Guest Blog Saturday - Edie Phillips

In the 16 years that my family has attended New Beginnings Church, there have been many teaching moments in the raising of my boys. We have talked about sermons, small group lessons, how to deal with bullies, how to “get along”, how to pay attention in all classes, etc. However, recently with the awesome blogs that the ministers’ of our church were challenged to post I began to think about how I could take some time out to have some spiritual conversations at home.

About a week ago I was reading the book I picked up at NBBC, Spiritual Parenting by Michelle Anthony. The chapters I read were focused on teaching the bible in a consecutive process where kids can understand the God Story. I started thinking about my years growing up in church, at a very young age I remember being confused about the bible stories. I thought: most books have a story and they go straight through until the end but why does the bible skip all over the place. Not knowing that it really didn’t skip around.

So last night I sat down with Blake, who just turned 13 (eek) and began going over the book which has the God story very simply laid out. I started reading and wondered if he would be interested or would his mind start to wander. He had some questions and agreed that he didn’t understand how the bible stories fit together. More questions (awesome!), then he brought up Social Studies at school and how Mohammed was a prophet. Oh my, so, I explained that he was not in the bible and Jesus was our King. Did Mohammed die on a cross for our sins? No, of course he knew that, he’s a very smart kid. He just did not know how to fit pieces from the curriculum of school into his life or understand the world’s agenda: god vs. GOD.

He started talking about what he had learned in church that morning and ended up reading out loud the verses in Matthew about the talents. He read all of it! He said he had wanted to take time to read it but there was no time during church. We had more discussion about God after that.

What an awesome learning experience for both of us. This time together, discussing God and His Word, brings me to tears of joy.