Children and Families - Scripture Union NZ

Luke 2:1-4 About that time Emperor Augustus gave orders for the names of all the people to be listed in record books… Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. So Joseph had to leave Nazareth in Galilee and go to Bethlehem in Judea. The kind of landscape Joseph and Mary would have had to travel through. Life goes on as normal. Talk of angels and babies dies down, and people get back to normal life. But what about Joseph? It must have been a huge shock to him to find out Mary was going to have a baby. Everyone waits to hear that Joseph has called off the wedding. No one would blame him. But he is a good man. And he doesn’t give up on Mary.  Joseph is an important part of this story. He still wants to marry her and help her to raise the baby that Mary is carrying. And then everything gets tense and crazy! The emperor Augustus, the ruler of Rome, has given an order. Now, what you need to know is that the Romans are in charge of Israel. They are in charge of...

I recently went to Disney on Ice with my 9 year old niece. I was surrounded by Elsa's, princesses dressed in sparkly blue gowns and fake diamond tiaras. It was a couple of hours of beautiful ice skating, which was great! We both loved it. It was also a couple of hours of fairytale accounts of how the world works. Beautiful princesses who captivate handsome princes on white horses.  Our children experience competing narratives about the world and how life works. Is it a happily ever after?  When it comes to the Bible they face the same challenge. At some point in their life the question will arise:  Is it real or is it a fairytale?  How do we help children navigate this question when it arises? How do we equip them with the tools they need to find the answer for themselves? Because it is not simply enough to tell them just to trust and obey.  “Whether the biblical story becomes primary in the lives of our children will be powerfull...