Journey to Jesus: Walking with the Faithful: Rhythms of Worship

The kids have been baptized. They have been welcomed into community. They have been fed with the body and blood of Christ. But we still meet together three more times. The purpose of these last three meetings is to unpack a few significant practices that we engage in as a community: eucharist / communion / Lord's Supper, scripture, and witness.

Before we talk about any of these, we first discuss the rhythms of call and response that are interwoven into our worship service. Since they have participated in children's worship for some time (most of them for a few years), some of these rhythms are already familiar.

Our worship service is built on rhythms of call and response which form us into being a people who are responsive to God's voice all week long.

- We are called to be set apart and we respond by gathering together as a peculiar people.

- We are called to be reconciled to Christ and to one another and we respond by passing the peace of Christ, saying "The peace of Christ be with you," and responding with, "And also with you."

- We are called to be present to God who is present when his people gather and we respond in silence, letting go of our rush and hurry.

- We are called to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and we respond by invoking / inviting the Spirit's presence among us.

- We are called to praise and we respond by singing.

- We are called to receive the word of the Lord in scripture and we respond with thanksgiving. After the reading of the gospel, the reader says "This is the word of the Lord." The congregation responds, "Thanks be to God!"

- We are called to engage our spiritual imaginations in the viewing of an icon / video and we respond by confessing sin, submitting to God, or affirming truth in a call and response litany.

- We are called to live into the kingdom proclaimed and we respond in praying together for the kingdom to come in our lives.

- We are called to offer ourselves and our abundance and we respond by giving our tithes and offerings.

- We are called to come to the Table and we respond by leaving our chairs and coming forward, taking, eating, remembering, and believing, and singing.

- We are called to be Spirit-empowered witnesses to the world and we respond by going and following the Spirit who goes before us into the world.

All of our worship leads us to the Table and flows out from the Table. It is at the Table where we remember who we are, what we are. It's this meal that shapes and forms us as the body of Christ.

Journey to Jesus: Easter Sunday Baptism!

(If you're just joining this series, it begins here.)

I know it's already been a few weeks since Easter Sunday... but since Easter continues all the way until Pentecost, I'm still within the time frame. 

As kids who are on their way to baptism, I stress to their parents how important it is for the kids to be able to participate in everything that leads up to their baptism on Easter Sunday.

Palm Sunday

Passover Seder

Easter Sunday at Life on the Vine is a big deal. Really. It's the culmination of a whole week, starting with Palm Sunday and gathering around the communion table and shouting "Hosanna!" while waving palm branches. 

Throughout the week, our missional orders (house groups) come together to share a Messianic Passover Seder together. It's at this meal that our understanding of our every Sunday practice of sharing the Lord's Table is infused by the context in which Christ spoke the words of institution before His betrayal. We use this Haggadah as we eat and drink together and remember the Passover.

For Good Friday, we gather together for a Tenebrae service. As we leave in silence, the question hangs in the air, "What will become of the Light of the World?" We live life for the weekend as if Christ had just died and the story ended there.

We don't see each other again until we gather around the fire pit on Easter morning, to celebrate that Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

Every candle lit

Creation

We enter the sanctuary, lighting every candle in the place and dive into our rehearsal of the grand narrative of scripture. 

We celebrate Creation with an artist creating on a canvas as she tells the story! We tell the story of Noah and the flood, the Exodus, the Valley of the Dry Bones, and look forward to the prophecy of Isaiah. 

Only after we've told the story of God and His people do we invite the kids who will be baptized to find their place in the continuation of the formation of the people of God. Now they can see where they fit as newly baptized believers. Now it is time for them to make their vows and take their place in the every-expanding communion of the saints.

Each baptismon first reads his / her conversion statement.

Then they step into the baptismal pool, facing the west and they are asked these questions:

Do you confess you are a sinner in need of reconciliation with God?  (I do)

Do you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sin?  (I do)

Do you renounce Satan and all spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?  (I do)

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?  (I do)

Do you renounce of all sinful desires that draw you away from the love of God?  (I do)  

After answering these questions, they turn to the east (toward the rising sun) and they make these commitments:

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?  (I do)

Do you put your whole trust in His grace and love? (I do)

Do you promise to follow and obey Him as your Lord?  (I do)

Then they are baptized (to the sounds of hooting, hollering, and thunderous applause).

