The Little Stories or the Big Story?

I subscribe to a youtube channel called What's in the Bible, a new Bible series & DVD curriculum for children created by Phil Vischer who also pioneered the Veggie Tales series.  These short clips (1:30 and 2:30 respectively) really made me think and echoed other teachings I've heard recently about teaching and modelling our faith to this generation.

Watch these to get the context of my thoughts:

 






It's hard to be good without God. Absolutely.  I can tell my toddler to stop hitting her sister, and tell her sister to stop hitting her back, but until they have the beginnings of a conviction that hitting or lying displeases (and even hurts) God, it will just be a rote directive.  I appreciate how Mr. Vischer admits that while his stories where carefully designed with biblical, moral lessons, the higher aim is to teach our children the WHY behind the DO.  Until the heart begins to change, we will keep missing the mark, the very definition of sin.  God is much more concerned about the motives and condition of our heart than our piety.

Am I trying to teach (my) kids to behave more "Christian-ly" or am I teaching them Christianity?  That hit the nail on the head for me.   I know I often feel that I'm not doing enough to teach my kids the basics of the faith or that I could be doing it in a more systematic way.  What resonates with me is that is if we don't connect great stories of the Bible to the BIG STORY, God's redemptive plan woven from beginning to end, it may be shrugged off as "so what" when our kids are presented with other worldviews as they mature.

This is big stuff to tackle.  We have the tools.  What we need, what I need,  is the dedication to sit down and start the discussion with our littles about the WHYs.

This clip sold me on the What's in the Bible DVDs.  The 12 installments cover God's story from Genesis to Revelation.  I plan to buy the 10th in the series Jesus is the Good News leading up to the Easter season.  I'll jump back on here then and let you know I thought.