Exegesis for Infants - or why reading the Bible can be like Blue’s Clues

In the blog reshuffle I noticed that the Children’s Talks category hadn’t had anything new posted in it for a while. So here’s one I did the other week.

When teaching hermeneutics I’ve always been struck by how much the method that’s often described in text books is like the children’s TV programme Blue’s Clues. (For those of you who don’t know the programme, the blue dog, Blue, leaves three paw prints on different things around the house, which the host of the show (Steve, Joe, Kevin, Duarte or chengewa) uses to figure out what’s important to Blue (e.g. Blue’s suggestion for a present).

Anyway, before the children’s talk I’d collected three different “clues” and “hidden” them (in plain view) in church with big blue paw prints on them. I asked the children if they knew about Blue’s Clues and explained the premise to the children who didn’t (along with those members of the congregation who were unfamiliar with recent children’s TV). Then I told the children I’d “hidden” three clues in the church and together they would tell them something about me when they were collected together. A different group of children were sent off to find the clues and bring them back to the front of the church. The clues were:

• Some red and blue clothes
• A collection of toys that are related to flying - frisbee, airplane, toy birds
• A bag filled with bricks (really heavy)

As each clue was returned I drew them on my “handy-dandy” whiteboard (a notebook was too small to see) and then we used a “thinking chair” to think about what they meant - red and blue clothes, flying, and strong. Eventually we got to “Superman”, and the fact that I like comics books.

Then I asked why reading the Bible might be like playing Blue’s Clues, and we talked about how in the Bible, God leaves clues about what God is like. And how we can collect these clues, and the more clues we find, the better the picture we get. Also, discussed what the best clue is (Jesus), and how, when we need to think about the “clues”, we sometimes need to do it with crayons, paper, glue, scissors, songs and with the help of other people who may have collected different clues.

All in all, it went well - though I restrained myself from singing the goodbye song and there are probably a few children who think I think I’m Superman.

As an aside, on the subject of children’s talks, I’m more a fan of all-age inclusive worship across the duration that the children not in their Sunday school classes. Children’s talks can smack of tokenism at times - so if you have to do one, treat the children as valued members of the congregation, respect their ability to participate and contribute, and resist pressure to cut the talk down to fit into adult-centric time slots or nice pithy moralistic message. If you only have one space in the service specifically for children make sure you do it well. I made mistakes doing the talk above and asked for feedback from my family and others. Next time I’d do it differently in a couple of places but on the whole it worked.