When they emerge from the pool, they are robed in a white robe and told, "You are now clothed in the righteousness of Christ."

They are annointed with oil and told, "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

And then they sign their name in the membership book, which we say is the symbol of their name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

After their baptisms, we come to the Lord's table together and the kids savor their first taste of Christ's body and blood as newly invited members of Christ's local body. 

We unpack much more of the significance of this meal in the week following their baptism.

Journey to Jesus: Kneeler Stage, The Battle

Find this drawing here.

(If you're just joining this series, it begins here.)

Now that we've talked about kairos moments and the way that God is initiating kingdom work in our lives each and every day, we talk about the reality that each moment is not just a moment of choosing between God and self, but is, ultimately a moment of choosing where we stand in the continual battle that wages since before our story began. We are choosing to be aligned with Christ or with Satan (for more on this, see this post).

Spiritual warfare. There seem to be two dramatic extremes when it comes to the topic. We either avoid discussing spiritual warfare at all costs, or it becomes what dominates the way we relate to the world. Things are either "just coincidence" without any connect to the spiritual realm, or they were caused by angelic / demonic activity.

I grew up in the first extreme. In my understanding, everything was spiritually innocuous. Christ had ascended into heaven and we all awaited his return... until then, not much was happening in the spiritual realm. When I moved to California and met some evangelicals, I was introduced to Frank Perretti's books. When I read This Present Darkness, I was completely freaked out. No one had ever come anywhere close to suggesting to me that there might actually be demonic and angelic involvement in the life of humans.

As we Journey to Jesus together, I feel it's important for kids to understand that the spiritual realm is real. They need to know that our battle is not against flesh and blood. However, they also need to know that the decisive battle has already been won and we have been given everything we need to continue to stand until its conclusion.

And so we talk about Ephesians 6 and Roman armor. There are some good technical descriptions of the purposes of each piece of uniform here, but I'm sure there are probably even better ones available in a good commentary on Ephesians. This feels so incredibly practical to the kids. They can imagine each piece of armor and what purpose it served. They can draw connections from the physical to the spiritual. This concrete to abstract connection is right where their brains live when they are 9-12 years old.

What is harder for them to grasp is the tension between the military language and the non-violent way of following Jesus in the way of the cross. Here, I try to draw out some of the things we learn about the battle in the book of Revelation, which I gained from Michael Gorman. The Lamb (Jesus Christ) wages war very differently from the Beast (Satan).

Find this drawing here.

·      The Lamb conquers by enduring suffering and death

·      The Beast conquers by inflicting suffering and death

·      The Lamb endures suffering and death in order to free others from suffering and death.

·      The Beast oppresses others with suffering and death in order to perpetuate / multiply suffering and death

When we use the tactics of evil to try to resist / overcome evil, we become beastly. When we follow the faithful endurance of the Lamb, we become more like Christ and share in His victory over evil, sin, death and experience freedom from evil, sin, death. We are already sealed by the Lamb… His Holy Spirit is a guarantee that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

And so we do not fight the way a person would fight a battle on a battlefield. Instead, we stand in the victory that is already decided, in the power and the authority and the presence of Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, who stands in us and through us. I don't think the kids even come close to really understanding this. But, then again, how many of us as adults can really understand it? 

Journey to Jesus: Kneeler Stage: Two Roads, Two Kingdoms

(If you're just joining this series, it begins here.)

After exploring the over-arching narrative in which we live (simplified, of course), we're ready to talk about the daily journey. Every kairos moment is a moment of choosing which kingdom we journey toward: kingdom of God or kingdom of self (and consequently, the kingdom of our enemy who longs to keep us from God).

I love this illustration that I found here. I don't know what was in the mind of the artist when he or she created it, but it nearly perfectly exemplifies the complexity of the choices we make every day. The options that are most celebrated and lauded by our culture are often the ones that lead to darkness and death; whereas the ones that look dangerous and risky and ridiculous in the eyes of the dominant culture (toward the kingdom) are the ones that lead to life. (I could say much more about post-modern suspicion represented in this, but that's not what this post is about.)

