Welcoming the Questions...Especially the Tough Ones
I love how inquisitive children are and how they approach the world with curiosity and wonder. Long before they start school, they are researchers, inventors, detectives, and experimenters. They learn about themselves and the world around them in this way. They try out new things and develop skills along the way. This active, curious way of learning sparks creativity, imagination, and lots and lots of questions.
After years of experience with students and my own children, kids continue to delight, surprise, and impress me with their questions. From everyday kinds of things to obscure ideas to tough topics, children think very deeply and will find ways to challenge us as we try to deliver answers to their endless questions.
As kids head toward adolescence, their ease with asking adults for information diminishes greatly at a time when the questions they wrestle with get harder. The answers they seek will be found somewhere, and they need to hear from godly sources rather than accept what culture has to say. Because of this, it’s important for us to nurture children’s curiosity, encourage them to continue asking questions and build trust in our relationships while they are young so that they’re less likely to internalize questions when they’re older and desperately need faith-filled responses.
So what can we, as church leaders, do to create the kind of environment that welcomes all questions and lays the foundation for kids to feel comfortable asking in the future? Here’s just a small handful of things we can do:
Make time for questions a regular part of your lessons and small groups.
What would happen if we designated time for children to ask questions throughout the service? A lot of thinking and great conversations would likely occur. When you ask kids what they’re still wondering about or what more they’d like to know, it engages their brains in deeper thinking and sets the tone that their questions are welcome and valued. Pause at various points during a lesson to check in with kids and invite them to share questions they have along the way. More often than not, it’ll indicate what you need to emphasize as you continue teaching. And who knows, you might even get a laugh or two out of the questions!
Share your own questions.
If a child wonders about something that you also do yourself, let them know. It’s healthy for them to see that adults are still learning and growing and are comfortable saying so. When I was a kid, I remember thinking that adults knew everything and didn’t need to ask questions. This, of course, was not true, but the adults closest to me didn’t show that outwardly. As a young adult, I pondered a lot of questions about God but kept them to myself because I thought I was supposed to have figured things out at that point. Modeling this for young kids may help them continue asking and learning as they get older.
Embrace the tough questions.
When I was on staff at our church as a children’s director, my co-director and I made a big curriculum change. The previous staff had been using a lot of character-based lessons that cycled through what are commonly thought of as the “kid-friendly” stories of the Bible, where the tough stuff had been filtered out. We moved to a curriculum for preschool and elementary that covered the entire Bible and included stories that were commonly left out of Sunday school lessons in an age-appropriate (but not watered-down) way. As the kids heard lessons about some pretty serious things, the primarily soft-ball questions transitioned into tough questions about the Bible and God. When kids ask these, it’s a really big step toward deepening their faith. Welcome these difficult questions as a sign of spiritual growth.
Don’t shy away from giving the hard answers.
The reason some Sunday school materials “kid-ify” lessons is that we don’t give kids enough credit for being able to handle tough answers. Well-meaning people try to avoid direct answers when they seem too heavy for children. Kids deserve direct answers when delivered in an age-appropriate way. The new curriculum we have been using at our church for over 12 years includes hard things handled carefully. We talked about Cain murdering Abel, the rampant sin that led to God telling Noah to build the ark, David’s sin with Bathsheba, and the reason for blood sacrifices. Kids began asking hardball questions, and we answered them. When children grow up understanding the devastation of sin and our bent toward sinfulness, they are more likely to understand why Jesus had to die on the cross and how very much we need Him.
The goal is for us to help kids feel that their questions are valued and heard and that we will take the time to answer them well, even when those answers are difficult. As we handle their tough questions well, we invite them to think deeply about spiritual matters. We open up a path for them to continue asking about hard things and taking those questions to adults who will give them godly answers.
