CHRISTMAS: The 12 Days of Christmas Means What?

I recently learned that the 12 Days of Christmas was written in England to help kids remember parts of confirmation when the Catholic faith was banned. I wasn't sure so I looked it up and thought it worthy to share. It went like this:

On the first day of Christmas my true love (God) gave to me

• a partridge in a pear tree (Jesus to be on the cross)
• two turtle doves (the 2 testaments of God - Old and New)
• three french hens (the 3 theological virtues - Faith, Hope, and Love)
• four calling birds (the 4 Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
• five golden rings (the 5 books of the Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)
• six geese a-laying (the 6 days of creation)
• seven swans a-swimming (the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit - prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion)
• eight maids a-milking (the 8 beatitudes)
• nine ladies dancing (the 9 fruits of the spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)
• ten lords a-leaping (the 10 Commandments)
• eleven pipers piping (the 11 faithful disciples)
• twelve drummers drumming (the 12 points of doctrine in the Apostles Creed)

Now, lore is full of stories like this so it may or may not be true, but it is clever none-the-less, don't you think?

NEW YEAR: Daily Faith Talk

People are always asking for good devotional books they can use with their kids, which I can appreciate, however, I'm going to go in a different direction. First, I recommend they read the Bible (though I wouldn't trudge through all the major or minor prophets). I recommend The Story for Kids or The Story for Children, depending on the age of the kids because it's the Bible and not a devotional.

Second, I'm going in a different direction here because I think connecting kids and their growing faith to their lives doesn't necessarily happen through a devotion written by somebody with the best of intentions. I think it's important to encourage and equip parents to take the time to talk about faith with their kids within the context of their daily lives. The problem is that people don't know how to start the discussion or don't want to take the time to do it every day/night. The thing is, it doesn't have to be a formal conversation. It could be as simple as a dinner table discussion or a bedtime check-in. If people need discussion starters they can try something like this: 

1. How was your day? Tell me about it.
2. Anything interesting happen in school today? 
3. Anything really good/bad/funny happen today?  
4. Can you think of anything from the Bible that would fit your life or help today? 
5. Did you see God in the world today? Where? (Caution parents not to teach kids to look for signs as to what to do in life, but to see how God used them or others or showed Himself to them after the fact.)
6. God won't always make your life easy, but He is always there for you. 
7. Pray. Get the kids involved in talking to God without a prayer written by the author of a book. It's never a bad thing to teach kids Luther's morning or evening prayers, the Lord's Prayer, and/or any other prayer they can commit to memory that will help them throughout their lives.

I don't mind books for some things (after all, I wrote one with my students for Advent), but for regular daily life, I prefer to train parents not to depend on them... or to only depend on one... the Bible. 

CONFIRMATION: Images of Faith

I love supplemental curricula. One of the reasons I've never developed a confirmation curriculum is because I never teach anything directly as it's written. I haven't found a single curriculum that I find adequate both educationally as a teacher and in content. Most of the pastors I speak with would agree as they seem to create their own as well, which is why I wrote my book The Art of Teaching Confirmation. Whatever you use, please teach it well.

That said, there's a new supplemental curriculum out there through the CUENet (Concordia University Education Network) called Images of Faith. The problems I find with much of the confirmation curricula out there is that

1. it feels like it's written by people who haven't been in a classroom in 25 years (or ever) and are out of touch with children that age,
2. has too much reading for both the student and the teacher (as do many put out by the LCMS), and
3. are big on telling people what to say to students (scripting) and low on challenging, thought-provoking questions that make students think. 

Nobody is interested in reading a dissertation on the First Commandment before teaching it to 13 year old kids, especially if they're pastors who have been well-educated. This curriculum appears to have the same problem as the teacher notes for the First Commandment are 15 pages long with 7 of those pages student notes. That's quite a bit of work for a supplemental curriculum and seriously, no 12-14 year old is going to read all that. What this course does have, however, are some fantastic images.

What I would recommend as a professional educator is, if you intend to use this supplemental curriculum that has a number of pages of required reading, have the kids read the information at home before they get to class so that you can have them interact with the material in many and various ways in class.  Also, don't forget that a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to memory so, whether or not you use this curriculum or any other, use images!

CHRISTMAS: Nativity Masks

Amazon

I don't know if I posted on this before but I discovered that the link changed so I'm going to post them again. Here are some really fun nativity masks from Oriental Trading.

They would be fantastic for your pre-k through about 2nd or 3rd grade kids and could be used for more Bible stories than just the birth of Jesus. They would be great for children's messages too!

Young kids LOVE to pretend. Let them!!

CONFIRMATION: Create a TED-Ed lesson?!!?

Did you know TED-Ed has a lesson creation tool?  

• Use the TED-Ed website to search of any video on YouTube.
• Use TED-Ed to enhance the video by adding goals or objectives, add multiple choice or open ended questions, add links to other articles or resources online, or even a blog you created to give students something to think about. 
• Use TED-Ed for online discussion. 
• It even allows you to track their progress!

How might you use this fabulous tool? Well, if you need to be gone and still want to give your students something to think about you could use it to flip your classroom, you could prepare something for the kids to experience beforehand that you want to discuss face-to-face in class, or you could create a whole online confirmation program. If you're going to create an online course I would include face-to-face discussion time every couple of weeks to touch base. It allows for a better assessment opportunities.

