Children and Youth Ministry Update from Kelsey Creech, Resident Seminarian

On Sunday January 24th, the older students and I met at 10 AM and discussed the story of Jonah. I gave a summary of the story, and then we read this week’s scripture, Jonah 3:1-5,10, and spent time thinking about the details of the passage and the characters’ motivations throughout the story. We were particularly curious about why the people were so easily convinced to abandon their old ways and turn to God. We pondered the factual accuracy of Jonah and considered if perhaps the Book of Jonah might be a parody of the life of a prophet. Ultimately, we concluded our study grateful for the wisdom the book gave us and encouraged by the tremendous love of God witnessed through the story.

At 10:30, our younger students gathered to read the story of “Jonah and the Big Fish” in our Tiny Truths Illustrated Bible. We read the story in turns and were moved by God’s great love and capacity for forgiveness. In particular, we dwelled on the notion that God loves even our enemies, and the children drew connections between the story of Jonah and some other books they had read that week.

I sent the children home with a discussion question and asked that they and their parents spend time chatting about moments where God asked them to do something they didn’t want to do, like show kindness to an enemy, how they felt about it, and what the process was like as they prepared to do it. We talked about our weeks, prayed, sang, and said goodbye with a blessing to have fun and grow.

This Sunday at 10 AM, the older students and I will read 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 in our Inclusive Language Bibles, then we will discuss what meaning we find in these instructions from Paul and what we imagine the situation may have been at the Church in Corinth for Paul to write so much about eating food from sacrifices to false gods. We will pray and talk about what we might write in a letter to the Church in New York City if we adopted Paul’s letter writing strategy and used his words, “knowledge puffs up, whereas love builds up” as a guide.

At 10:30, the younger students and I will gather and read 1 Corinthians 8:1-3,6 in the New International Reader’s Version. We will spend some time discussing God’s love for us and how knowledge that makes us proud is different from knowledge of God’s love and actually loving others. We will talk about ways we can love others this week and what we would say to our Church Community if we wrote a letter like Paul.

This month with the children of the Park has been such a blessing, and I look forward to the year ahead and the many other Sunday Mornings I will spend with them.

Joyfully yours,
Kelsey Creech, Resident Seminarian