What's Your Bible Story?

What's your Bible story?

What's the story of your relationship to the Bible? How did you progress from being an outsider, familiar with only scattered bits and pieces, to a reader, to a person whose life has been shaped by its contents - if that was the path? Or maybe you're a skeptic. And if so, there's a story behind that as well.

Everyone has a Bible story that's evolved with them and that shapes how they view God.

The written word isn't the only way we relate to God (after all, the earliest Christians didn't have a New Testament, and Christian believers for centuries were mostly illiterate), but it's a super important way. In the Bible classes that I teach, I like to ask, "What is the Bible, and what is the Bible for?" People's answers usually reflect the depth of their Bible experience. When we're not very familiar with the Bible, our understandings of its purpose and how it "works" in us are pretty limited.

About 10 years ago, a guy named A.J. Jacobs spent an entire year trying to follow every command that's in the Bible. Part of his purpose was to mock people who say they believe the Bible, by pointing out the difficulty (if not impossibility) of keeping every biblical command. But the whole experiment reflects a shallow understanding of the Bible (and one that you are free not to buy into), as "God's rule book" and nothing more.

My Bible story really took off once I got into college, because it was the first time I'd really read it in a concentrated way. How could this be? I grew up going to church. Lots of church. Yet except for some brief periods (Bible camps), I was never encouraged or challenged to read it in order to believe it.

John the apostle tells us that he recorded the events in his gospel (and not every event) so that readers would believe "that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." I think that captures the purpose of Bible reading pretty well. We read so that we might believe. We don't read to win Bible trivia contests, even though that seems to be the focus of so many Bible reading plans and schemes and curricula that's out there.

Now think about your own kid's Bible story. Do they approach it already believing, or wanting to believe, or for some other reason? And how do we build and support good habits of Bible reading? Here are some ideas:

1. Remember that the Bible is a book. Ok - duh. But here's what I mean by that. Just because Christians believe the Bible was inspired by God and has the weight (authority) of God behind its words, it is still a book. It expresses ideas through words, sentences, and paragraphs. As such, its words are not magical incantations that are somehow freed from the normal rules of human communication, to be plucked out of the air (and out of context) and willy-nilly applied in service of the heat of a given moment. The Bible's message was delivered in particular times at particular places to particular audiences. And it wasn't written to us; but it has a message for us.

Some people do believe the Bible is magical, that every utterance stands on par with all of the others, and that learning the history and situation behind each book and passage is a waste of time. I cannot support that view. In that case, there is no control: the Bible can mean whatever I argue it to mean. And the more fanciful the interpretation, the better, because people will nod their heads and say, "Wow - I would have never seen that in that passage!"

2. Becoming a better reader in general will help you become a better Bible reader. Since all of the rules of written communication still apply, it follows that the better your kids are at reading in general, the better they will be at apprehending the message of the Bible. And by reading I don't just mean decoding words. I took Greek in seminary. I can pronounce all of the words in a Greek New Testament. This does not mean I can accurately tell you what a passage written in Greek is saying. Why? Because I'm not that good at it! To get there, I'd need to expand my Greek vocabulary and practice, practice, practice to increase my reading fluency. Even then, without some knowledge of the background of a passage (Who wrote it? When? Where? To whom? Why?) my "reading" would be limited to translating words, phrases, and ideas into English (which is what an English Bible does).

So expose your kids to all kinds of literature and encourage them to be readers. What if they don't like reading? Some kids don't. But it's unlikely they'll become devoted Bible readers who understand and believe its message unless they spend time reading it. And that's unlikely if they don't like reading in general.

3. Choose Bibles and Bible products that kids like. This one's a no-brainer. When people ask me, "What's the best Bible for my child?" my answer is always the same: Whichever one they'll read. Don't sweat that it isn't your favored translation. If you want kids to spend time with it, they have to like it. That means cover appeal, illustrations, sidebars, maps, charts - whatever it takes to make a Bible "cool" to them, that's the one you need to get them.

4. Do some intense study & learn the story. At some point in everyone's Bible-reading career, it pays to invest the time to develop mastery of what you're actually studying. Otherwise you hit a wall. The Bible contains a lot of "stuff", but you can't begin to piece it together. This is where our series of classes called "What's The Story?" and "What's This Book?" come in. Once your kid hits 4th grade, they are old enough for these classes. Class 1, "What's The Story?" takes on the big, overarching story of the Bible, while Class 2, "What's This Book?" examines how the Bible tells that story and how we can read it and make sense of it. Since 2010, I would estimate that more than 200 kids have gone through this class, and the class is designed for parents to go through it together with their kids. My hope is that every kid takes this class before leaving 6th grade. The next round begins January 18.

