Digging for Treasure

I was recently taken by surprise in a Parables lesson with year 7 students in a school I don’t normally work in.

Surprise because I hadn’t met them before and I had not anticipated how engaged or transfixed the students would be in the idea of parables.

Often when information is taught, it is not long before faces of students begin to glaze over, and their capacity to take more onboard diminishes, this incapacity to receive more knowledge is known as “banking”. However turn that learning into story language, the students begin to lean in with more and more curiosity and it is amazing how fast the time can pass.

Jesus understood this well as he engaged his listeners with the parables.

Today in our training we explored with our volunteers how to lead the parables lesson, and all the tips and tricks to help journey with the young people in exploring the parables. We learnt how powerful it is when instead of us trying to explain everything, the students have the tools to read and interpret the parables for themselves by asking the questions:

•Who is God in the story?

•Who am I in the story?

•What does the parable mean?

We have the Parables lesson occurring in many of our schools this coming term, alongside each lesson there will be the exciting opportunity for every student to receive their own copy of the New Testament and Psalms. We are offering close to a thousand Bibles this term (up to Easter) either through this lesson or our Who is Jesus lesson. Please pray for our team as we share God’s word in this special way.

Happy New Year

Jez