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).