Monday, December 31, 2007

Compliment Of The Year For 2007

And the compliment of year for 2007 goes to…..Will! Will is a student in my Sunday school class as well as an active participant for our congregation’s youth group.

So what was his compliment? “Mr. G., when we first came here I didn’t really think I’d like to go to Sunday school class. Most of the other ones that I’d been to treated us like we were stupid or something. You never talk down to us and that’s cool. We get enough of that in school and other places.”

Thank you Will! I’ve always taught you guys the way I do because I know you guys are not idiots. You guys also have the advantage of understanding that Christianity didn’t begin the day you were born and that’s something many an adult has a great deal of difficulty with.

Sometimes we adult types think the world evolves around us (something you guys are often accused of) and are burdened with notions of how we want things to work. Too often we adult types talk big about having the faith of a child but then fall back on philosophy 101 to make defense of theological positions instead of Scripture.

So at the end of the day, this adult could not receive no higher compliment than a thank you for not treating you like you’re stupid.

The picture in this post is Will posing, while playing pizza crust Jenga, for a picture that he knew would be posted here. Not only is Will exceptional bright, he’s clearly showing what a good sport he is.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a pretty sweet compliment. Sometimes I get complaints that I'm not dumbing things down enough for the kids, but it's better that they have the information already in their heads when they need it. :)

Frank Gillespie said...

Let me guess, it’s the adults that are complaining? Yeah, I’m really going out on a limb with that one! What’s amazing is that we have parents that are beating their kids over the head for not getting A’s in advance placement calculus but think that the same kids just can’t handle Old Testament Christological typology.
Dan, they can handle it just fine and if they have questions, they’ll ask. Keep up the challenging classes and maybe they won’t be as Biblically illiterate as their parents so often seem to be.