Learn Not to Say Too Much

Imagine you're a 20 year old leader to children and you invest the next 25 years to working with children and youth... Then all of a sudden you decide one day that you need to retire/take a sabbatical. Church celebrates the 25 years of your volunteering with kids.  The original children that you taught are now old with their own children. Everyone shakes your hand to thank you. As this takes place each person says this: "There's one thing that you said to me that stuck with me..." "I need to thank you for one thing, you once said..." In that moment, what would you want that one thing to be? So, now, fast-forward to the end, discover what it is you want to stick, and then rewind and plan for that. Here's a phrase worth remembering and living by (or teaching by): "Teach less for more"

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You have a limited amount of time that you can invest in a child's life. You can expect about 40 hours a year can be invested in that child. Decide ahead of time what it is you would like to invest into them. What love and encouragement you want to pour out, decide from now. - All scripture is equally inspired by God. - - All scripture is not equally important. - Jesus answered the question about what the greatest piece of scripture is, opening the idea that scripture is prioritised. - All scripture is not equally applicable to every stage in life. - Take a moment to have a look at... What are the truths that all children need to know before they are 5? Before they go to Secondary School? Before they go to University? For me, these truths would perhaps go along the lines of: > Before a child is 5 they need to know they are important and loved. They need to be spoken to with eye contact to communicate these ideas. > Before a child goes to secondary school they need to know their identity in God. They need to know the holy spirit is inside of them and that God goes before them. > Before a child goes to university they need to know God's grace. They need to know that they are forgiven, always. And they need to know how to forgive. Make decisions about where you're going to use your time and what you're going to teach. Decide how you're going to say it, creatively. An example used in this podcast is about a girl who was taught a phrase by her church leaders one week and applied it to her own life, in turn drawing closer to God. Phrase: "If you don't make the wise choice, you'll miss out on what God wants to do" So the girl is visiting a friend, they are shopping. Her friend picks up some pretty beads and begins to steal them. The only thing the girl could think of was that 'if you don't make the wise choice, you'll miss out on what God wants you to do'. She said these words out loud to her friend. The friend was so taken aback that she put the beads back in the pot. When they went to pay, the cashier was wearing a necklace made of those beads and as they were paying for their goods, the girl exclaimed 'your necklace is so pretty' and the woman behind the counter said 'here, let me give you some of those beads'. This, of course, stuck with the child because it really became true that she chose the right choice and didn't miss out on what God wanted to do.
I feel the same phrase can be applied to teaching kids. We must make the wise choices of what to teach so that we may teach less and the children may learn more, therefore, they will not miss out on what God wants to do. This can put some pressure on children-church leaders to get it right and teach the perfect balance of stuff. It's not about getting it right, it's about reducing what you teach so that some things actually stick. This light pressure can be good though as it encourages leaders to carefully evaluate the truths of the Bible in study and reflection before 'teaching' the kids. Decide what you're going to say. Decide how you're going to say it.  Decide to say one thing at a time. If you watch 3 x 30sec commercials, you'll remember the last one. Our brains are built to disregard information in place of new information. So we need to focus on what it is that we want children to learn and stick to that for a while. Say that thing over and over again. There are certain truths and principles that you want to stick in their hearts and minds forever. Think of creative ways to go over the same ideas. Younger children love to be creative but some will be equally happy to sit and watch the same TV episode or film over and over again. This could be because it's filled with so much information that they forget what happens from the other times that they've watched it (just like watching 3 adverts and only remembering the last one). Perhaps we need to look at giving them less information each time, in creative ways, so that by the end they understand and know the truths that we are trying to teach to them.

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"Teach more for less impact or teach less for more impact." It's not about how much different stuff they know it's about how well they know the important stuff that will help them through life and adulthood. We need to have patience with children. There's a great article on teaching so that children talk more. Some of the ideas it explores are the importance of questions and the need for patience when letting a child work through a problem on their own. See the full article here.

Podcast Information: OrangeBlogs - Orange Leaders - Teach Less Amy xo