How to Teach Kids Theology, by Sam Luce and Hunter Williams

Helps teach foundational, theological truths to kids in age-appropriate ways.

Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. This means if you click on a link and purchase something, I'll receive a small affiliate commission at no cost to you. Thanks so much for supporting my efforts with this blog!

I received a free copy of this product from the author. All opinions are my own.

I was excited to learn there was a theology-focused book for kids and couldn't wait to read it for myself:

How to Teach Kids Theology

I'm pretty sure almost everyone assumes that the subject of theology is too deep for kids and it's best to stick to simple Bible stories accompanied by often tenuously-related crafts and games when teaching moments arise.

The authors' goal was to take the deep truths of the Christian faith and give practical, actionable direction for sharing these with children in a way they can understand.

A child's faith is only as strong as the God they believe in and for their faith to be great, they need to learn truths about their great God that will overwhelm their hearts and fill them with wonder.

While this book is certainly handy for parents and anyone else who encounters children on a regular basis, I feel it's best suited for Sunday School teachers and children's ministry leaders.

Some things that stood out to me when I read it were:

• Using the "flower technique" to drive home a single point at a time about God. This has the center of the flower representing the main idea about God you're trying to get across, then each connecting petal represents your accompanying illustrations, crafts, activities, songs, and applications, ensuring that every element directly ties in to that main point.
• The world (& PBS!) provides plenty of lessons on concepts like "be kind to others" or "you can be brave," but it's crucial to keep the focus off us and what we can do and instead keep lessons Christ-centered and focused on a reliance on God.
• One way to help kids learn how to deal with objections is with the phrase, "Some say..." Although it's important not to distract from the truth being taught, comments like these can help prepare our kids for conversations with others who might not think or make choices like they do.

But probably the statement I most appreciated from this book was this:

    When we look at the Bible as information that can help us in life, 

    we tend to displace the hero of the story (Christ) and put                

    ourselves in the middle of the narrative. The results are tragic.

I also passed the book over to G (whose grad degree is in Fundamental Theology) and asked him to flip through and see if anything stood out to him.

He noticed right off the bat that it seemed like the authors were trying to overcome much of the generalized red/blue animosity in our country right now and that there seemed to be a focus on orthodoxy/theological charity, which he felt was positive.

He felt the message was that it's easy to be rigid and condemn others who don't give the exact same answers as you do, but that it's important to not just attack, but give the benefit of doubt and look for the positive.

I agreed with G's opinion on this, and felt that the book's illustration of "The Circles of Orthodoxy" allows you to have much-needed common ground in which to discuss areas of disagreement and shows that because we have a common fundamental understanding about certain aspects, we can disagree well and still be charitable in our interactions.

Pick up this quick-read book for yourself  and learn how to share the deep truths of the Christian faith with children!

Have you encountered many books like this that focus on teaching theological concepts to children? I'd love to hear!  Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

Also, if you don't want to miss a single minute of great tips like this and all the fun around here, be sure to sign up for free updates and then look forward to having each post delivered right to your inbox.