Symbolic Sponges
When faced with teaching a new generation about Christianity, there’s no wiser guide on how to teach than God themselves. How does God teach us? Through metaphors.
Finding metaphors that explain deep ideas is an exercise in creativity, to say the least. As my first Sunday school session was the 1st of May, just after Easter, we were exploring the incredible events of the death and resurrection of Jesus. How does one make the difficult concepts of sin, payment, torture and death comprehendible to adults, let alone to kids? How do we make some of the deepest ideas in Christianity into graspable kids activities?
With crayons and sponges… don’t mock it if you haven’t tried it, it works. Scribbling furiously onto a plastic sheet for every mistake you’ve made is cathartic. Ever said something mean to someone? Scribble the sheet. Ever pushed someone? Scribble the sheet. Ever taken someone’s toy without asking? Scribble the sheet. The plastic sheets get very messy by the end of the ‘confession’.
Now we’ve messed up our once pristine plastic sheets. How do we clean it up? How do we capture Jesus’ loving sacrifice to redeem our ignorant evil ways in a kids craft activity? With symbolic sponges, that’s how. The cross represents so much in the Christian faith. In so many ways, Jesus acted like a sponge, soaking up all our sins so we might realize all our mistakes, wake up and become good people. The cross shaped sponges took the mess away, leaving pristine plastic once more.
Even though it’s a craft activity for kids, I feel I learned something with every scribble too.