Gather with Joy and Take Up and Read

A young parent asked me the other day what resources and practices they should use as they embark on discipling their child. My answer surprised me, not because it wasn’t thought out, but because it suddenly hit me how much this answer has changed over the past two decades. When my oldest was tiny and I was finishing seminary, I would have given this parent a list of the best children’s Bibles and church year practices. I probably would have followed up with an emailed document with beautiful books to read together that highlight the good, true and beautiful and guidelines on how to wonder together about these stories. The ideas would have flowed. But now, my answer is simple, ‘Be joyful together and open the Bible and read.’ That is all.

Joy is a precious gift of the Holy Spirit. Unlike ‘happiness’, which is based on happenings, joy functions just as well in the midst of struggle. On the road to Emmaus Jesus is with two followers who are distressed and confused. They do not understand what just happened in Jerusalem when Jesus died and now his body is missing. And yet, later when they reflect on this walk they say that their hearts burned within them while he talked to them on the road. They asked him to stay with them that night. It was good to be together even in the midst of unknowing and struggle.

In the same way our children need us to model joy. One of my teenage sons was recently having a really hard time and tears were flowing. He kept apologizing, not for something he had done, but for the fact he was so upset. It wasn’t a fun moment, but joy could be named. ‘It is okay that this is hard. There is nowhere I would rather be than with you in this right now.’ This was the turning point in the conversation; he gathered strength from my joy.

This is a maturity skill we work on in our own lives. Are we happy when our toddler throws a tantrum? No. But we can have joy because we recognize the great privileges of helping them regulate and watching them grow. How do we respond to things that are hard in our own lives? Can we trust and have joy in the midst of struggle? As an educator I can say definitely that if there is no joy there will be little if any growth.

“Take up and read” were the words Augsutine heard at his conversion. And it is the second key to discipleship. I work at a Charlotte Mason school where students begin reading the Psalms and Gospels in Kindergarten (they also read Old and New Testament stories from a Children’s Bible). By 2nd grade their daily Bible learning is reading straight from the Bible. The teacher sets up the passage they will read with a few sentences and at times a picture or diagram, then they read a passage. This is followed with a few minutes of discussing the ideas they discovered.

There was a time when I would have believed that this wasn’t developmentally appropriate. I would have chewed it up first and give it to them in a more easily digestible form. I would have structured it in a way that showed the main ideas and how things hung together. I did this for years and I learned a lot writing curricula and preparing family learning times. But, what I have seen over the past years is that we can rob children of the opportunity to discover for themselves. They are infinitely capable and honestly, are bored by pre-chewed food that is packaged for them. They can sniff out our motivations if they are more about behavior than relationship from miles away. Don’t hear me wrong, there is certainly still a place for well done children’s Bibles (I’m itching to get my hands on N.T. Wright’s new one) and beautiful books and many other things. But God’s word is something altogether infinitely more valuable.

For years, I made the discipleship of my children far too complicated. Gather in joy and take up and read. Your hearts will burn within you as you walk together and read the scriptures. Love for God and others will come gently.