Skip to main content

Handle with Care


As a quick ps to my last post on how we should, and should not communicate Biblical truths to children, a salutory lesson in the difficulties of this comes in the person of a certain 7 year old called Ciaran Thomas Campton.

From he was no age he has struck terror into his mum and I when visiting speakers talk to the children in the church service, because he has never had any compulsion about speaking back. On one famous Sunday he had a stand up row with me in front of the whole congregation about what does and does not constitute a church! And his take on the Sunday school lesson is always quite interesting to listen to over Sunday lunch... Although it can lead to you choking on a hastily swallowed carrot!

Over the past few weeks the Sunday School, Bible Class and church have just started into a new common "curriculum" and we've been looking at some of Jesus' healing miracles... Last week he wasn't too impressed that Jesus used spit to heal a deaf mute... "Yeughh! He said, imagine putting slabbers in someone's ears and on their tongue!" And this week he suggested that in order to heal the woman who had been bent over for 18 years Jesus should have used a crow bar!

His most entertaining moment, however, was probably after last year's youth service, when the speaker had told the children that the Bible was dynamite. Three hours later we found him sitting in the corner of his room, chuckling to himself. When we asked him what was so funny he said "The Bible is dynamite!" Before putting his hands together then opening them like a book and shouting "KABOOM!!!"

I fully agree with that speaker... the Bible is dynamite... and certainly, as far as children are concerned we have to handle it with care...

But for other kids'-eye views of the Bible, check out "Give up Your Aul Sins" a short animated film based around Dublin schoolchildren's accounts of Bible stories. You can get a taster of the title sequence on YouTube.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Living under the Empire... (2) Where is Babylon?

We were driving back from school last week, talking about books that we had been reading and my younger son, Ciaran, asked me "Where is Babylon?" I have to confess that my history is better than my geography, and I said that it no longer exists as an inhabited city, but its ruins were to the north west of the current capital of Iraq, Baghdad. When I checked however, I discovered that it is actually about 50 miles south of Baghdad and the modern town is the administrative centre of the province of Babil... But just as the modern city is but a shadow of the historic capital of 2 ancient empires, first under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and then the "Neo-Babylonian" empire (under Nebuchadnezzar etc) in the 6th century BCE, so the earthly Babylonian empire/s was/were fleeting in comparison to the enduring metaphorical idea of Babylon. The original Empire under Hammurabi was probably the ultimate origin of some of the early Biblical stories, including the &quo
Post a Comment
Read more