By: Casey Korstanje
I am a septuagenarian.
That’s right, Psalm 90:10. I have reached my allotted threescore years and ten and am now working on the strength God gives me.
And recently, that has required an extra dose both physically and mentally.
Every Tuesday evening I pack up and head to the church. And every Tuesday evening Laurie warns me “not to get hurt.”
At the church I change into my black martial arts “gi” with its red and black “teacher’s assistant” belt and wait for the hordes to arrive.
The first Karate for Christ class in the gym runs to more than 40 kids aged approximately 7 to 12 years old.
My job … begin each class with a bible lesson.
Afterwards I, and several other sempies (that’s what they call the helpers), assist the black belts, Shane and Lynda McKenna, as they lead the kids through warmups and then karate lessons. The McKennas are formidable and they are well capable of keeping order in class while still making the learning fun. However, not a class goes by where Sensei Lynda doesn’t underline for the children that learning the Bible and developing a relationship with Jesus Christ is the single most important thing they can do.
There is a specific Bible topic attached to each week.
Week one: Who is God? 40 kids, 10-12 minutes, go! Week two: Who is Jesus? Week three: Who is the Holy Spirit?
So how does one teach a complex truth in a short amount of time to children?
As with many difficult questions in life, Our Lord shows the way. Jesus used parables, word pictures everyone could understand, to convey complex truths.
So, who is God?
Begin with Genesis 1:1. God created the heavens and the earth and all of us as well. Add a few words from Hebrews 13 pointing out that God will “never leave you or forsake you” and that “the Lord is my helper; I will not fear.”
And then do what Jesus would do, tell a story, paint a word picture:
There was a little girl, she was five and she loved to go to her grandparents ’house because they had a swimming pool. The pool was a metre-25 deep, (that’s four feet to you boomers) and the water was just over her head.
No problem, she had water wings, and they kept her afloat so she could swim and splash with her older brothers and cousins in the pool.
On one hot summer day, everybody came over, got their bathing suits on and jumped in the pool. But when the little girl looked for her water wings, they weren’t there. Mom and Dad had forgotten to bring them.
(A number of kids in the class nodded with sage understanding.)
So the little girl was told to just stay on the staircase that went down into the pool.
But Grampa had a different idea. It was time the little girl learned how to swim.
So he waded toward the stairs, reached out his hands, promised the little girl he wouldn’t let her go and then he helped her across the pool as she practised kicking her feet and making paddle-strokes with her arms.
“Well done!” he said.
Then he took her back to the stairs, stepped back just a bit, held out his arms and said, “Come, swim to me. You can do it. Come. I won’t let you sink.”
The little girl was worried but she trusted her grandfather and pushed off the stairs and swam to Grampa. It was only two strokes, it wasn’t pretty, but she made it.
“Good for you. You did it!” Grampa said. And then he picked her up, carried her back to the stairs and then stood back, held out his arms again and said: “Come. You can do it. Look at me and swim to me.”
She pushed off from the stairs and swam toward Grampa once again. But this time Grampa stepped back a little as she got closer. “You can do it… Look at me, come to me…”
And, of course you know the rest of the story. After many attempts the little girl learned how to swim and was soon able to traverse the pool on her own.
With a little help the kids too figured out the meaning of the word picture, or parable.
The little girl was all of them, the pool was the world, and Grampa represented God.
The little girl trusted Grampa because she knew he loved her and would not let harm come to her. During the swimming lesson, she kept her eyes on Grampa and even though she occasionally got splashed and got water in her eyes, or even thought she might sink, she pressed on because she trusted her grandfather.
And finally, she succeeded and could swim across the pool without any help.
“I can swim,” said the little girl. Grampa smiled at her, very pleased.
The little girl also noticed that even though she didn’t need any more help to swim, Grampa still stayed in the pool with her anyway.
