Tips for Teaching Kids about God

If you don’t know about Matthias Media, you should.  They provide excellent resources for all levels of disciple-making: evangelizing the lost, encouraging believers, and training leaders.  They even have a resource that pulls these aspects of gospel work together into one cohesive model of ministry.  They provide some of the best resources with biblical theology applied in practical ways.  Okay, enough of the commercial!

I bring up Matthias Media because this week their e-news email contained this helpful list by Stephanie Carmichael. This is valuable for parents and churches alike.

10 Tips for Teaching Young Children about God

Teach all the time: Young children live in the moment. Help them to learn in the moment by making the most of opportunities as they arise. Talk about God in the day-to-day things you are doing.

Teach at a special time: Try to set aside a special time to read about God. Prepare for this time. If you are going to read the Bible, think about what you will read and how to simplify and explain it.

Questions and answers: Listen to your children’s questions, and give quality time to answering them. But also ask them questions about what you’ve been trying to teach to check they have understood.

Teach through your life: You are a living example (or visual aid) of someone who loves God. Set a faithful example of dependence on God and let them see you reading the Bible for yourself.

Be prayerful: Like adults, children need God’s help to grow in Christ and they can learn to pray. So pray for them and pray simple prayers with them (e.g. “sorry God that we…”, “thank you God for…”, “God, please help…”).

Be simple: Young children are not abstract thinkers so be literal and concrete. Use real examples where possible (eg. God made this flower). Use simple vocabulary that they can understand. Avoid jargon.

Be specific: Move from the specific (God loves Ben) to the general (God loves everyone). Use lots of familiar examples so that they can understand.

Repeat and repeat again: You might get tired of saying it, but remember young children thrive on repetition.

Be thankful: Approach God with thankfulness. Model to your children how we can thank God in various situations and what we can thank God for.

Be visual: Young children learn through their eyes as well as their ears. Use pictures, visual aids, picture books etc.

3 Comments

  1. Hahaha! Yeah, I saw that and put out a humorous tweet about it. Apparently, he didn’t see it because I didn’t get a response ;-)

    Hope you’re doing well, brother!

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