Awana :: Westside Baptist Church: September 2012

Sunday 23 September 2012

How I Chose Bibles for My Children

by Constance Wun

When my children were young, I had Bible for Toddlers by Juliet David and Helen Prole, a Chinese-English picture Bible, for them.

It is bilingual and nicely printed on bond paper. The text is short, 1-2 lines in each language, and the pictures are big and cartoonish. This bible covers many biographies and passages that one doesn’t usually find in an abridged toddler Bible. Sometimes a passage can end abruptly and for parents who know the full text, you may find that the author has not sufficiently presented the message. Nonetheless, toddlers don’t seem to have a problem with those passages. My sons had never questioned whether there was more to those passages.

When my sons began pre-school, the Bible we used was The Beginner’s Bible published by Zonderkidz. The main reason for choosing this Bible was the series of DVD produced in the same illustrative style. This was definitely not a very sound reason for choosing a children’s bible. A newer version of this product has read-along CDs.

As my boys began early elementary, their Christian school required a fulltext bible. For my eldest son who is an advanced reader, we chose a Bible with guiding questions in the margin. The Bible cover is masculine. We made it a big deal when we gave him the Bible: he was old enough to have his own Bible, one in full text just like his parents’! We also gave him devotional books to help him establish the habit of spending time with God every day.

My middle son reads below his grade. The NIV bible, while is the most popular English version, has many words that are too big for him. I found out about the NIrV (New International Readers Version) bible translated by the International Bible Society. The English used is simpler and the sentences are shorter; definitely a good choice for early readers. Here is a verse to illustrate the difference between NIV and NIrV:

NIV: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.." (2 Timothy 3:16, NIV)

NIrV: "God has breathed life into all of Scripture. It is useful for teaching us what is true. It is useful for correcting our mistakes. It is useful for making our lives whole again. It is useful for training us to do what is right. " (2 Timothy 3:16, NIrV)

In the end, I did not choose an NIrV bible for my middle son, though NIrV’s reading level is more appropriate for him than the NIV. I wanted my son to follow the same wordings with the rest of his classmates when he recites his weekly bible verse, so I picked an NIV bible for him. Nonetheless, I chose Zonderkidz’, The Discoverer’s Bible, a large print (12-point) children version. The large font makes reading less intimidating. There are 30 full colour illustrations in the bible but the artwork was not very contemporary, in my opinion.

The NIrV would be a version that I reference to in explaining big words to bible readers of all age.

God has breathed life into all of Scripture. It is useful for teaching us what is true. It is useful for correcting our mistakes. It is useful for making our lives whole again. It is useful for training us to do what is right. (2 Timothy 3:16, NIrV)

Memorizing Bible Verses When Your Child is a Visual Learner: Use Sign Language

by Constance Wun

When I realize that many of my Sparkies are visual learners, I immediately sought to YouTube to learn how to sign John 3:16, the main verse for Sparkies’ entrance booklet, Flight 316.

I find that Ann Vines’ video clip is very clear in presenting John 3:16. Ms. Vine signed slowly, so it is easy to follow. She signed only the main words:

In a different video, the presenter signed each word: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwqQjhxpMoQ&feature=related. I like this video because the presenter explained how to do some of the key words.

Don’t be alarmed if you find that words are signed slightly differently in the videos. For spoken words, we have different accents and may pronounce words slightly differently. The same holds true for sign language. Signs are understood within context. Slight variation of the signs for the same word is not uncommon.

The next natural question to follow is: how does one sign the basic Biblical words? Here are some helpful resources:

Valley Bible Church in California has video clips on frequently-used Biblical words. There are text descriptions to explain the flow and steps of a sign. Video quality is not too high but you should find most of what you need: http://www.valleybible.net/DeafMinistry/ASL_Dictionary/asl_dictionary.php
Handspeak.com provides an ASL visual dictionary: http://www.handspeak.com/word/. The dictionary words are nicely organized. The quality of the video is good; however, each slip can be very short, thus make learning a little hard. You may need to manually slide the progress bar to play in slow motion in order to clearly observe the flow of the sign.
The videos in aslpro.com play at a speed that is easy to follow. The dictionary words are still reasonably organized and the quality of the video is good. They have a section on religious words which makes their site very useful in our context: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi.

Try to use signs with your visual learners!

Sunday 16 September 2012

Our full size game floor installed!

Friday 14 September 2012

5 Ways to Make Your Kids Hate Church

The following is a great article from The Resurgence.

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1. MAKE SURE YOUR FAITH IS ONLY SOMETHING YOU LIVE OUT IN PUBLIC
Go to church... at least most of the time. Make sure you agree with what you hear the preacher say, and affirm on the way home what was said especially when it has to do with your kids obeying, but let it stop there. Don’t read your Bible at home. The pastor will say everything you need to hear on Sundays. Don’t engage your children in questions they have concerning Jesus and God. Live like you want to live during the week so that your kids can see that duplicity is ok.

2. PRAY ONLY IN FRONT OF PEOPLE
The only times you need to pray are when your family is over, holiday meals, when someone is sick, and when you want something. Besides that, don’t bother. Your kids will see you pray when other people are watching, no need to do it with them in private.

3. FOCUS ON YOUR MORALS
Make sure you insist your kids be honest with you. Let them know it is the right thing for them to do, but then feel free to lie in your own life and disregard the need to tell them and others the truth. Get very angry with your children when they say words that are “naughty” and “bad,” but post, read, watch, and say whatever you want on TV, Facebook, and Twitter. Make sure you focus on being a good person. Be ambiguous about what this means.

4. GIVE FINANCIALLY AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T IMPEDE YOUR NEEDS
Make a big deal out of giving at church. Stress to your children the value of tithing, while not giving sacrificially yourself. Allow them to see you spend a ton of money on what you want, while negating your command from Scripture to give sacrificially.

5. MAKE CHURCH COMMUNITY A PRIORITY... AS LONG AS THERE IS NOTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO DO
Hey, you are a church-going family, right? I mean, that’s what you tell your friends and family anyways. Make sure you attend on Sundays. As long as you didn’t stay up too late Saturday night. Or your family isn’t having a big barbeque. Or the big game isn’t on. Or this week you just don’t feel like it. Or... I mean, you’re a church-going family, so what’s the big deal?

Newsletter 2012.1

Our first newsletter is available for download now! It contains essential information for those who will attend AWANA for the first time.

Also, we are still welcoming new clubbers! Invite your friends to join any time during the season. New clubbers can enjoy 3 trial club meetings before they decide whether to officially register. The registration fee is $40 (includes one set of uniform, one handbook, one set of award badges and all the administration fee) plus $5 for shipping.