Check out the video or learn more on the TED-Ed website.

HS YOUTH: Do they or don't they? Will they or won't they?

It's been a while since I posted. I'm teaching 7/8th grades at Central Lutheran School in St. Paul and have been very busy trying to get my procedures down to something that works for all of us. But, in my quiet moments of contemplation while I walk I've been haunted by a question, "How do we keep the youth attending church into their 20's and 30's and the rest of their lives?"

The answer so far has been to "fill them up" with activities and events throughout high school. I hear people, pastors, and youth workers say, "We draw them in with activities and then share the gospel." Once, after saying that, a pastor immediately added, "It's not a bait and switch." Hmm... for some reason that has never sat well with me.

Churches put a lot of money and effort toward youth ministry as if this is the last chance these kids have, and based on polls, that may be true. Or it may not be true as we can never discount the power of the Holy Spirit in anyone's life. It is, after all, the Spirit of God who brings people to faith. It is a scary statistic, though, and it kicks some churches into action as if they're thinking, "If we grow it enough as teenagers it'll last a lifetime!" Some provide youth rooms kids can decorate however they want, whether it's black walls with flames or crazy murals (yes, I've seen both). They include game tables, video games, big screen televisions, and sometimes, coffee shops. They send them on servant events and mission trips and fully believe that the more activities the kids attend, the stronger their ties to church will become, because they will develop relationships. They also do devotions and have Bible studies... some of which are truly thought provoking and impactful. None of these things in and of themselves are bad, but the question remains: Are these the things that compel the youth to continue to go to church after they graduate?

We know that the primary reason teens come to church is because they have relationships with other teenagers. This is most certainly true. I had a very close youth group and I'm still in contact with many of them, I love them dearly and know for a fact that they are part of why I am the person that I am. They are the reason I wanted to attend church during high school. They are not, however, the reason I attended church after high school.

So, the question remains. Why do our youth stop going to church during and after college? I believe the answer to that lies somewhere between their life choices and the Holy Spirit. Many don't go while away at college because it's inconvenient, they have no transportation, and they don't even know where a church is located in relation to where they live on or near campus; but they do go when they return home during college, and afterward if they live with their parents or in the same town.

What I know for sure is that going to every youth group activity throughout high school is not what affects their church attendance as a young adult. Why?

• Church feels different after college. The youth group and the youth room are full of kids who don't feel familiar and they don't feel they belong there anymore. 
• Their friends have grown and changed and so have they, so they don't feel as connected as they once did. They may feel they only have memories to talk about. 
• They may not have kept up relationships and people change a lot while they putting their identity together and you realize you don't have much in common anymore.  
• They're making friends and developing relationships at work, so that's who they hang-out with now. 
• They tried adult Bible study and found it less than stimulating and adult Bible study seems a place where only the pastor talks, few people ask questions, the pastor asks and answers his own questions, and/or the outline given has all the answers on it. Everybody agrees with whatever the pastor says and they all sit and nod and share how they agree; with coffee.
• As a teenager there's a separation between the congregation and the youth. You're not a part of the congregation... you're the youth. How do they become a part of the "inner circle" that is considered "the congregation" after they graduate from high school or have been away at college? Perhaps nobody ever invited them to be a part of the a board or committee, or when they did they were treated as if they were still a teenager and nobody took their input seriously. 

On second thought, maybe it's not about how we treat the youth, but how we treat the adults; because they're not youth anymore. 

CONFIRMATION: Read the Bible!!

“Biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S.” (The Barna Group, www.barna.org)

What most Christians believe about the Bible and their faith is completely misguided. The problem stems from

Workbook on Amazon

1) Not really knowing what the Bible says. Christians are creating their own version of Christianity based on what they want to believe is true as opposed to what the Bible teaches. Barna’s research suggests that this practice takes effect in the early teenage years and that by the time most kids reach the age of 14 they think they know everything about the Bible and don’t need it anymore.

2) Reading out of context. One of the things missing from confirmation education is the expectation to read the Bible in more than short sections or specifically chosen verses. Barna says, “Bible reading has become the religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism.” If it fits on a coffee cup and they agree with it then they accept it. As a result of this practice students go through confirmation without understanding the fundamental themes and have little interest in deepening their knowledge of the Bible or its author.

Developed from the "70 Most Important Events in the Bible," the "Old Testament Bible Reading Plan and Workbook for Middle School" is a one year, 33 week reading plan with comprehension questions. Until this point, most students have heard and talked about various stories in Sunday School but have never had the opportunity to read God's redeeming story in context themselves. The middle school comprehension questions are primarily plot oriented in order to give students an overall understanding of the story of God's ongoing relationship with His people. Students should be able to relate the stories back to the educator with accuracy and be able to tell what God is doing and what the people are doing as well as apply what they know about them in different ways. Answers are not included as students should not be looking for what the author or the pastor/educator thinks, but what they think. If educators are unfamiliar with any particular reading they may read along with the students. Check out a SAMPLE!

A pdf file with photocopy permission within a congregation is available from my website or a workbook for each student may be purchased through Amazon. I'm going through it with my students this year. 

(Old Testament Level II for high school will be out later this month and then Gospels & Acts followed by Epistles later this year.)