Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Prayers of Children

I've loved my new Sunday school class.  I was a little nervous at first since my favorite age group is teen girls. . .and my class is comprised of 7-9 year olds.  There is quite a difference.  I prayed at first that Jesus would help me to understand them and have patience for them.  I have to say again - they are COMPLETELY different.

The first positive thing I experienced with them was that it took very little to get them excited about serving Jesus on their level.  My first Sunday with them, I started a contest - "Fall in Love with Jesus."  They loved it.  I am doing another contest.  They are so excited.  They have been asking about it for months.

One of the things that have been difficult for me is putting the Bible on their level.  I tend to get too deep for them.  Thankfully, they are great at helping me teach them.  Another thing that helped me was that my mom got me a Bible curriculum that had pictures.  The pictures help me keep things simple.

Another thing that I learned was to change my terminology.  To a seven-year-old child who has only been coming to church for a few months, "prayer request" is a foreign term - actually, to some of mine, even prayer was a foreign term.  When I started the class, I began every morning by making them tell me something good about their week.  That was my platform to teach them a little bit of gratitude.  A few months ago, I added asking them "what they wanted to tell God."  How very interesting.  The first week I did it, I got responses such as, "He's nice,"  "He's a good God,"  "I love Him," "that I want to be a superhero,"  and "He's a really good God," and "I want my own bedroom."  Wow.  The first time I ever asked, that is what my little 7-9 year-olds thought of God.  They still like to tell Him that He is nice and good.  I hope they always remember that.

"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 18:4

1 comment:

Pokey said...

This is a very precious share! There is nothing that compares to the joys of sharing Jesus as a Friend to the little guys...in my humble opinion.
:-}pokey