For 3rd graders, we are trying something new in 2017. "Meet Your Bible" is an entry-level overview of how the Bible works, which will be offered on Sunday afternoon, January 22. We are limiting this first go around to 25 kids and parents, with free lunch included. Sign up here - a limited amount of childcare is also available for younger or older siblings, if you need that.

Younger than 3rd grade, I am a fan of Bible storybooks. It has been said that before 3rd grade, kids are learning to read, and after that, kids read to learn. So I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that their reading skills are developing and realistic about how much we expect younger kids to encounter God through formal Bible study.  In fact, even people who want kids to "learn a lot of scripture" through memorization seem to concede this point, that kids won't understand the words they're reading and saying until they're older. I think kids below 8 should encounter God mainly through ritual and wonder, through song, in prayer, and by entering the Bible narrative through hearing and play. Formal study of the scriptures will come. But if we overwhelm them with too many words that are big and confusing, then that's the groundwork we're laying: the Bible is full of words that are big and confusing.

Remember that God gave us the Bible as a revelation of himself. But it wasn't the only means he used. Even illiterate people and those in cultures steeped in oral tradition do encounter God to this day. So we need to be patient with kids who are poor readers or who are just beginning to read, and not look down on them as "Christians in the making", because the point of the Bible isn't the Bible; it's God. Every kid's "Bible story" will be shaped in time. We can't force it, but we can do some things - like encouraging good reading, exposing them to good Bible products, and holding classes and seminars - that give them a leg up on the journey of discovering God through the word.

As if you needed one more thing to do this time of year...

Well, it's BacktoSchoolHalloweenThanksgivingandsuddenlyit'sChristmas season. Every year. Without fail. Are you feeling it?

So it is with some trepidation that I offer this appeal: Don't miss Advent.

Advent, the church season which looks forward to Christmas, has fallen out of favor. It sounds stodgy, too churchy. And besides, if we celebrate four weeks of Advent, who has time for Christmas (which is the real fun anyhow)?

But the rhythm of Advent slows us down. It keeps Christmas from being a blur. Whether you observe Advent in a traditional way - with a wreath and five candles, representing the prophecies about Jesus, Bethlehem, the shepherds, the angels, and the baby Jesus - or in some other way that draws kids into the Christmas story and allows them to imagine it, experience it, play with it, and wonder about it, Advent is such a valuable tool for inviting kids into the world and language of faith.

Otherwise what happens is that we immerse ourselves in a crush of now-largely secularized traditions, while the Christmas story waits for us on December 25 - by which time, kids are so drunk with excitement about presents and school breaks, the actual Christmas story can become a coda ("...Aaaand then Jesus was born").

Sybil McBeth, who developed the "Praying in Color" concept, also wrote a handy book called The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist. Click the link to the preview page, which itself has six ideas to use on Christmas Day alone. All of Sybil's ideas are practical and inexpensive.

Here's the real beauty of Advent: it addresses the idea of waiting, which every kid is accustomed to. Kids living in an adult-run world have to wait all the time, for birthdays and holidays and grown-ups and for their turn, and it's hard to wait. So you begin at the optimal point for learning, which is relating to the personal situation of the learner. (Educational psychologists would call this the "anticipatory set".) Ask your kids, "What are some things you've had to wait for? Why is it hard to wait? What can we do to make waiting easier?"

But be sure, also, that you make the link between our waiting and the Israelites'. Advent is a looking forward to Christmas, just as the people of God (Israel) looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Who was the Messiah? Why were they desperate for him? How did his coming amaze them/shock them? Why did most of them miss it? Jesus' life, and his rejection by most who encountered him, doesn't make sense except against this backdrop.

That's a valuable life lesson for kids (which is not to imply that Jesus' birth and life were just pretexts to teach us character lessons about handling whatever it is we wait for), that in waiting, we can become impatient, or refuse to wait, or despair. Or, we can relate to the Israelites and remember that in their darkest moment, God has already come through. Therefore, their waiting is our waiting. As Christians, we don't wait for God to do something "new" or "better" or "different" at Christmas. He's already done the biggest thing. And it made everything all right.

Young kids are probably too young to play the "What if Jesus had never been born" thought experiment, but older kids can probably entertain it. Would the world still be hopeful? And are they still hopeful now that Jesus will keep his promise to return to the world he loves? Advent immerses us in this kind of "what if?" and "what now?" thinking. Soak it up, and revel with your kids in the joy of waiting for something whose delivery is already assured.