Question: How do you teach kids about Christians being killed for their faith?
Yet another coincidence. Early June in the OYB means the Book of Acts. The second week of June means the martyrdom of Stephen. It’s my week in the Sunday School teaching rotation for the class of 4th-6th graders. Our curriculum is currently in the Book of Acts: great power, mighty miracles, intense persecution. The scheduled lesson is, yes, the martyrdom of Stephen.
For many years I’ve been teaching Sunday School and love this particular age group for teaching the Bible. Most of them are reading quite well—and without the (perhaps approaching) wonky middle school attitudes. For a number of years our church has been using the Gospel Project, a comprehensive curriculum that takes every class on a parallel track through the Bible in three years at its grade level. At the end of those three years, we start over. Our focus is Bible literacy, and the results are exactly what you would expect: teachers and students with a broad knowledge of God’s Word and what it means to live out that knowledge.
I subscribe to the email list for Morning Star News, an organization that covers the persecution of Christians in countries worldwide. The numbers of believers being killed each year are staggering. A recent article also details the slow, steady eradication of ancient populations of Christians in the Middle East from country after country.
The class of six boys and three girls gets along very well and pays attention. After a brief review of previous lessons, I ask them to open their Bibles to Acts 7, provide the setting, and move quickly through Stephen’s sermon. They begin to realize that this scene is not going to end well.
The end of chapter 7 approaches.
They want details about the stoning, and we discuss Stephen’s vision—and his last words: “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!”
“What does that remind you of? I ask. “Jesus’ prayer on the cross,” was the immediate response.
I move to a map of the world on the wall. “Christians are being killed for their faith in many countries of the world today,” I tell them. Nigeria, in west Africa, has now surpassed China in the number of Christians murdered each year. China remains #1 in churches attacked and destroyed.
The class is very quiet.
“Although we cannot go to these places, we can pray. We can always pray.”
I ask them to write out a prayer on their worksheets. When they are finished, we take a few moments to sit quietly. A few of them want to share a line or two from the prayers they have written. When we are finished, I ask, “Will you promise to pray this week each day for the suffering believers?” “Yes.” Every one of them.
A few of the worksheets are left on the table after they are dismissed. Among them (as written):
Lord, please help your people who are dying in other countries. Help the people who don’t know you, know you. Stop them from killing your people. It really breaks my heart thinking about it. In Jesus name, Amen.
And:
Lord, I pray for these people who are being martyred right now that you would be with them. I also pray for the martyrers that they would come to know you and that they would see that what they are doing is wrong.
Help the people who don’t know you, know you.
I pray for the martyrers that they would come to know you. . .
When children respond to a Sunday school lesson that intense with such words, such understanding, we may expect that the Gospel is penetrating those young hearts. We teach the Word in its beauty and in its difficult truths with the goal of leading children into a robust faith. The world is in desperate need of followers of Christ who learn how to pray earnest prayers of great power—power to be released on behalf of suffering brothers and sisters.
One small, sincere, tender-hearted prayer at a time.