Some time ago I watched as a congregation decided to de-emphasize the teaching of Bible facts and spend the vast majority of time on the "emotion" of religion. The reasoning went like this—we have lost so many because all we teach is facts and we forgot to teach them to love God. Hmmm. I hope that I and many of my generation put the lie to that. We were drilled on the facts, but we got the whole story every time, not just part of it so of course we learned to love God, and we also learned to obey Him because healthy fear was a part of that love just like it was when we thought about our parents. The emphasis was always on God: we learned facts because it was part of His Word and He expected us to know about Him and what He wanted from us.
And that congregation I mentioned? That shift in emphasis led to a whole generation that married Rebekah off to Abraham, propagated denominational errors (like the wise men at the birth of Jesus or the imputation of Christ's perfect life), had no knowledge of the need for Biblical authority, and thought any church would do if you were running late on Sunday morning. And they lost just as many of the next generation as the method they were decrying did.
God's Word is profound. It is not a quick-read self-help book that can be taken up and put down at one's leisure, or just when a problem arises, and expect to get what God intended out of it. And the only way to really understand those deep things is to know—wait for it!—FACTS! The more you know, the more you understand, the more connections you see, the more amazement you feel and the more love and awe for your Creator you will have. The facts beget the feelings, not the other way around.
So yes, it is sometimes difficult to teach facts to children. That is why I have come up with so many games to help them out. You can check the gallery to see my David game and Prophets game. I have another one about Moses leading the people through the wilderness to the Promised Land. And then there are the memory verse relay races and the People, Places, or Things game. All of these can be found in the archives under Bible Study. Just keep scrolling down till you find them. It will become obvious that I am neither creative nor an artist, but you don't need to be if the children are learning and enjoying it at the same time. As they mature, the enjoyment will come from learning God's Word without fun and games. Biblical discussions with knowledgeable people is its own source of pleasure.
We have recently started a new game in the class I am now teaching, one a bit more sophisticated, for older students, say middle school and up. You can use it for any list of people they are trying to memorize and learn about. I have used it for the judges and recently, the apostles.
First, you have to get those facts in their heads. For example, I hand out a paper with the apostles' names in a list. Then we go through it one by one, with the students adding all the names each apostle is known by. Do your research and you will be surprised how many you find. Peter is known by four names, Thaddeus, of all people, by three! As they hear you say the names, then see them on the board, then feel their hands write the names on their papers, you are involving three of their five senses. It is a principle of education—the more senses you involve, the easier it is to remember the facts.
Give them exactly one week to work on those names at home. Then make up about 30 or 40 cards, depending on how many students you have. You can use index cards, or index cards cut in half, or you can cut your own size cards out of card stock. Put the other names the apostles are known by on those cards—everything but the name we all call them, the standard list (Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, Bartholomew, James the Less, Simon, Thaddeus, Judas—do not use these, unless one of them is also a lesser known name of an apostle, hint: Simon, Judas). You will want three or four copies of each card.
At class, deal the cards 7 or 8 per student. When you call out one of the standard names, they are to look in their hand to see if they have one of the other names for that apostle and hold it up. They can only hold up one card. For example, if they have both Simon and Cephas, and you call out Peter, they have to choose one of those cards. If they hold up a correct card, you take it. If they hold up an incorrect card, they keep it and draw another. The first one to run out of cards is the winner. At that point, everyone shows their leftover cards and you review exactly who they are. I always tell the ones who did not "win" that it did not mean they did not know the right names because it also depends upon which ones I call out. Obviously, you call out the ones with more names more often, but I also try to call out every apostle at least once before repeating any of them.
The third week you can add the disambiguators like the names of parents, siblings, occupations, and hometowns or areas. We really only know about 7 hometowns. The rest we just know as Galileans. This means you have to add more cards and you too, need to study more.
And what will this teach the students besides just facts? For one thing, it teaches them that learning is fun. For another it helps them see these men as real people. After all, they had parents, some of whom were also disciples. They had brothers. They had families to provide for. They had occupations which they left to follow Jesus, which meant this affected their families too. 1 Cor 9:5 tells us their wives followed them around as they preached. Jesus became their lives, not just a hobby. If there is anything we have trouble with today, it is realizing that Christianity must be your life, not just a Sunday morning tradition.
After writing this, I realize how difficult it was to explain. If you have questions, please include them below, or on the Facebook link, or even in an email from the Contact page. We really need to get back to teaching facts if we ever hope to reach hearts.
Dene Ward