The illustration I draw on the white board of two kingdoms is not nearly as creative or layered as the one here, but it helps the kids to consider that they are continuously presented with forks in the road. One road is an invitation to live in fellowship and communion with God and the other is an invitation to live for something else. This is the constant conflict we live within.

I read an excerpt from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in which Eustace has become a dragon. Ending with this segment: "He realized that he was a monster cut off from the whole human race.  An appalling loneliness came over him.  He began to see the others had not really been fiends at all.  He began to wonder if he himself had been such a nice person as he had always supposed.  He longed for their voices… It was very dreary being a dragon.  He shuddered whenever he caught sight of his own reflection as he flew over a mountain lake.  He hated the huge bat-like wings, the saw-edge ridge on his back, and the cruel curved claws.  He was almost afraid to be alone with himself and yet he was ashamed to be with the others.” 

C.S. Lewis talks about how Eustace became a dragon by thinking dragonish thoughts and dreaming dragonish dreams. I pause and ask the kids about the dragonish thoughts and dreams that they sometimes dwell on. Some examples might be, "He has what I want. I want more." "She's being mean to me, I'll be even meaner to her!" "I'm much more important / interesting / intelligent, etc. than ___, why does everybody pay so much attention to ___ instead of me?" etc.

After the kids (and their parents!) have shared some dragonish thoughts, we continue reading in the Dawn Treader as Eustace explains to Caspian, Lucy and Edmund where he has been. We end with this part: "Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been.  And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.  Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water.  It smarted like anything but only for a moment.  After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone… And then I saw why.  I’d turned into a boy again…

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me… in new clothes.”

Eustace tried to peel the dragon skin off himself a few times, but each time, it grew back. We reference Romans 7 and talk about how much a part of the Christian life this struggle is. No one is above it. No one has completely triumphed over it. But the good news is in Romans 8. The Spirit sets us free from sin and death and empowers us to live differently. The picture of Eustace being taken out by the lion and dressed in new clothes is a picture of baptism. Our old selves are put off and we are clothed in Christ Himself. 

We turn to Ephesians and explore the command to live as children of light, being filled with the Spirit (You could also turn to Colossians 3:5-17, Galatians 5:16-26). We talk about the put off / put on dynamic and find some examples in this passage of things that need to be taken off and things that need to be put on, keeping in mind that all of this is only possible by the empowering of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. 

I ask the kids some questions: Have you ever tried to get rid of your own dragon scales? Tried to be better? Tried to behave better? Tried harder? How did it go?

If God’s not involved… if God isn’t the center of the process, all of our efforts are essentially worthless… short-lived, temporary. We must realize that scratching at our own scales is not a permanent solution and so we must place ourselves at the mercy of the lion’s claws.

For reflection for the week to come, I toss out some questions: What are your dragon scales?  Which parts of yourself do you think are least pleasing to God?  To your parents?  What do you most often feel sorry about?  Or what are you most often disciplined for?  What must you put ON to replace these?  If you yield to him, what can you expect from God on your behalf?  For next week, think about a situation in which you were disciplined or felt sorry about your behavior or attitude.  How can you depend on the Holy Spirit to empower you to take a newly redeemed action if this old situation comes up again, now that you know that Christ is re-clothing you?

Even though there is conflict in this life and we are constantly presented with the bondage that evil brings on one hand and the freedom we have with Christ on the other hand, we persevere in the Spirit of Christ, acknowledging the tension between what we are and what we have been called to become (Romans 6-8, Colossians 3, 5). Each and every kairos moment is an opportunity to turn again toward Jesus, to keep on the Journey to Jesus, to depend on the Spirit as Jesus Himself did on earth.

Journey to Jesus - Kneeler Stage

Now that we have covered the stages of conversion, the need for conversion, the Apostle's Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, it is time for us to move into the 'kneeler' stage (for the overview of the series, start here). The kneeler stage fits perfectly with the season of lent, as it is reflective and asks the question, "how do I become more like Jesus?"

