By Renée Zitzloff and co. (including some of the children of Ephesus school) On the day of his death unarmed tax payer Michael Brown and friend Dorian Johnson were walking in the street heading home. Suddenly their employee police officer Darren Wilson pulled up in his car accosting them with these words, “Get the f__k…
Category: Younger Children
How to know if you are wealthy
Today, after listening to the podcast, “Are You Rich,” I came up with the following ways to know if you are wealthy. You don’t have to have them all, just one or two. Here they are in no particular order: 1. You’re in a club. 2. You have food. 3. You have shelter. 4. You…
Bully on the Playground
Habakkuk draws its reader right in, questioning the Lord’s dominion over the enemies of war, famine, poverty, and injustice. What kind of Lord won’t listen and won’t save? Habakkuk doesn’t mess around with niceties, listing the Lord’s steadfast love, mercy, patience, justice, and strength. He goes straight for the jugular. And teaching Habakkuk to young…
He who must not be named
This week, the youngest class completed the first chapter of Nahum. In addition to continuing our study of key terms like “vengeance,” and “whirlwind,” we took the opportunity to practice Hebrew vocabulary, using the words “Yahweh,” and “shalom” to help illustrate the “good news” at the end of chapter 1: 14 The Lord has issued…
Matthew’s Question
I remember the first time I heard the gospel. I don’t remember the sermon that followed. I remember the reading. I can’t have been more than 9 or 10 years old. It was the Sunday before Nativity, probably the first Christmas after my mom’s parents had passed away. Taking my place in the gospel’s honor…
God Will Crush You Anytime . . . and He Might Just Pick Up the Pieces
This was the title the children of Ephesus School named their Micah play performed last week. Actually, if it were up to them and I hadn’t interfered, they would have kept the tidy title God Will Crush You Anytime. It was a matter of adding cherry flavor to the medicine . . . it’s a…
Bearing the Indignation
I can’t say it’s been easy teaching Micah to young children, ages 3 to 6. At this age children are trying to figure out how the world works–if this, then that–and they have a heightened sense of fairness, especially when they think they have been treated unfairly. How can the victim be the perpetrator at…
Accused by the Offering
Parents get a little crazy about their kids’ messes. They’ve got so much, they forget half of what they own. Collections of Barbie dolls, Legos, Golden Books, American Girl dolls, Star Wars action figures, Polly Pockets, play kitchen plastics, Magnetics, Wii accessories, and lip gloss are strewn all over the house. I’ve heard of more…
Swords to Plowshares
My first question today to the youngest children of Ephesus School was, “How do you know English? Why do you speak English and not Spanish or another language? People who don’t know English think it’s a hard language to learn, so how do you know how to speak it?” Their answers boiled down to, “Our…
Painful But Necessary
This week, I had the opportunity to fill in for Mrs. Benton’s class with the youngest children. In her absence, we reviewed the first and second chapters of Micah. Our discussion was about God being angry at the people and telling them that he was going to punish them because they didn’t listen to his commandments. To…