So I got to hang out with the kids in church today. We only have a handful of kids that are all pre-school age and we take turns in the kid’s room during church. There are many many things I dislike about that system, but at the moment its the best we can do. But from what can tell, the kids generally like it.
We usually don’t have “lessons” for the kids (it hard enough getting people to help much less teach a lesson – one of my issues with the whole thing). Basically whoever is in with the kids get to chose what to do – generally that involves free play time or watching a movie. I went with a lesson today based very loosely on the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. We didn’t have any toy sheep or a shepherd really. But we had a whole set of toy dinosaurs. So we did the story with dinosaurs. The kids thought it was funny, but it worked.
Well my idea was to do the story thing using the toys then move on to sing songs about how God takes care of us. The kids had a different idea. They wanted to have the shepherd let the “sheep” out of the pen and count them coming back in over and over again. They wanted to make sure all the “sheep” were safe with the shepherd. Repeatedly. The songs full of abstract principles about this God person were fun, but they understood the shepherd counting the sheep.
I loved that. Fur a bunch of kids who (although loved dearly) hear most often through any given day to stop doing whatever it is they have chosen to do and start doing whatever the big people want them to do – to be counted and safely cared for is a big deal. To know that they are wanted no matter what is the ‘God thing” they need.
And so went my lesson on the good shepherd and his dinosaurs.