10 lessons · Beginners
The purpose of this series of lessons is to introduce your child to each of the Ten Commandments and the great heroes of the Bible. We hope to instill an awe and respect for God’s law and way with real life examples of people who followed God and reaped the rewards from having done so. We also want to develop in the children a love for learning about God which will bring them again and again to church and to Sabbath School.
We hope to encourage daily contact with God through prayer and devotional Bible readings. In the process, we hope to create in each child an expectation of fully participating as a baptized member in God’s church. We also pray that the lessons in this book will translate into knowledge and behavior becoming of a child of God.
You hold in your hands the third book in this series designed for use by Beginners, parents, and Sabbath School instructors in introducing your children to the Ten Commandments and the Great Heroes of The Bible. There has never been a time when these lessons were more needed and more relevant to the challenges of today. Children need inspirational examples of biblical heroes who kept God’s commandments and followed Him. They need to see that when they disobeyed they suffered consequences, and when these great men obeyed God there were many blessings and benefits.
Realizing that children are as much in need of ministry as adults, CEM has formed an arm called Youth Educational Adventures (YEA) to underwrite and expedite the teaching and nurturing of the children and youth of God’s people.
One of the first goals of YEA is the biblical literacy of the children, but that is not nearly enough. Which of you parents does not hope for your children to be baptized? If you can hope for it, then it is only right that you work for it and YEA stands ready to help you. We want your children to not only know about God, but to know Him. We want them not only to know about Jesus, but to believe in Him and to commit their lives to Him.
There are those who say that if you give them a child until he is six years old, the child will remain in their faith for life. There is a lot of truth in that statement. The reason is children are more open to faith at that age than they ever will be again. Children also tend to fulfill our expectations. If we do not expect them to know God at that age, then they may well fall into a habit of assuming that God may be important to the church or their parents, but that He need not be important to them.
These lessons are more than isolated stories about biblical characters. Into each lesson is woven a strong life application. With all of this in mind, we are trying to develop an ongoing curriculum so that when a child passes age seven, age 11, or age 18, he will know the things he should know at that age and will have come as far as maturity will allow.
Parents are encouraged to read the lessons to their children prior to Sabbath School. This will help them reach their comfort level more quickly in class. It will enable them to participate in class discussions and benefit more from the lesson. It would be good for parents to follow through after class asking their child simple questions about the lesson he or she studied in class. Giving a lot of positive reinforcement will help the child to love Sabbath School and enjoy learning about God’s Word.
It would be good for the parents to establish a habit of joining their children in reading the devotionals on the back of their book each day and to kneel with them and pray. Doing this habitually can build a foundation of biblical knowledge that will last throughout all eternity.
A passage from a Psalm haunted me over the days when we were putting the finishing touches on our very first book. “For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, from my youth,” said David. “Upon you I have leaned from my birth” (Psalm 71:5,6 NRSV). What David is saying is that he could not remember a time when he had not trusted and leaned on God. If only all of our children would grow up with the same faith–that they would not be able to remember a time when they did not pray, have faith in God, follow His teachings, and love Jesus Christ as their friend and Savior.
After these words in the Psalm comes this beautiful affirmation: “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I will proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come” (verses 17,18).
These lessons were designed to take about 45 to 50 minutes. Ideally, Sabbath School should be taught at the same time as an adult Bible study. This allows the children to form a habit of attending the worship service. If your church area schedules Sabbath School during the sermonette, perhaps Sabbath School could begin 30 minutes before the song service starts.
We hope that every section of the lesson will be completed in class. Children learn in different ways. Every portion of the lesson is designed to drive home the one major point in the lesson. Some may remember it from the song, the memory verse, or the prayer. Doing the Activity is very important because it not only adds pleasure to the learning process, it is the one portion of the lesson that makes it memorable for most students.
We regret being unable to include the music for the suggested songs. For your convenience, Christian Educational Ministries stocks the Kids Classics Collection, Volume 1. To order, either write to P.O. Box 560, Whitehouse, TX 75791, or for credit card orders telephone 1-888-BIBLE-44. Keep in mind that the YEA lessons are an ongoing curriculum from the time a child is three until he has his 20th birthday. Lessons should be taught in sequential order, beginning with book one, lesson one for the age of the children in your class. By the time you complete lesson five in each book, you should call CEM and order the next successive book.
As we continue this project, we hope and pray that God Himself will teach our children. It is our task to present His message to the children with love, clarity, persuasion, and even passion. For if we do not teach as people who love God, how can we hope to pass on that love to the children?
May God bless the little children, and may He do it through you.
Ronald L. Dart