The Family Table
Feeding the Faith of LEFC Families
TFT: Teaching on the Trinity to Children
June 15, 2025
Dear LEFC Families,
Happy Father’s Day to our dads! We value and champion the commitment each of you make to your families each day, caring for and shepherding them in the Lord. May your day be celebratory and enjoyable!
Family Bible Week Registration is Open!
Family Bible Week registration is now open! Take a moment to register your child in advance to help our teachers plan well for their classes. Don’t forget to invite friends to come along, too!
Family Bible Week Volunteers
The sign up for Family Bible Week volunteers can be found in the church foyer. Check it out to see how you might be able to fill a need. Take a flyer to hand out or hang up in the community as well!
Touch a Truck at the Good News Cruise
The Good News Cruise will be held on August 16th, and we’ll once again be incorporating Touch a Truck for the kids. Plan to join us for the fun!
Save the Date Reminder for Fall Retreat
The date for this year’s fall retreat has been set! Save the date for September 19-21 to join us back at Seven Mountains Scout Camp for a weekend of fun and fellowship for the whole family. Last year was loads of fun, and you won’t want to miss it this year!
“Saul Disobeyed God” Kids Bible Class Devotional
You have free access to a family devotional based on the curriculum our kids are studying each week in KBC! It’s called “The Gospel Project at Home.” Today’s Bible Study is “Saul Disobeyed God” (Volume 4: Unit 10: Session 3), and the devotional can be found at this link.
Visit the Family Ministries page on our website for information about how to access The Gospel Project at Home for the first time.
And for Dessert…
Our recommendation for family discipleship this week is an excellent article by a leading theologian on how to teach the doctrine of the Trinity to children.
Fred Sanders is one of my (Pastor Matt’s) favorite theologians, and his specialty is studying and sharing the Bible’s teaching on the tri-unity of God. Last summer, I recommended Fred’s comic book on the topic!
Fred doesn’t just speak to adults about the Trinity. He teaches all ages including the first-to-fifth graders at his local church. In “Teaching About the Trinity to Children,” Fred shares some really helpful suggestions for how to communicate this glorious (though mind-bending and potentially intimidating) doctrine to young ones. Under each of these main headings, he offers superb insights:
– Think About Delivery
– Show How to Learn
– Play the Long Game
– Memorization is Great
– Work Those Powers of Association
– Trinity and the Main Story of the Bible
I want to just copy and paste all of his words, but consider just these nuggets:
“This is probably not your only chance to communicate on this topic. In most settings (either with your own children or a group in a school or church) you’ll be teaching about this subject from various angles at different times. So banish the idea that you’ve got to say everything all at once, or say it all perfectly. If you can get one point across, do it; don’t get greedy and try to do too much all at once.”
“Teaching young children is a great chance to train those powers of association right the first time (re-training them in adults takes a lot more concerted effort). What I’m saying is, while we usually think of what a challenge or disadvantage it is to be teaching hard doctrines to young people, there is one way in which their youth is an advantage.”
“Every time you teach about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, you are implicitly teaching trinitarian theology.”
“I used to worry about how to be Trinity-centered without ceasing to be Jesus-centered; aren’t these in competition with each other? But then when I learned to wrap the Trinity doctrine around the Son who is sent by the Father and the Spirit who the Son sends, I learned that it all ties together: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in one gospel.”
Read (and re-read) the whole thing. You can do it! Our parents can teach our kids this glorious truth that, “The main story of the Bible is that the Father sent the Son, and the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit (John 3:16, John 15:26, Gal 4:4-6).”
For More:
– Fred’s Example: In this post Fred gives an example of how he has taught on the doctrine of the Trinity to children in the EFCA church the Sanders are a part of.
– Storytelling: The Tiny Theologians have two episodes on the Trinity that were really well done, T is for Trinity and O is for One.
We hope our families eat it right up!
Jordyn Skacel, Director of Family Ministry
Matt Mitchell, Pastor
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EXPLAINER: THE GOSPEL PROJECT AT HOME
For the last several years, our Children’s Church ministry has utilized The Gospel Project as our Bible study curriculum. The Gospel Project is really excellent–it takes our Little Learners and Bible Explorers chronologically through the whole Bible over the course of three years while always focusing on Jesus as the center of the big story. If your student was in Little Learners or Bible Explorers this morning, they received a coloring page and take-home sheet that corresponds to this lesson. You have also been given a full-color Big Picture Card that you can use to reinforce the lesson with your child, as well.
To reinforce what your kids are learning each week in Children’s Church, you can now access The Gospel Project At Home online. Each week in this email, there will be a link to follow to get this free resource which includes:
1. A guide to using the Gospel Project at Home.
2. Scripture to read and discuss with a recap video of the Bible Story (Preschool and/or Elementary).
3. Scripture memory verses and a song to sing together.
4. Prayer prompts and family activities that correspond to the lesson.
Please consider setting aside at least 10-15 minutes once a week for a family devotional time using this resource as a guide. We are hoping The Gospel Project At Home will help keep all of our LEFC kids “on the same page,” and feed their faith in Jesus.
This might be especially helpful if for some reason your child has to miss a week of Children’s Church. You can show them the Bible story video to keep them up to speed on what the other children are learning.
**Note: The first time you access the link, you will need to register a free account with Lifeway’s Ministry Grid. This will also provide you ongoing access through the “training” tab to many other discipleship resources including the Gospel Project at Home for previous weeks. Many hours of excellent things to absorb for free!