At this point, I teach the kids the circle and we walk through a few kairos moments to help them get the hang of asking the questions, "what is God saying? and how will I respond?" The kids draw the circle on a bright piece of paper and I ask them to hang it somewhere visible in their house where they and their parents can use it to discuss any kairos moments that come up during the week.

After we've gone through the circle, I tell the kids a joke. But they never laugh. The reason they don't laugh is because I don't actually tell the joke, I only say the punchline. Because they don't know what came before, the punchline isn't funny and they don't get it. I act all naive and pretend that I just don't understand why they don't think it's funny. When they finally explain to me that I have to tell the first part of the joke or the punchline isn't funny, I feign surprise and amazement. Then I tell them the beginning of the joke and the punchline now makes sense.

This is like our life with God. If we don't know what has happened before we were born into the story, chances are that much of the story of our life won't make any sense. Using the basic outline of Epic, by John Eldredge, I tell the kids the grand narrative of our story. While I tell the story, they draw a picture for each of the acts to help them remember.

Act 1: Eternal Love, fellowship, community of the Trinity
Act 2: Rebellion, Jealousy, God's character is questioned by Satan & his angels, who are cast out of heaven.
Act 3: Creation, Fall, Flood, Exodus, Nation of Israel, Exile, Rebuilding of the Temple, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Pentecost, Early Church, all of history up until now.
Act 4: Christ Returns, Restoration of all things, New Heaven, New Earth, Eternal love, fellowship, community of the Trinity with humanity.

From this explanation of the story, we see that loving community is the beginning of the story and loving community is the continual movement of the story. Everything can be understood as God's goal of restoring, renewing, establishing loving community with humanity.

Now that we see the overarching story, we recognize that we live in a story that is incomplete. There is a protagonist (a hero) and an antagonist (an enemy) and humanity / creation is the place where that conflict is played out. The antagonist seeks to thwart loving community with the Trinity at every turn, and God keeps inviting humanity into loving community with Himself. Our role is to receive the invitation into loving community with the Father, Son & Holy Spirit, and humanity and to resist the natural inclination (sin) to turn against God and humanity.

This is where we find ourselves in our kairos moments. When we experience strong emotions, it is often because we are feeling the pull to turn against or to receive God's invitation to be loved and embraced. These are the moments that shape and form us as we continually make choices to receive or resist the invitation to loving community. This is the battle we face throughout our lifetime.

Journey to Jesus, Hearer Stage - The Lord's Prayer

This is a continuation of the 'Hearer' Stage, where students are familiarizing themselves with the major beliefs of our community. If you missed the first post on the Hearer stage, read it here. If you're just joining this series, start here.

For the Lord's Prayer, I usually start with a simulated phone call. I ask one of the parents to volunteer (Have I mentioned that we ask that at least one parent be present with each child who is discerning baptism? We believe parents are the primary disciplers of their children and this is one way we try to encourage parents to be walking alongside their children). I 'call' the person and I'm very demanding about what I want / need, without taking any time to listen or ask any questions. I hang up abruptly and then ask the kids if there was anything that bothered them about the call. We get at the idea that I was rude and inconsiderate and didn't give the other person a chance to speak.

In a second simulation, I hem and haw and don't ask for anything directly or confidently. I say things like, "it might be nice if..." or "if it's not too much trouble..." or "I know you're really busy..." or "but only if you want to." I ask the kids how they felt about that call and they point out that I should just ask, without so much hesitation and time wasting.

Then I ask them how these simulated calls might be similar to how we approach prayer. We wonder about why we pray? What happens when we pray? Why is prayer important? How do we pray?

Using 3dm's hexagon, we talk about what the Lord's Prayer teaches us about God: The Father's character, kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance and protection. Then we talk about how we could pray through the hexagon (the Lord's prayer) about a particular situation, being confident that we are asking in harmony with God's character, his coming kingdom, his desire to provide what is needed, his willingness to forgive and make us people of forgiveness, his wise guidance, and his fierce protection.

I ask the kids to go home and explain the Lord's Prayer to someone else in their family, or a friend. I also encourage them to practice praying this way with their families in the coming week.

