Our 9-year-old daughter came home from Sunday school with a story. Her teachers had asked her darling 4-year-old cousin to hoist a backpack, jammed with seminary textbooks, up onto her shoulders and carry it across the room. Try as she might in front of the whole class, it wasn’t happening, and the girl tearfully said as much. That’s when the teachers rushed to the rescue and affirmed that although we cannot carry the impossible burden of sin, Jesus can carry it for us. This image lingered in our family’s mind for years and became one of the many gospel illustrations we used at home. Teach with Pictures I was always the kid who needed a picture to grasp a concept, and children today are no different. We’re raising the next generation in a visually inundated world. So, in addition to words, we need visuals to help with understanding and retention. My heart’s first cry for my children was that they’d be with me for eternity. As a young mom, I tried to come up with creative ways to help them understand and retain salvation truths. Just as illustrations help children understand a story, pictures or object lessons help them understand the gospel. Springing off the backpack object lesson, I had them try to jump across a rug, something impossible for their little legs. They learned that all fall short—in the living room and of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). We also got out our art supplies and drew lots and lots of simple pictures: of narrow paths versus broad roads, and of the cross bridging the chasm between God and us. Facets of the Gospel No single picture gave my kids the whole gospel. Each exercise was an attempt to teach a small facet of gospel truth, split into bite-sized pieces. Every image, while distinct, complements other scriptural images, creating a unified whole like an expertly cut diamond. When they’re put together, the brilliance of the whole shines. No single picture gave my kids the whole gospel. Each exercise was an attempt to teach a small facet of gospel truth. John Stott explains in his classic work The Cross of Christ, “The blessings of ‘such a great salvation’ (Heb 2:3) are so richly diverse that they cannot be neatly defined. Several pictures are needed to portray them.” We often try to condense too much into one simplistic presentation. It’s so encouraging to shift our approach and instead present the many facets of the gospel, one picture at a time. Jesus frequently taught in this way: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field” and “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls” (Matt. 13:44–45). The kingdom is like this. And it’s like this. And it’s also like this. If adults need word pictures, kids will benefit from something even more tangible. Salvation in Stick Figures Let’s look at some salvation doctrines you can illustrate with your child today. Tell your child, “Let’s look at the Bible and see one thing Jesus has done for us.” Then break out your crayons and have your child draw an enormous treasure found buried in a field. Dig for that gold crayon to make it sparkle! Another fun idea is to grab that most prized office supply, the dry-erase marker, and use a window or bathroom mirror as your canvas. Have your child draw himself and add a big stain for sin. Then hand him the eraser to be wiped clean by Jesus. Or draw the gospel progression across a few cartoon panels. Start by drawing a stick-figure child looking into a house. By the last panel, she’s inside the house, welcomed by the father into her family. If adults need word pictures, kids will benefit from something even more tangible. Using a variety of biblical pictures to teach the gospel pushes us to discuss the whole truth, like the consequences of sin or our inability to be saved on our own. Supplying your kids with multiple facets of the gospel creates a foundation of sound doctrine they can build on as they grow. Whether you’re loading up a backpack with books or drawing at your kitchen table, you can showcase what God is offering your children and the world. The beauty is in the good news, not in your drawings. Keep putting the gospel on display, starting with one bite-size piece today.

