Awaken the Wonder

This book is the first of a three part series of lessons designed to awaken the spirit of the Bible within an elementary school child. For fullest benefit, children experiencing this curriculum should be of an age where they are enjoying chapter books or are at least familiar with the concept. This curriculum was developed with a third grade audience in mind but could be used for slightly younger or slightly older audiences. It is perfect in combination with the receipt of a child's first "real" Bible.

Painting Pictures

Visual people respond to color, maps and pictures. The contents of the Bible primarily focus on what is happening or on a philosophical message. It is often up to the reader to fill in the colors, images and topography of the stories. This is easy if you are living in the environment where the Bible stories took place. It is not so easy when the culture you are most familiar with is as similar to Bible times as an avatar is to a corncob doll.

Consider a passage relating an absolutely spellbinding story about Samson in the Old Testament.

"When Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines met him and came out shouting. The Lord’s spirit rushed over him, the ropes on his arms became like burned up linen, and the ties melted right off his hands. He found a donkey's fresh jawbone, picked it up, and used it to attack one thousand men. Judges 15:14-15 (CEV).

In this story, the Bible uses two brief sentences - a total of 54 words - to describe an action sequence where a bound Samson escapes his captors, hunts around, finds the jawbone of a donkey carcass and uses it in what must have been an impressive attack on one thousand men - read that again - one thousand men. Today, these 54 words would occupy at least 15 minutes of riveting, on-screen action. The Bible's version is so short, if someone doesn't stop and point it out, the reader might miss it.

Tasting Words

Young children pick up leaves, rocks and blades of grass, touching the world to see how it feels. The youngest of children even put the world in their mouths - much to the chagrin of microbial minded parents. These children are learning by experience. People who learn by experience engage all five senses in a task. They "live" the lesson. Experts call this kind of learning kinesthetic and tactual. If you are teaching children, I think it is safe to say you are in the kinesthetic and tactual experience business.

Recreating the world of the Bible using the senses is key to opening the message and contents of the Bible to a child. Your job as a teacher is to pull back the curtains of the Bible so the individual child can see the colors, feel the wind and taste the salty sea of God's story. You will know you've succeeded when the child decides to step through the curtain and experience the story on his own.

As a result of completing these lessons, children will have a better grasp of the beauty, action and beating heart of the book we call “Biblia Sacra, - The Holy Bible. You have the privilege of being the person who awakens this wonder within the children that you teach. Thank you for reviving the relevance as well as the reverence of this dearly beloved book.

Nuts and Bolts - or "How to Use This Book"

Each lesson has six standard elements.

Prepare

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians about equipping themselves for missionary work, he used the image of armor - the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. There’s one more piece of equipment - the Word of God. Paul described the Word as the sword of the spirit. (Ephesians 6:10-18) Think about that. The Word of God is a sword! Wielding a sword is not a sedentary activity. Are you ready to spear the hearts and minds of your students? Each chapter begins with a section to arm you for battle; a weekly meditation to focus heart and mind on the task before you. This spiritual practice, this battle cry, will seek to provide you with a visual focus for what each lesson is attempting to achieve.

Memory Verse

Each new section of the Bible is introduced with a memory verse designed to encapsulate the essence of the theme for that section. The verse serves two purposes. First, it helps focus the children on the most important concept for the group of books under discussion. Second, the exercise of systematically repeating the same verse again and again fixes it in the child's memory. At the end of your time together, each child touched by these lessons will have had the opportunity to plant three strong, wonderful sentences from God into the fields of their minds. The verse and a suggestion for making it part of each child's experience outside of class is included.

Objectives

Objectives are the concrete goals for each lesson. Combined with your visionary work in the preparation stage, the objectives provide you with pathways to arrive at your destination. Each activity is grounded in these statements.

Activities

Every group of children is different. Even the same group of children will behave differently on different days. What is going on in each child's mind, what each child ate (or didn’t eat) for a meal, and who each child interacted with before gracing your door all play a part in creating the psychological and emotional mood of the group. Flexibility is the key to unlocking an engaging lesson. Good teachers have a big bag of tricks. Options give teachers the ability to "call an audible," to change the activity and refocus the group. Each lesson comes with several different activities that meet the objectives - more than you will need or use. Don't be afraid to switch things up if people aren't having fun.