How to Teach Kids Theology: Deep Truths for Growing Faith by Sam Luce and Hunter Williams is a recently released resource for parents and those who work with children on a spiritual level—or those who want to. If you currently work in children's ministry, are you done with using coloring sheets and watered-down materials with your kids? Over the years, I've had my hands on piles of Christian curriculum for my homeschool and the church ministries I was part of. Graduating from college with a BA degree in Christian Education, I also took my share of classes teaching me how to teach biblical truths to children. The classes were rich and relevant, but what taught me the most were the practical hands-on experiences I had both while in college and afterward. I quickly learned that my college education could not prepare me the same way that personal experience could.
What I love about this resource is that it is written by those personally involved in the lives of children. Their drive to write this book was based on those interactions.
You can purchase the perfect VBS curriculum or even the best homeschool curriculum filled with biblical truths, but if you are not prepared for the unexpected conversations with those you are teaching—you have missed the point. We serve a living God, and we are teaching a living Word. God is active and working on these little hearts, and we need to be ready and willing to move off script and teach in the moment. How can we be ready? Well, this book will show you and give you the confidence to face these conversations head-on. You will welcome them and look forward to them. You will even be encouraged at the beginning of the book to pray for them to happen.
One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the fact that I can eat three meals a day with my kids. Rather than having them off in a lunchroom somewhere talking to their peers about the newest video game or phone app, they are with me. And they actually seem to enjoy it! We laugh, we joke, and at times we have serious conversations. Some of the best conversations we have had have been during lunch. Deep theological questions about heaven, hell, and God have been brought up at these times. I often ask myself where the conversation would have ended up if it was in a school lunchroom with peers. Wherever you spend time with kids with the intention to the disciple, whether at church, taking them out for a meal to get to know them, at a picnic, at an afterschool Bible club, or at home, we need to be ready to answer the hard questions—and this book helps you to do that.
This book would have been an excellent resource to have when I was learning the basics of children's ministry, even though my definition of children's ministry in the church has drastically changed over the years—which it should. Our relationship with the Lord and perspectives on spiritual matters should continually be changing so that we are more like Him and understand His heart more and more every day.
In this book, the authors teach us as Christian educators to:
Teach all of the stories of the Bible—not the CliffsNotes version.
Understand the gospel enough ourselves to be able to point our kids continually to Christ.
Teach kids HOW to forgive. This book gives a scripted three-part method for teaching kids how to forgive. Knowing this for ourselves and teaching this to children will pave the way for further biblical truths and concepts to be established in their lives.
Teach Kids Hymns. A friend who knows my distaste for unscriptural modern worship music recently sent me a post saying,
Are you teaching your kids songs that could be sung by a hospital bedside in 50 years?
That's it, right there. When I was at my lowest, in a war zone as a civilian, unsure of what my future held, it was not the modern worship songs that got me through. It was the few hymns that I knew. Those were what I rehearsed alone with the Lord, and those scriptural songs gave me strength. I appreciate that hymns mentioned in this book about theology because Christians often get their theology from the music they listen to or the songs they sing, whether they realize it or not.
This book is the perfect resource for home educators, church educators, and parents. If you are ready to tackle challenging questions with kids, this book will help you build the confidence needed!
You can order a copy of How to Teach Kids Theology: Deep Truths for Growing Faith by Sam Luce and Hunter Williams today on Amazon or enter the Rafflecopter below by 11:59 pm on 3/7/25 for a chance to win a copy! (US only.)
Disclaimer: Many thanks to Sam Luce for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own and not AI-generated.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this much needed book for our kids. they need to know TRUTH deep in their hearts!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind review. I pray that our book encourages and equips parents and leaders to confidently teach profound truths that will deep into the hearts of the kids they are leading.
ReplyDelete