A Book Children Can Grasp

For years Jennifer Lyle has been teaching three and four-year-olds. The Bible and Sunday school. Jennifer says those are strategic years in a child's life.

Parents and teachers alike need to make sure we are redeeming this important time. Child is going to we hope and plan anticipate going to grow to be an adult God screens for that child age 3 is a part of God's plan for that child. So that's a responsibility I get 100 minutes a week with them for 52 weeks. Thoughts that's a lot of time wisely. This is family life to her hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson on Bob Lapine as a parent are you making the most of these years with your kids ensure porous solid foundation on which their lives can be built to talk more about that with Jennifer Lyle today stay with us and welcome to family life to the thanks for joining us. So I just a few minutes ago I got the opportunity to introduce you guys to my friend Jennifer yes we do already like together. Thank you Jennifer Lyle straining us on family life today and I have to have to tell you, you don't think of many people who have been to seminary as being called as missionaries to three-year-olds, but that's really kind to your story is not is a great way to sum it up. I've never thought of that before, and it's interesting if you knew this, that my seminary training and degrees actually in missions really. I went to seminary, anticipating and planning to go overseas as a missionary because I just spent time overseas doing missions in the Lord just redirected. That means I never expected that teaching little kiddos was going to be the place that is the most time for me. I taught all ages but preschool in particular in three or if I would ever made a missionary to three-year-olds. This is all yeah it's just that you want to explain to Jennifer his brilliant is a brilliant mind. You can tell that your great teacher, your passionate these kids you are a gift to them. That's really cleaned.

I mean, I'm not sure they would agree to get their bottoms to stand in time if we don't finish the Jennifer is here is because we want her to help us know how we as grown-ups whether it's his parents or grandparents or people who are teaching the three-year-olds in Sunday school or church how we can move beyond just teaching really simple things because kids at age 3. This is your conviction so they can learn more than we believe they can learn absolutely. I believe having taught women having taught teenagers having taught the ages from 2 to 10, three-year-olds are distinctly the age I have found that can best understand both the things that are certain about God while also being able to reconcile inset with the mysterious aspects of God in a way that truly helps them to have a broader firm foundation for what they're both going to experience in life and then what they're going to continue to learn about God's word never heard that. Just think about three-year-old at home. I can't teach them how to clean up their room in your sand they can understand the mysteries of God, yeah. At the end of the year. I teach on the Trinity for two weeks they get as much as you can get part of what I teach them is that there are some things about God that we can know for absolutely certain. And God has allowed us to understand completely. And those things are revealed in his word, but that there are also things that we learn from his word that because we are a little like God, which is how I talk about being created in the image of God but not fully God that we can understand this a little bit but not fully.

And that's part of what helps us to want to hold on to God as he holds on to us and is mysteries that they can know that there is one God who has three persons in him and we can't have three persons in us. But God's different. He can't. So when God has three persons, all of the persons are always God all the time. Always have been and always will be, and we talk about theirs. The father and the distinct aspect of Creator and Jesus the son as Savior and then the Holy Spirit is help her so they get that as well and I draw little icons and yet what I served your book that's like page 1 or two. Now it's very early and I was thinking 30 get the semester I did it and you're saying they really can grasp it. They absolutely go say the book is called the promises of God, storybook Bible, you took all of the years you been teaching as a been three €45 are mostly three-year-old and really this approach to the text and the promises of God. And really, the Trinity, and a lot as there's a thread of the heart and the heart being disconnected from God through sin and being reconnected and hard hearts versus soft hearts. That's a strong thing.

All of that really came to teaching, three and four-year-olds and even the Trinity teaching and how I teach it. I've stumbled on this and learned on it.

I didn't walk out of seminary and into this classroom and made lots of mistakes really came from the questions kids would ask and the trendy conversation came from a child.

Actually, to whom the book is dedicated.

In part it was a week after his fourth birthday, and I teach the Old Testament throughout that year, but we had taken a break in December to teach for weeks on advent and I had just taught the first week and we were finished teaching and he looked at this picture having wallet is a drawing of Adam and Eve in the garden and he said Ms. Jennifer Jesus is God and I said yes and you want getting sent home ready and he said that Adam and Eve and I said yes and he said Jesus is God there's only one God. I remember I was trying to wedge up goldfish container because I thought a four-year-old just asked me about the pre-incarnate existence of Jesus.

What do I say I don't know what I said exactly to him that day. I remember the mystery language.

