Women's Gathering on Saturdays and Kid's Formation

Every other Saturday afternoon, our house is the gathering place for several women who come together to help one another grow in their understanding and skills around the idea of spiritual formation in children.  Nancy invited them to begin this Kid’s Formation Workshop back in September.  

I’m amazed at the sustained interest in this…that they keep gathering with such enthusiasm.  They have a lot of fun together.  Lots of things are happening—fellowship, fun, eating and praying together.  But Nancy is especially focused on a few elements:

1. They are growing together in their understanding of the larger Story of the Bible.  Instead of merely seeing the Bible as a hodgepodge of stories, poems, laws and prophecies, they are seeing that the stories of Scripture make up a larger storyline.  These women are grasping this important truth and are also learning to share these stories in the context of the larger Story with the children in their own families, in their house churches, and in their neighborhoods.  Its cool to watch them grasp this together. 
2. They are learning together how important and yet simple it is to tell and “play” these stories together with kids—and perhaps adults.  They have a growing confidence that they don’t have to be professional teachers, but that God does something formatively important when we begin playing with kids around these stories…that important questions and conversations often come out of this experience.  The kids are blessed; the adults (when we let ourselves) also can enter into the play and be blessed as well. 
3. These women are also growing tremendously in their confidence.  Most of them have a very limited education.  This has caused them to doubt their ability to contribute.  But Nancy is helping each of them put together a resource box of simple tools which can be used to tell the different stories of the Bible.  Each time they meet, they work to make the material together (on a recent Saturday they each made a wooden temple that can be used to tell several of the Bible stories).  You can tell that they feel good about themselves and their ability to be helpful to kids.  Its neat to see their confidence grow and to hear them tell of how they are using all of this with the kids in their lives.  

Its fun to see the growth and wonder what will become of all the seeds that are planted in good hearts. 

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