Over the weekend I listened to a recording of a training session for children's leaders. The content was good. The Bible-handling tools were helpful. And the trainer encouraged his listeners to be wholehearted about their preparation. All of which I agreed with. But it left me wondering - as I often do after my own training sessions as well - whether it was just too complicated...
Last year, I led a training morning on Biblical Storytelling. We spent half the time working on how we understand a Bible passage, and the rest on using storytelling techniques that will support the main teaching point of the passage, rather than distract from it (or change it!). Afterwards, someone came up to me and said it had felt like redoing his English GCSE!
I don't remember doing any literary criticism at school (although I guess we must have done). I honestly had no idea that the tools I use to understand the Bible could also be applied to Dickens! If they are good tools, that's fine - but it concerns me that 'correctly handling the word of truth' (2 Tim 2v15) can feel like swatting for exams...
I don't want to put children's leaders off by giving the impression they have to be a literary experts to understand the Bible - but at the same time I want to encourage them to be serious about teaching God's fantastic Word faithfully. I shall keep pondering about the best way to do this...
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