I came up with and that he kept asking questions for weeks and weeks and it was really through that one child that that I landed on how to reconcile the Trinity conversation and because dad came running after he picked him up and cleaning up the class and he said I need you to explain it to me the way just explained talking to me about it know how to talk so the kids really taught me this now because I've been teaching so long. The books are really written to three-year-olds, although that is sort of the introductory age to it. I have 10-year-olds in our church now who I taught it, three, and so I also wrote it with the idea that for a child whose older that this becomes a bridge resource that they could even read on their own that goes into them then reading God's word so because of that it's I also feel really passionately about, not just telling the stories that really giving more of a sense of the overview of the types of teaching that is in the Bible because that's where we need to get them.

So the book is full-color, all the way through beautiful illustrations. This is the book you'd sit down with your kids and read words you said when they're older they could read and they will be captivated by the beauty of the book, and by the stories of their head and one of the great things I discovered. I'm guessing this is for your purposes as a parent, now a grandparent. It was how do I teach the stories to kids really mean it probably is the way you've taught him for years right is that part of purpose. Yeah, I really wrote it with the primary vision in my mind of family devotional times as a family with multiple age children and then sitting together when their breakfast table at bedtime and being able to read a story while the kids are fidgeting. Just like when I'm teaching. They don't disappear like little obedient children, eager to hear the stories that read the story and then be able to ask questions so I wrote it very much trying to hit the voice that parent reading.

It would just be having a conversation with their child or children, or recognizing is an Ian I love kids. I like to help friends with kids.

Have them have books read to them. Now here's a selection of stories so if your grandparent if you are uncle just like kids, but there are also and since it's come out. A lot of churches are using it in Sunday school classes are using it for.

If there's like a Sunday night service with kids are off their curriculum. So it's been fun to see how the different uses a lot of parents are thinking like all yeah I'll start reading the Bible and my kids help them when they get into elementary school age that this is your saying three-year-olds.

What happened in your life that put this passion on your heart because this is like your passion loses out. How did this come about.

Were you raised in the church. What happened yet. No, actually it's interesting because when I agreed to teach the three-year-old class at my church on I think this is going to be too young for me because I like to teach substantively and then I realized the first year like a way these kids are developmentally really ready to understand and interpret things as individuals know and they can be taught and I also realize in my church. This was the first age where they were being taught the Bible every week and I just love that idea of evils that the patient is not just babysitting in church while the parents are sitting in big church you are teaching about 25 minutes. I mean, are created seven minutes of that is me having them to stop your bodies crisscross applesauce a lot, but I in hindsight I did not grow up in the church and age 3. For me, was a pretty tumultuous time and I've had other relationships in children in my life for him. That was the case as well and my memories start at age 3 and I do think that the Lord knew the way in which that passion could be developed in me, that would be redemptive on so many levels and it helps me to see the children as individuals created in the image of God. It's sort of a running joke at my church that I don't know any adults.

I know the faces of the parents who show up in some of the children and families and close to but most of the time like what's the kid like MSI can place them and I think we tend to just see children as an extension of their parents and I'm always mindful of the fact that on the partner a much lower level partner in the context of that family. But that that child is going to learn going to miss you. We hope and plan anticipate going to grow to be an adult and God's plans for that child informed it, age 3 and age 3 is a part of God's plans for that child.

So that's a responsibility I get 100 minutes a week with them for 52 weeks any air. That's a lot of time I want to spend it wisely interesting is your dog and I thought a second Corinthians 1 that I don't know exactly what you meant about when you were three, but you're now a teacher of three-year-olds so you know I'm an underworld familiar with this, but Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. And I just preached on this like our pain leads us to our purpose was leads us to our people. That's great. And again I'm here your story like there is again it's like something happened that was painful affliction because it it ends up leading you to a purpose in your own life and again we want to avoid that. But if we embrace it and simply why this is gonna be partly my purpose and then you end up your people be in three-year-olds and others as well, but your marriage is in trouble. Read a book about emergency we find it are in my came from broken home at 345 years old and though a broken home.

Kid is helping build homes to talk about a little bit what is it that took you on this journey to where you are my most vivid memory that is early is as being in a magnolia tree that my grandparents house and it went all the way down to the ground and I would go inside of the tree to the branches before the leaves and there was a way I was so little I could just sit in the tree and I would sit in a tree for hours and hours and hours.

My mom left whenever I was very, very, very young before then and I lived with my dad that we were kind of bouncing around and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. I didn't have a lot of supervision and oversight. I miss my memories are me alone can outside playing kick your and art that honestly it was just the confusion of okay I'm a person in there's grown-ups, but I don't really know where I fit in. I don't know how to understand what happening and I don't know what to do with myself what am I supposed to be doing right now in this moment and it sounds crazy and stomach.

