the child explained that she wanted to “get into the story”— to live with the characters. Can parents and teachers instill such a love for God that children want to dive into the Bible to learn more?
With older children, we offer experiences that engage hearts and minds by delving into the story through drama, art, reflection, and play. We invite them to wonder and ask questions and make up skits and stories that make the biblical truths come alive for today. We encourage them to place themselves in the story and/or reenact it using language they understand. Alongside them, we memorize key Scripture texts, such as the Beatitudes, to exemplify the usefulness of holding God’s words in our hearts.
Junior youth become transformed by God and God’s story as they are allowed to question and give personal expression to the texts. One seasoned teacher asked each junior youth to choose a parable, memorize it, and prepare to tell it to classmates. She also invited them to help her select ideas for response activities for the class. Another invited her class to imagine themselves in the story of Jesus and the disciples caught in a storm at sea. Through guided imagination, she gave the youth permission to name their fears to Jesus and accept his reassurance. This proved to be a powerful experience for the group.
Youth are ready to plunge deeper into the waters of biblical study and interpretation. In order for them to attain a biblical way of viewing the world, they must learn to move beyond superficial Bible study. Generation Why curriculum for youth encourages study based on an action-reflection methods. As youth reflect on a Bible story out of their own experiences and from an Anabaptist perspective, they are invited to make God’s Story their story. Through dialogue and debate, prayer and other spiritual practices, youth prepare to commit themselves to be disciples of Jesus Christ and participate more fully in the life of the church community through baptism and church membership.
The Bible provides many stories that nurture faith as young people navigate the waters of adolescence and young adulthood toward maturity. Stories of security and separation, illustrations of God’s love, grace, and forgiveness, examples of belonging and living in God’s realm as individuals and community offer a biblical way of viewing the world in the 21st century. As children and youth learn to know God through the spiritual practice of Scripture reading and study, they will become more and more attuned to God’s activity in the world and their unique role in extending God’s “kin-dom” on earth.
The role that pastors and teachers play in facilitating Bible study at any age is critical. Like swimming instructors, we cannot force a learner to swim, we can only point the way and show them how it works for us. We recognize with humility our responsibility to prepare prayerfully, study seriously, and teach with integrity as we serve as coaches on the swim team of life.