One challenge every parent faces is how to teach their children doctrinal truth at an appropriate age. A child who can’t pronounce “justification” can still understand that Jesus died for his sins. Parents often rely on their local church to help them teach their children, especially in the early years. And yet preschool curriculum is often an afterthought for churches. Finding volunteers to serve in the preschool rooms during Sunday school can be a continual challenge, especially for small churches. It’s tempting for church leaders to breathe a sigh of relief when they have names on the schedule to cover the Sunday morning classes. Sometimes volunteers are left to figure out what to teach on their own. Jared Kennedy hopes to bring the ministry efforts of home and church together with a trio of books. His Big Thoughts for Tiny Tots is a concise catechism for toddlers and preschoolers. It’s useful in the home or as part of The Beginner’s Gospel Story Curriculum. The 52 fully planned Sunday school lessons, with suggestions for crafts and for songs with motions, can help volunteers who love kids but don’t have much background in child development. The lessons also connect with The Beginner’s Gospel Story Bible. I had the opportunity to interview Jared Kennedy about why he wrote his catechism and the curriculum that goes with it. We’ve been doing children’s ministry for years. Why do we need another curriculum? What makes The Beginner’s Gospel Story Curriculum unique? There are a lot of great curricula out there. But when I worked as a pastor in children’s ministry, we struggled with content for the toddler and preschool area. It’s a class that I’m passionate about because I think a lot of worldview formation begins at the youngest age. As kids are learning a language for the first time, you’re giving them the building blocks for their faith. When a 2-year-old comes into the classroom, she may have 200 words in her vocabulary. But by the time she graduates to the 4-year-old classroom, she’s going to have 1,500 words. And so, in that two-year span, kids are learning words like “prayer” and “Jesus” and “sin” for the very first time. A lot of worldview formation begins at the youngest age. As I’ve looked at children’s curricula as a whole, sometimes it seems like the toddler and preschool age group is an afterthought. Sometimes what’s written first is for the elementary age, and then it’s just simplified for the preschoolers. When I was writing The Beginner’s Gospel Story Curriculum, I was particularly thinking about teaching the Bible to the youngest age group. When you train preschool volunteers, what’s the biggest misconception you have to correct? The most common misconception is that volunteers are only doing childcare and not teaching. And that’s because a preschool classroom requires a lot of basic childcare. In a class full of 2-year-olds, teachers are often still changing diapers. They are training kids to sit and to listen to a story for the first time. There’s still a lot of holding and rocking children in preschool. However, I want to help teachers actually see that they have a role in building a basic worldview. They’re teaching some basic truths. Preschool teachers aren’t only doing childcare; they’re also teaching the good news to kids. How can we help volunteers break out of the ‘survive and advance’ approach to getting through their preschool class on Sunday morning? We have to help volunteers remember that preschool is an opportunity to teach a beautiful truth about who the church is. Young children are learning through an emotional grid. They’re learning from the teacher’s facial expressions. They’re learning from the teacher’s loving care for them that a church community is a safe place, and that a church community is a place where they’re going to be loved and cared for. If you just read social media, you’d think the church is very dangerous, that children aren’t being cared for well. We have an opportunity to teach kids at the youngest age that the church community is a place where you’re loved. Maybe preschool on Sunday feels like an attempt to survive and advance some weeks. But the way teachers carry themselves can cultivate an atmosphere of nurture and calm. When that happens, we’re teaching kids a big truth about who God is. The Beginner’s Gospel Story Curriculum builds on your new book, Big Thoughts for Tiny Tots, which is a simplified catechism. Why has there been an explosion of catechisms among evangelicals recently? I can’t answer that question without talking about Martin Luther. Fifteen years after posting the Ninety-five Theses on the Wittenberg door, Luther had been publishing on the priesthood of believers and justification by faith. His message was spreading across Germany, but no one had visited rural Saxony. So, Philip Melanchthon and Luther put together teams to go and check on the churches in the region. What they found was pretty awful. As Luther wrote in the preface to his Small Catechism, “The common people, especially in the villages have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine and . . . many pastors are altogether incapable and incompetent to teach.” We have an opportunity to teach kids at the youngest age that the church community is a place where you’re loved. Luther’s strategy to counter that problem was to put simple truths on paper that could be taught to children. He wrote it in German so that fathers could teach it to their kids at the family table. And he wrote it in Latin so it could be taught at school as well. That story illustrates a couple of things that are important about catechism to me. There are some things that you can teach through culture and there are some things that you can only teach through rote memory and rehearsing truths again and again. So, I created this curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers that refers to the same catechism that’s in a children’s book you can read at home to your kids. That way, the same truths can be reinforced in both environments. That’s how learning happens. In 20 years, when you’re interviewing an associate pastor candidate who was taught from this curriculum, what do you hope he remembers from preschool? I hope he remembers the cross. I hope he remembers that Jesus died as a substitute for his sins. I hope he remembers that all of the promises of the Old Testament, all of the pictures of the Old Testament, find their ultimate fulfillment in who Jesus is and what he’s done for us. That’s what I hope he remembers.

God doesn’t just offer to help us fight. He owns the battle entirely. He doesn’t need our strategy or our strength. He asks for our stillness and our trust.

Has your quiet time grown routine, perhaps boring? Do you rush into prayer with excitement, or has it become repetitive?

We have a creative God who not only formed us but blessed us with stewardship over the vast vegetation he created.