I had that organize thinking. I'm sure I was also doing silly kid stuff, but the passion now is for me to introduce children at that age because I know you can be thinking things right because I was to help them to understand they have a place they have a place in God's created order. They have a place in God calling people to be his.

They have a place to reconcile the fact that their centers those were things that now with the biblical worldview. I can look back and say God gave me this weird very young big problems of life irreconcilable processing figure that stuff open to any degree and so figured out that I didn't start until I was 21, and one of the things I love is I'll teach almost every week something to these three real-time asking questions of the other. Every three-year-old is ready for as much of this is for whatever. It's a scale, they will know staff at the end of every week.

I did not learn until I was in some going to seminary just a couple years after I was saved and I telnet all the time and they love it they think that's just fantastic. Gino said to me they're not alone.

God has a pleasing God made them, and I'm honest about learning the things happen in your life. There can be so hard and you're going to send in ways that you can imagine in your moan and your dad are an idea when we talk about our pastor does all of that is within the scope of God's plan. I want them to know that they're not sitting on branches and break that that they are sitting on trace and that that truth is for them.

It's not just for the grown-ups. It is as much for them as it is for the pastor. I think that so encouraging for parents and a good reminder that these years matter solely because as moms.

I know that I can feel so frantic I can see feel so frazzled I can wonder, did these years really matter because I meant the survival state. And yet, as you were talking I was thinking about my 345-year-old self. And it was hard and I had deep thoughts, abuse, sexual abuse had taken place by then. I can remember being in my bed wondering what's wrong with me. Why are these things happening to me because very much man's file for you and I think there's a lot of little kids to have these deep bonds and I can remember even I didn't go to church much growing up and down. I remember my brother used to tease me and to tell me that I was adopted. He was convincing me that I was adopted teasing me so horribly. He would and he would bring proof like haven't you ever wondered why her hair was blonde, and all of us have brown hair and so I remember saying to my mom attempted it was interesting to because she said anywhere and adopted. She said now you are an accident and you are a total surprise people like that wasn't nice but then she said one thing she said but I think God must have a reason why you're here. He must have something special for you night and go to church but I remember that planning deep into my soul, wondering, does God have something for me and I'm thinking back to our our kids. Days like our kids understood the gospel they understood sin understood why Jesus came.

They really understood soon but two of them gave their lives to Jesus as three euros and they can remember. It's amazing. I think the parents. This is a great reminder to read God's word.

These are seeds for planting into their hearts and souls. It makes a difference even take a few minutes tonight and asked those questions like what he feel like God has for you and then tell them God has something cranes to read the Bible and I have asked you right on the heels of that because a lot of parents are here. They've got two-year-olds or three-year-olds who have prayed a prayer and mom and dad walk away and go so did something really help them there or not, and you watch her behavior over the next couple years ago.

I don't think anything happened ethic and also help us process a three-year-old who says when I grow up I want to be a dinosaur and I want to trust that conversation over some on my approach with everything for three-year-olds is pretty much the same approach I've had teaching adults right so we all know people who have had a moment and have made a profession and then you wait what happened with the discipleship so we can never know when someone else I will say I'm not apparent right so I'm not having those bedtime conversations and that kind of thing from a teaching standpoint, I avoid the focus being on kind of the traditional gospel narrative of the four spiritual laws or things like that and I'm I think there's a context for that. I've use that a lot teaching overseas. For instance, but with children.

I'm pretty hard-core on the heart. This is about the heart and from a theologically conservative standpoint, I think there was a phase in the church. I really went was when we kind of got scared about talking about the heart like were getting too emotional that Scripture talks so much about the nature of the heart relative to a relationship with God and so I use when I teach and throughout the book.

This construct of a soft heart heart heart so when I talk about the gospel. I really don't. They don't know the word gospel they don't know the word Trinity. They know I teach the Old Testament daily. My class and never heard the word Israelite okay because I cite God's people. It's honestly just about language that with the soft heart and the heart heart I taught from first day were we talk about creation that God made Adam and he made Eve he made them to be a little bit like him and he gave them hearts that were connected to his enactment, they could hear him just like you can hear me.

