DELVING DEEPER
WITH CHILDREN’S BIBLE ENGAGEMENT
ANDREW RAMSBOTTOM | SUNZ Children & Families Consultant
I
magine you have been read or told a story. An exciting story, with lots of action and twists and turns. The main character in the story appears to be a little hard done by, but eventually comes out on top. However, five years later, on reading the story for yourself, you discover that the original story that you heard (and have retold and love), was actually only half the story. Two chapters in a four-chapter story were left out. As a result of this, the main characters and some of the reasons for the story being told have been misrepresented. When this happens to an adult, they usually adapt and move on. However, when this happens to children, it can have a detrimental impact on their faith development. A case in point is the book of Jonah. The Bible Project had this to say about the story of Jonah in one of their recent podcasts1: ‘religious media, specifically Christian media 1 https://bibleproject.com/podcast/our-assumptionsabout-jonah/
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has already reached the world over with the story of Jonah in creative and sometimes unfortunate ways… the book of Jonah exists in the popular imagination, before the actual story that comes from the Bible has ever connected with people.’ The same is also true of a lot of the Bible. So, how do we engage children with the Bible with integrity for their faith development? We need to raise our expectations of what children are able to deal with when it comes to Scripture, God’s Word. Children’s minds work like sponges, so we need to get it right the first time. Tell children as much of the story as we can so that, as they grow in faith, they don’t have to have the story adjusted. Certainly, there are some sexual and violent incidents in Scripture that would not be appropriate to share with children. But we need to think very, very carefully about those we would leave out and why we would leave them out. We should stay as close to the full text of the Bible narrative as we possibly can because faith is lived out in the real world and the real world is not always kind.
