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.