Babies and God's Big Story

If you have more than one child, you probably observed a difference in the development of your second child, and every child thereafter. With each of my four children, they seemed to grow up faster. They became mobile sooner, developed language earlier, and overall seemed to pick up on things at a faster rate, because they were watching all their older siblings. The more babies I had, the more I realized they understand and remember a lot more than we often credit them for!

I had always read Bible stories and sung songs to my babies about Jesus, but it became even more important to me when I realized how much babies actually take in and retain. So my encouragement to parents is start early with your babies…like, in the womb! Or if you adopt, start talking to them about Jesus from the moment you meet. It’s good for us as parents as well, to practice talking about Jesus and the gospel.

At New City, we care so much about children and partnering with their parents in teaching and discipling their children! We want each of our Sunday morning classes covering birth through 5th grade to be meaningfully centered around Jesus and the gospel. Our desire is that children hear the good news every Sunday morning of what God has done for us through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

Babies need the gospel too! I have never been satisfied with our nursery class being simply childcare. If babies can understand even a little of the gospel story, then I want us to give it to them! So, in my couple of years as children’s director, I have looked many times for a nursery curriculum that is easy for volunteers, simple and appealing to babies, and faithful to the big story of God’s redemptive plan that we see in Scripture. I’m so happy to say that, thanks to one of our volunteers sending this curriculum my way, we finally have one! You can take a look at it here.

This curriculum was developed by The Village Church and based on these five foundational truths used in their kids’ ministry:

1. God Made Everything
2. God Is in Charge of Everything
3. God Is Good
4. Jesus Came to Save Sinners
5. God Wants to Talk With Us

These truths are used to tell the entire story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration in simple language that our sweet little nursery babes can understand and follow. The pictures are colorful and appealing and can also be used by teachers to help with language development on Sunday mornings. (For example: Look at this picture; what do you see? Answers: Sun, clouds, fish, moon.) This will be a sweet way for our volunteers to engage with the babies at an age-appropriate level AND sow gospel seeds in their hearts.

I am so excited to begin using this curriculum in February! Would you join with me in praying for our babies, that their hearts would grow to love and follow Jesus, and that New City would be a part of that?

Thank you, volunteers, for giving faithfully and selflessly of your time to serve our New City Kids and families! And thank you, parents, for entrusting us with your precious children. It is a privilege and joy to invest in their souls!