by Brian Gin

Every Sunday Sparkler Staff all gather before service and go over the Bible lesson. The teacher shares the lesson, going through one last practice with whatever props they need, and the other staff are given a chance to provide input or advice. Finally Kyle Grindley usually ends with announcements. During one of these meetings, Kyle announced that we were no longer going to refer to the “Bible Stories” as stories, we were going to call it the lesson. This was to help the children understand that what they are being taught is not just a story, like fictional books, but a lesson based on real history, based on the Bible, the inerrant word of God.

This epitomizes a big part of what I’ve learned while being a part of Sparkler’s staff. We have to choose the words we use to teach and interact with the kids with care and consideration. Children at this age have a rapidly growing vocabulary. We have to make sure the kids understand all the words we use in our explanations of difficult concepts. We try to stay as close to the text as possible while teaching the lesson in a way that is understandable.

In each lesson we try to link the lesson with the gospel, in greater or less depth depending on time and appropriateness of the lesson. We explain that we all have evil hearts that result in evil fruits. But if we believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and then rose again after three days, we can get good hearts and start producing good fruit.

Every lesson has one main point we try to get across to the kids. Some examples of points are: God is powerful, Jesus is God, or Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure. We try to make sure we hit that point a few times throughout the lesson to make sure the kids can understand what we’re trying to teach them about God. Our hope is that by repeating the main point and presenting the gospel, we would plant the seeds that ultimately lead the children to salvation.

We also have a small group time to make sure that any difficult words or concepts are explained adequately to the kids. Normally the older kids have more questions, and it helps immensely to have parents who are teachers help us figure out what kinds of things the kids have a hard time understanding, even if the kids don’t say anything.

I am slowly learning how to choose my words, which starts with preparing my heart each Sunday along with the other teachers. I learn so much from the other teachers on how to interact with the kids and make sure God uses me to teach them the right lessons and words. I pray that God would lead any child that walks into Sparklers would commit to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.