Back to the Basics

Lately, I've been reading through the Gospel of Mark. In Mark 10:15, Jesus basically tells us that unless we have faith like little kids, we won't get into Heaven. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty sobering thought! Sometimes I think that grownups make faith more complex than a Stephen Hawking book! And I guess that's what caught my attention in this verse. I like stuff like this because it's simple. Simple is peaceful. Simple takes the pressure off. Sometimes it's good to get back to the simple basics of our faith, isn't it? Have you noticed that when we take a break from deep theological concepts, we seem to find a deeper understanding of faith? We seem to have a refreshing view of what faith is all about and how simple it really is. I think this is one of the main reasons why I enjoy teaching children.

In the pages of Genesis, we see the themes of creation, human rebellion and sin, God's judgment and His grace, God's covenant with mankind, and the first hints of the message of salvation. These concepts are what the Christian faith is built upon. When you think about it, all of redemptive history comes down to the first books of the Bible. Understanding the story of creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Noah and the flood and Abraham are so critical to our understanding of the New Testament and what Christ's death on the cross was really all about.

So here we are, finishing up the first quarter of Good News Club, and we've talked about a lot of stuff! We've talked about how God created the world around us. We talked about how God created these strange things called "people", and how they screwed up, but God gave them another chance to make it work with a weirdo named Noah. In the weeks to come, we'll be moving into a five lesson series on the "Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the upcoming blogs, I want us as parents to meditate on a few things together: What do all these Old Testament stories have to do with Christianity? How can we use these stories in bringing children closer to a healthy relationship with God? How can these stories bring children to a deeper level of understanding of their faith, and further along in their spiritual development?

It's one thing for our children to know the stories, but to know how they connect with their faith in Christ is how they will begin to see that their faith is real. They will begin to see that faith in God is not just something we do at church on Sunday or at Good News Club. Rather, they will begin to see that faith is who they are.