Journey to Jesus Hearer stage - long overdue

I apologize for taking forever to add the next installment of this series... I was at the Ecclesia National Gathering (you can hear all the sessions here), and then we had family in town for Geoff's ordination and my consecration at Life on the Vine. Catching up on homeschool, stuff around the house, and preparing a sermon kept me from posting again with any kind of promptness. Ah well... carry on!

I explained the overview of Journey to Jesus, outlined the four stages of conversion, and then talked about the need for conversion. These beginning discussions complete the "seeker" stage. At this point, the kids are introduced to the community as ones who are discerning baptism. We ask the congregation to talk with them, to encourage them, to pray for them as they discern.

Following the "seeker" stage, we move into the "hearer" stage, where we take time to explore the major beliefs of our community. In our community, we are still largely focusing on the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed and our church mission statement.

The Apostle's Creed is chock full of great doctrinal statements that, in itself, could take a series of weeks. Instead of studying it line by line, my goal is to help the kids see how it's organized, recognize that it is like the 'cheat sheet' of scripture, and commit it to memory.

We break the structure into three sections: belief in God the Father, belief in Jesus the Son, belief in the Holy Spirit. By asking the simple question, "what does the Apostle's Creed say about God as Father / Son / Holy Spirit?" we tease out the major creedal statements. The last section only has one line about the Holy Spirit. This seems out of proportion to the discussion of God as Father and Son (especially Son). However, I like to point out that none of the things that follow "I believe in the Holy Spirit" are possible without the Holy Spirit: the universal church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, life everlasting.

Now that we've explored what the creed says, I ask, "why would it be important to have this memorized?" By discussing various statements they might hear or read, the kids begin to see that having a memorized 'cheat sheet' of the 'non-negotiable' beliefs about God, they are better able to recognize things that don't line up with scripture without having to memorize the whole Bible. For example: Jesus was just a good guy, our bodies don't matter, our church is the only church, God keeps track of every bad thing you do, the universe began by chance.

To memorize, I write the creed on a dry erase board and we do an old-fashioned technique of chanting and erasing until we've got most of it. The kids take turns erasing words or phrases and we keep chanting it together until we run out of time (or out of words to erase). I encourage them to say it as a family every day for the coming week (helping parents memorize if they don't know it).

Journey to Jesus - Stage One: Seeker, Part 2

After having presented the four stages of conversion (previous post), it's time to unpack why conversion is necessary. What's the big deal?

As I mentioned before, kids at this stage are transitioning from being concrete thinkers to becoming capable of more abstract thought but they still need bridges to get there. The bridge for this week is one of my favorites, and one that I borrowed from a favorite teacher from my junior high years.

I show the kids a plate (a mug or a bowl would work equally as well) and I ask them to tell me what it is and what purpose it serves. If they don't give me much, I go into a long treatise, extolling the wonders of the plate and its functions in our society (imagine a server bringing handfuls of pasta to the table or clearing the table after dinner). After we are all very appreciate of plates and the purpose they serve, I suddenly throw the plate against the wall. The plate shatters. Parents flinch. Kids gasp. I have their attention (thanks, Mr. Grasmeyer).

At this point, I'm actually surprised how upset some of the kids can become. This last time I did it, my younger son was in the class and he groaned, "I really liked that plate!" This is only a minuscule glimmer of the grief God may have experienced when he saw us shattered. We, like this plate, were created to serve a purpose. And we, too, have been shattered, no longer able to serve our purpose. I ask the kids if they can help me put the plate back together. We try, but eventually, we give up. We cannot fix the plate. The plate cannot fix itself. It needs to be remade.

From here, I begin to talk about our original purpose. We go back to Genesis 1:26-28. We were made in God's image, as eikons, to be his fruitful vice-regents. We were created to 'image' God, the One who creates, rules, speaks, names, orders, establishes variety and beauty, tends the earth, provides fellowship, instructs, and rests. We are to be in union with God, in communion with other eikons, for the purpose of participating in God's good and loving rule of the world. We were designed for relationship with God, with one another, and with the world He made. The mission statement at Life on the Vine is "Living in Christ, with one another, for God's mission in the world." As eikons, this is what we were designed to do.

