Skip to main content

What Teaching Young Kids About The Holy Spirit Taught Me

I'm lucky enough to teach a lovely, lively bunch of children at Sunday School every week. Two weeks ago, at a Saturday session at church, I had learnt more about the Holy Spirit, who He really is and why we have Him (and need Him). Immediately, I thought: Hey, this is a great lesson to teach the kids soon.

Yesterday, I decided today would be the perfect day to approach this topic with my young squad. I particularly thought this was a good idea because I needed to learn more about the Holy Spirit.

While preparing to teach, I researched how to go about teaching younger children about this not-so-easy topic. You hear so much about God and Jesus, but not that much about the Holy Spirit (which they affirmed today, btw). I got help from this great Sunday School website, which suggested to use a great visual analogy: An egg.

An egg is made up of three parts: The shell, egg white and yolk. Although the different parts exist, it's still an egg; each part is 'folded' into the other - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

I also stood in front them and asked if they could see me, to which they chorused "Yes!". I went into another room, shut the door and asked if they could still see me then, which of course they couldn't.

"But you still know I'm right here, right?" I said.

"Yes!"

"That's exactly how it is with the Holy Spirit. You can't see Him, but He's always with you."

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. John 14:16

I reminded them that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a scary (Holy) ghost, as He's typically referred to; that He's there to teach them things they don't understand and are confused about; He's there to remind them important things; He's there to give them advice - all of this reminding myself of who the Holy Spirit is to me.

I also explained to them that the Holy Spirit is there to give them courage, when it comes to sharing Jesus with friends. Even at 100 years old, I'm sure it's still not the easiest thing in the world to talk about your faith in a Man no one can actually see; that's why the Holy Spirit is available to us - to give is boldness that can only come from God.

At the end of it - even though they had partly been noisy and disruptive - I was so glad it was something we had talked about. The Holy Spirit isn't someone to be ignored, just because His story is "a bit more complicated." He's an equal, equally important part of the Trinity. And He's as important to your life as both the Father, God and Jesus.

Find out more about who the Holy Spirit is and how He affects out lives.


Love,

Kunmi x

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Simple, Practical Solution To Reading More of Your Bible

At the beginning of the year, I decided I wanted to read the entire Bible - for the second time - in a year. (I also started using these amazing reading plans on my even more amazing Bible app, YouVersion. It's awesome; check it out! )  My aim is to get more of God's word into my head, mind and heart, and as a result, get to know Him better, as... "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was  God." (John 1:1) Simple, yeah? If God and His Word are one, then by getting to know one more, I get to know the other, right? But to achieve my goal, I obviously had to carve out more time to read God's Word.  Now, truth be told, I often find reading the Bible a little bit tedious (I'll have you know God appreciates my honesty), ESPECIALLY when it gets to certain, not-so-Jesus-loves-you-you-can-do-no-wrong-everything-is-all-GOOD chapters like Numbers, Leviticus and a few others (let's cut them some slack, shall we?). But I rea

What I Really Learnt About Prayer This Week

With prayer and I, it's been a mostly up-and-down relationship. We haven't always seen eye-to-eye, we've fallen out of love quite a few times, and we've oftentimes flat out ignored each other over the years. Luckily, it's been more on the 'up' lately, for which I am super glad, because God knows I need it more than anything. The real transformation came when I realised that I didn't have to say the "right" things when I prayed, speak 'Christianese' (meaningless words that God is supposed to be impressed with), or lie to God about how/what I was feeling. A good friend of mine, Jen, once said, "Don't tell God, 'Oh Lord, I just want to worship Your holy name', when in fact you are about to combust from pain, sorrow, difficulties and frustration." That statement TOTALLY changed the way I pray. Now, that's not to say that I only run to God to cry about my problems (there's ALWAYS something), and I am complet