Answering Tricky Questions

Here's a story about answering tricky questions. Perhaps it will provide you with some food for thought. If you've been asked a tricky question let me know and we can work out a helpful response together.

Tricky Questions…
A story from Joelen Roehlkepartain

Our preschool class started the year learning about God. Then we switched to a unit on Jesus. As we began another new unit, we bowed our heads to pray when Lisa asked, “Who do we pray to this time?” I paused, and stopped the prayer. When our class studied the unit on God, we prayed to God. When we focused on Jesus, we prayed to Jesus – just as the curriculum suggested. Lisa wondered who was listening today – God or Jesus?

“You’re right, Lisa,” I said. “This can be confusing.” We stopped for a quick discussion about names. I asked the kids to say their names. Then I said that I’d heard some kids called by different names. “I’ve heard you mum call you ‘son’,” I said to Josh. “And what does your grandpa call you?” Josh said his grandpa calls him Josh or Grandson. Soon we were all talking about different names and nicknames we go by – and we agreed that we respond to different names because we know the person talking, is talking to us.

3 to 5 year olds are concrete thinkers who have difficulty connecting abstract concepts just as Lisa did. To preschoolers, God and Jesus are two separate individuals – God is Jesus’ dad and Jesus is God’s son.
It was tempting to explain the abstract concept that God is ‘three in one.’ Yet while we adults understand the theological concept of the Trinity, do kids have to know that before the age of 5? We need to help kids make sense of faith concepts on their terms,

Rather than launching into a theological discourse it was enough to tell Lisa that God and Jesus are both listening, and we could pray to either one. I’ve learned to keep it simple with young children.

I want kids like Lisa to walk away from class excited about what they are learning – not baffled by something that doesn’t make sense to them. So now when it’s time to pray, I keep it simple. I ask kids to fold their hands, bow their heads, and close their eyes. Then we pray together to God or Jesus. And that’s the simple truth.