But we were broken. And in our brokenness, we are bound to sin and cannot break free (Remans 7 again). And we are blamed for our sin (Romans 1 and 3). We are like this shattered plate, hopelessly unable to fix ourselves or to fulfill our purpose. But there is good news. Jesus Christ is the perfect Eikon (Colossians 1:15) and as we turn from our own attempts to fix ourselves and turn toward Jesus Christ, trusting in him and his work, we can be restored to our original purpose. "The goal of the atonement is to restore cracked eikons into glory-producing eikons by participating in the perfect Eikon, Jesus Christ, who is redeeming the entire world" (Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement).

In Christ, we are no longer broken, bound, and blamed. Instead, we are fixed, free, and forgiven! The challenge is to begin to recognize our brokenness, our bondage, and our shame and give up our futile attempts to piece ourselves back together. Instead, we turn to Jesus, receiving his fixing restoration, freedom and forgiveness. I challenge the kids and their parents to be attentive to ways they get tangled in their own attempts to make things right and challenge them to remind each other that only Jesus can fix, free, and forgive.

Throughout this journey toward Jesus, I remind the parents that they are the primary disciplers of their children and that their children need to hear their stories. I challenge parents to tell their kids about ways they have experienced the brokenness, bondage, and shame (blame) of sin and how they have turned to Jesus for restoration (fixing), freedom and forgiveness. Honest, authentic stories of walking in obedience daily are absolutely essential for these kids as they prepare to meet their own failures and turn to Jesus for restoration.

Next post: Beginning to tell their own story of conversion.

Journey to Jesus - Stage One: The Seeker

If you haven't read the first post, start there to make sense of this.

The Seeker stage is designed to be a period of evangelism for those who are "seeking" the good news and the life of Jesus. For our community, this is generally kids who are between the ages of 9 and 12. They have been hanging around our community because they have been coming with their parents. As kids, they have been participating in our Children's Worship and have been exposed to many of the core stories of the Bible: Creation, the Flood, the call of Abraham, the Exodus, the tabernacle, Israel demanding a king, the building of the temple, the destruction of the temple, birth of Jesus, miracles of Jesus, institution of the Lord's Supper, Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, and Pentecost.

Having been concrete, black & white thinkers, they are now beginning to be capable of abstract thought and shades of gray. However, they still need a lot of concrete bridges to get to make sense of the abstract thinking. Because of this need, I often begin our times together with some kind of concrete story or activity and then draw connections to an abstract idea. There's a reason why object lessons work well with kids, especially at this age!

For our first session, I have used Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a jumpstart to a conversation about conversion. It's obviously an imperfect connection and the parallels are a stretch and definitely fall short, but they provide a launching pad (and it's fun to watch kids who are 'too old' for this story enjoy hearing it again).

Before I read the book to them, I ask them to consider what this book might possibly have to do with them and their life of faith. In other words, "why on earth am I reading you this book?"

When I finish reading it, I let them tell me why I read it to them. The answers vary and can be quite interesting. We talk about what the caterpillar did to prepare for becoming a butterfly. We talk about his stomach ache after eating a bunch of junk food and how he felt better after he ate the nice green leaf. He spun his cocoon (actually, a chrysalis for those butterfly experts out there) and he waited. He could not turn himself into a butterfly. Eventually, one of them will usually arrive at the conclusion that the caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly has something to do with their desire to become baptized members of our community. Of course there are major differences and no metaphor is perfect, but we generally have an interesting discussion.

This conversation serves as a springboard into an explanation of the four stages of conversion (from Webber):
- recognize that I am a sinner (Romans 1:18-20; 3:10-23)
- repent from my sin and turn toward Christ (Romans 7:18-8:2)- faith and trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24-26; Romans 8)
- walk in obedience daily (Ephesians 3:16-4:32)

I ask them to spend time in the coming week, talking with their parents about ways they recognize their own sin and slavery to sin (Romans 7) and questions they have about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Because these kids have had exposure to the concept of the tabernacle / temple and sacrifice, they can generally grasp the concept of substitutionary atonement. However, the "God With Us" thrust of the whole story of God is not always as clear. Throughout the journey together, I am constantly wanting them to see the significance of God made flesh, dwelling among us, God's Spirit within us, always with us, always enlivening us and always enabling us.

Next post: Eikons - made in the image of God.