I am not a kid person. Why my church's children's minister and countless parents see me fit to spiritually guide their kids one Sunday a month is beyond me. But the bottom line is the kid's ministry needs able bodies so once a month I can suck it up, get over my fear of kids, and try and teach them something about the Bible.
Last Sunday was my week and I have to say, initially I felt like I got a pretty sweet deal. Our church is studying Hebrews 11 for the next few weeks so in the kid's ministry we were talking about Noah and his great faith. Considering our church's last series was on Hosea, I felt like the Lord was showing favor on me by giving me an easy one.
Things started out pretty great. I laid out a big piece of paper and the kids drew pictures of the things they already knew about Noah.
Then we built an ark out of newspapers, paper bags, and some other random things.
We even worked on memorizing their key verse.
Then it happened....the children's minister came downstairs to lead the "story enhancement" time. He showed the kids a clip of Evan Almighty. Again, I know nothing about kids, but even I knew this was not a good idea. How do you explain symbolism to a five year old? Please, someone tell me.
Sure enough, a few seconds into the clip sweet Campbell who is going to start kindergarten in a few months says to me, "Dani, is that what God looks like?" Before I could even answer another little boy yelled, "No Campbell, that isn't what he looks like in my Bible."
All I could think was oh crap! The kiddos are now looking to me for some sort of explanation. Hmm...where should I even start? I can't wait until the parents hear about this one. What happens when these sweet kids inevitably see Morgan Freeman in another movie and start telling their parents that he is God. Or better yet, when reruns of The Office come on TBS it's just going to be swell when they ask their dad why Noah is sitting at a desk instead of building an ark.
At this point none of the kids are paying any attention to the video. They are all waiting to hear my answer. I told sweet Campbell and the other kids that God does not look like an older black man (because if you've read The Shack you obviously know God is a black WOMAN).
When the children's minister saw my struggle he turned the video off and started to explain to the kids that this was just a movie and it was made to help us learn a lesson about who God is. I actually think it was made to create revenue, but it didn't matter because the kids seemed satisfied with the answer. Things were starting to look up, well, until the children's minster told the kids that no one knows what God looks like because if they ever saw his face they would die.
If you are in shock reading this you can imagine my face while it was happening. Thank you children's minister for that wonderful time of story enhancement. Maybe next week we can watch Indiana Jones so the kids can see someone's face melt off.
Of course now that story enhancement is over, the children's minister can skip back upstairs to join the adult service. Me? Oh, I get to try and convince the kids to sing and jump around while we worship the God who is going to kill them if they happen to see his face.
The good news is that by the time the parents came everyone seemed to have recovered. I can only imagine the stories that were told over lunch though. Oh the joys of kid's ministry...
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