Helping kids grow up full of faith

I spent the last two weeks struggling over what to teach last Sunday in Kids Church. Saturday night at approximately 10:00 pm, I finally settled on teaching about Balaam and his donkey. I prayed that God would use the lesson to help kids remember that God can do amazing things and we don't want to be so "caught up" in the moment that we miss God's miracle. I planned a big craft, a puppet show, and other stuff. For my "opening", I planned to have the kids talk about amazing things that they have seen or heard or to tell something amazing that God has done in their lives. At first it was a struggle to get an answer out of the kids. Then, I told them about a miracle God had done in my life when I was a child. A couple of kids remembered the story because I have told it before. Here's the surprising thing: they were all interested in hearing about the miracle - even the kids who had heard it before. Once I told about that miracle, all the kids started raising their hands to tell about the miracles that God had done in their lives, in the lives of their family members, and even miracles they had heard about on TV. I was reminded again how much children LOVE to hear stories of faith, of miracles, and of God's power from people who have experienced it first hand. It is very obvious which children have people in their lives who tell them stories of faith because those were the children who were excited to share. God knew what he was doing when he told people to celebrate history with traditions and storytelling. It makes the "story" come alive. The kids love to hear and retell the stories. I never got to any other activity except reading the story of Balaam and talking about how God made the donkey talk. The kids used almost all our time sharing stories of God's miracles. Maybe that was what God was trying to get me to do all along and I was just trying too hard to *plan*.

I think I'll make sure to spend a few minutes this week telling my kids more stories about the miracles God has done in our family.