It meant they loved him and they didn't wanted to obey him, and then we talk about the snake we talk about how he deceived how Eve had hurt God she didn't know what God had said, but yet she saw and she wanted and she took night and I reiterate this all year through every single story this you'll see it in the Scripture, you look that she took that fruit in his Adam took that fruit their hearts changed and their hearts became hard they could not hear God the same. They could not love God the same. They cannot obey God the same and that is the start of what we see unfolding Scripture and then transitioning them to understanding but hate condo made a way, he made a way for our hard hearts to become soft again and talk about the sacrificial system. People think I'm crazy about you and we talk about how the there's in there were two ways in the one way was for a time, but it didn't work and they kept having to sacrifice more and more and more and more and more because what I know and I reiterate to them is that to me. I hope is planting the seed against legalism right that there gonna recognize way at some point in the future and hope this can come back up but that the only true in hallway for our hearts to be connected back to God is by us understanding how desperately we need Jesus and that we were made to have hearts that were connected to God and nothing in our lives will ever be tolerable or have the way it was supposed to be without that and Jesus is is the way I have to wonder is your explaining that for three-year-olds that was for adults you give me that would exist for narrow and if you didn't know how to convey that to your child. Is that a but in the book and do it here folks, listening right now right on never understood and if if you look at your own life today and say I think I still have a hard heart. I may have had that moment where I I was moved and I prayed something, but my heart still hard. I'm asking you pastor Dave. You're sitting down with a guy what you say to us above your pastors will know you've shared this many many times I would say we just would Jennifer said this is your moment to say I am going make a decision. This can change my life. It's amazing think it could happen three years old and those it could be your day right now and it's as simple as saying Jesus.

I believe that I surrender my life and my heart to you. Transform my heart because I can't. I've tried, I can't. You can I give you my life given my heart and I love change me. I repent. I turn yeah that's actually the one really can a distinct grown-up theological term. I actually teach is because I think it's different than there used to kind of saying sorry mom for this and that kind of thing, because there's a differentiation between how we respond to God and how we respond. We can be sorry for things, but the question is a returning place. I would hope that anybody listing who's gone, you know, I have had a hard heart. I want a soft heart and I want to turn from old ways to new ways you can go to our website a family like today.com there's a link there that says two ways to live the maps out for you two strategies to suggest to you the way you've chosen the live has brought you to the place where you are today and if that's a dead-end. If that's not a good place if if you look at your life today and say this is not what life is supposed to be.

Go explore the other way pollutants go to family life today.com. Click the link that says two ways to live read through that and consider what your life would look like if you were living your life with Jesus agenda in place rather than your agenda in place. Again, our website is family life to the.com on the website you will find a link to the book that Jennifer Lyle has written for us as parents to read the kids. It's called the promises of God's storybook Bible the story of God's unstoppable love. You can order a copy of this wonderful new tool for parents or for grandparents go to family life to the.com to get your copy again. It's the promises of God, storybook Bible, beautifully illustrated, beautifully written order online@familylifetothe.com or call to order 800-358-6329.

That's 800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today though, I want to add a quick word of thanks to those of you who over the last few weeks have gone online or called us your family life and made a donation we been mentioning that there is a matching gift opportunity that's available to us during the month of May. Every donation were receiving this month is being matched dollar for dollar out of a matching gift fund. The total amount of that fund is $345,000. That's a big number you've been helping us meet that if you've gone online to make a donation or if you called us, we still have a ways to go to get to that total and we just have a few days left so we want to ask you if you're a regular family life to the list or would you consider making a donation today knowing that that donation will be matched dollar for dollar. If you can do that would love to say thank you by sending you a copy of a new book from Barbara Rainey, called my heart ever. His wonderful new book book of prayers that Barbara has written a beautiful book, it's our gift to you. When you donate to support the ongoing ministry of family life to day. Let me also ask you to consider becoming a monthly supporter what we call a legacy partner if you will agree to make a monthly donation in support of this ministry so that we can provide practical biblical help and hope to marriages and families all around the world every day.

In addition to a copy of Barbara's book will send you as a legacy partner. A certificate so you and your spouse can attend a weekend to remember marriage get away as our guest. You can donate or sign up to become a legacy partner online@familylifetoday.com or call one 800 FL today to donate or become a legacy partner. Thanks in advance for your support on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of folks who benefit from this ministry every day. We are grateful for the partnership that tomorrow we want to talk more practically about how as parents we can make the most of these years with our kids or as grandparents how we can intersect with our grandkids and read them stories like the stories in the promises of God talk more with Jennifer Lyle tomorrow with us for that. They keep Lynch along with our entire broadcast half of our house. Dave and Ann Wilson, Bob Payne back next time for another edition family life.

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