NEW

2020-02-26 to 28 Pictures: Charleston, South Carolina

One of the few upsides of having to cancel our Spring Break trip last March at the onset of the pandemic is that we are "stuck" with a rather large voucher from one of those discount airlines. Last autumn, Tricia and I spent a weekend in Savannah, Georgia and had a...

A John 3:16 Craft for Kids

John 3:16 is one of the most well known and reassuring verses in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.John 3:16 (NIV) The following is a little craft I threw...

2020-03-01 Pictures: Lyndsey’s College Signing Day

This afternoon Lyndsey made it official, signing her letter of intent to play college basketball for the Hiram College Terriers starting next year. While she made the decision and committed to Hiram before Christmas, she has been looking forward to this day since her...

2020-02-13 Pictures: Lyndsey’s 18th Birthday

I am little behind on posting photos. These are some of my favorites from a couple of weekends ago when we got a chance to celebrate Lyndsey's 18th birthday. It's hard to believe that my little girl is officially an adult. It was nice to have the family all back...

What is DOCTRINE?

Introduction I love working with kids, and I love teaching them hard concepts in ways they can understand. To that end, for years I have been working on a dictionary of theological terms for kids and teens. In sharing those definitions, there seemed no better place to...

If You Want It Done Right

In all likelihood, you know how the phrase ends: If you want it done right, DO IT YOURSELF! This is a bit of a mantra for me, and frankly, something that I struggle with daily both in leadership and in my Christian walk.  In theory, this is easy to accept. ...

What Does God Hate?

This is the little and humble post that started it all. I happened to be reading through my Bible, and this passage impacted me so much that I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook. That was July 28, 2008, and I've been writing and sharing ever since. (Maybe...

Dabbling in Doctrine

Dabbling in Doctrine LogoWelcome to a brand new series here on Dad in the Middle. We’re calling it “Dabbling in Doctrine.”  For the last few years, I have been slowly compiling a dictionary of doctrine and theology written for kids and teens. It is still a work in process. I hope to complete it some day and make it available for public use, but in the meantime I thought I would pick some of the terms out of the list of 500+ items and explore them a little bit more here on Dad in the Middle.

One of my greatest joys in working with kids is teaching them about the deeper things of God. The purpose of this series is to introduce kids, and teens, to the idea of doctrine and theological terms in way that you can use on Sunday mornings or with your own kids any day of the week. While we will do a little more than just dabble, this series is not meant to be an exhaustive look at each term. If your kids are interested in doing that, kudos to you, and give me a call! I want to know your secret!

Each entry in this series might look a little bit different as we seek to find ways to make difficult concepts and terminology accessible and memorable to kids and teens. Each entry will include the term we are exploring and what I hope is a kid friendly (but by no means “dumbed down”) definition of that term.  Where applicable, we will also explore selected scriptures related to the term we are defining and additional scriptures if you want to dig deeper on your own. For some terms, we will talk about why it is important to understand the idea and even offer some ideas on how to help kids understand the topic better.  I welcome you leave comments with your own ideas for helping kids to understand the word or to let me know where there are issues with the definition presented.

As you’re working through these terms, you may find your kids (and maybe even yourself) struggling to retain some of the terminology (what is exegesis again?). Whenever I teach difficult terminology, I always tell my kids the same thing,

“It doesn’t matter whether or not you remember the word itself. It’s the concept that is important.”

If you have to choose between remembering the word “Atonement” or understanding that Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, I would pick the latter.

So, make sure you check back tomorrow as we kick off Dabbling in Doctrine by defining the term…….Doctrine (could we really start anywhere else?).

Previous

Next