Why Adult Object Lessons? Aren’t They for Kids?
We’ve explained this before but not for about a year. We’ve gained a lot of experience since then. Last year, search engines brought a lot of people looking for object lessons to 2×2 (about 16,000!)
Other websites present ideas for children’s object lessons. Redeemer contributed regularly to one site, posting our weekly children’s sermon. We didn’t have our own site at the time. We learned something in that process. The object lessons were enjoyed more by the adults present.
Adults have the ability to think abstractly. Children are developing this ability. Most won’t be ready to understand an object lesson until after they stop running to the front of the church and stay behind with the adults.
There are probably no studies on whether or not it works. We doubt it.
2×2 witnessed a children’s sermon last Pentecost. For once there were children in church!
A lay person was delivering this message. Often that is a good move. Many pastors lack training in teaching children and it shows.
The children were eager listeners.
The teacher had a few balloons. She blew one up and fwwooff. She let the air out and the balloon flew across the chancel and will probably be retrieved from behind a decorative screen 20 years from now.
Did the children understand the Pentecost message about being filled with the Holy Spirit? One child begged for a balloon the whole time the teacher was talking. Concrete thinking! The other children listened pleasantly and eagerly as the teacher filled a second balloon with air.
The concept she was teaching makes sense to adults. The adults present were observing and pondering the Holy Spirit and how we cannot control it.
The children were somewhere else. Interestingly, one girl was still thinking about the previous week’s children sermon. We weren’t present for that but it was clear that the teacher had directed the children’s attention to a stained glass window depicting the Ascension.
This girl had probably been thinking about this all week. She still had questions.
“Last week you said we were going to say good-bye to Jesus and we never did.”
A week has passed and it’s still on her mind! Can you remember last week’s sermon?
This exchange went unanswered—a teaching moment lost. In this case there was no object with a special meaning—just a story and a picture.
Children understand stories and pictures. Adults understand object lessons.
2×2 provides object lessons geared to an analysis of scripture for adult learners because object lessons work best with adults.
We are preparing to publish our first book of Adult Object Lessons which will follow the Standard Lectionary. We hope you will enjoy it.