Stories for children (lies)

I sang with my choir at a homecoming service recently, and the children's sermon kind of made me gag, though I was professional enough not to let it show.  The gist of it was that if you put Jesus first, everything else will fall into place, and your life will be perfect and happy.

Riiiiight.  I just don't think that's biblical.  I know they dumb down sermons for kids, but that's not a story I've really seen in the Bible (and I've read it more than a few times) literally or figuratively.  Why do we lie to our kids by telling them stories that are not only not true but are completely false? 

If this is the kind of story we want to build the foundations of their faith on, should we be surprised if they grow up and out of this "faith"?  Basically, the first storm that comes will wash these lies away and leave them with . . . what, exactly?  They will have no true stories, and that seems sad to me when there are so many true stories out there.  We seem to avoid the true stories because we think we are helping our children by "protecting" them from realities they will face some day.  Shouldn't we instead be equipping them to deal with a harsh, fallen world?  Why don't we?


Do we really have to dumb down our faith stories to children until they become lies?  Is there a better way to teach true stories of faith to kids?  Have you seen this done well somewhere?  (Or poorly but in a way that can give us constructive suggestions?)

Interesting quote from a writer

"Reactionary people without critical thinking skills aren’t really my target audience."

"There’s actually a pretty large and growing contingent of Christians out there who embrace all kinds of art and its capacity for delving into the gray areas that make up most of our lives. Anyway, I’m not really about making other Christians happy by being inoffensive. Life is offensive. If we, of all people---Christians, who claim to be offering some kind of hope for mankind, in Jesus---can’t grapple with that, then the claims of hope are pretty much empty. If we can’t deal honestly and authentically with the smaller heartbreaks of family and identity and friendship, how can we even open a newspaper? Christians who seek a squeaky-clean, inoffensive version of life are, in a way, denying that we might possibly need help with some of this, thereby rendering faith, well, pointless. That said, I do think there is a place for the good and beautiful and uplifting and clean, as long as it’s not sentimentalized and does not replace an at least occasional head-on stare into the world as it is."

- Sara Zarr (national book award nominated author [also a believer])  

I thought of this quote again when I heard the morning show hosts on the radio talking about some American Idol singer who chose a country contract  instead of one within contemporary Christian music (CCM) because he didn't want to exclude anybody with his music. 

The radio hosts did not like that at all, which doesn't change the fact that much CCM excludes a huge percentage of potential listeners because of its sometimes limited range and its associations with church and people's bad experiences with Christians and Christianity.  I say that as one who listens to "Christian" music almost exclusively.  It's true that it's nice to have uplifting and positive things on the radio when you're snarled in traffic, but sometimes you need other things, too, and it seems that CCM doesn't always have room for those things.


How do you feel about what Zarr and this American Idol guy seem to have to say on this particular topic?