California: Countdown to cupcakes

image_pdfimage_print

Working at a church in Tahoe City, Calif., I wanted my first and second grade students to become more familiar with the Bible. So, I created a “Countdown to Halloween” paper chain, and each link in the paper chain had a Scripture reference on it. We ripped off one link every day and looked up the verse written on that link. 

callie grisham130Callie GrishamI became concerned when the students were having a hard time finding the books in the Bible. I’m serving in California, not in a country where the Bible isn’t available. It’s scary to think that the Bible is foreign to some of the people in the United States.

It was hard at first not to do it for them.  I only have 30 minutes for Bible story time, and it took the kids 10 minutes to find the book, chapter and verse. It was a big time commitment to let them find the verse themselves. I had to hold myself back, because I knew that if I did it for them, they would never learn.

I can see my students have grown more comfortable with the Bible. The students that are here regularly understand that the “big numbers” are the chapter numbers and the “small numbers” are the verse numbers. We still have to go to the table of contents to find where the book is, but I’m fine with that.

I’ve introduced a song with lyrics listing the books of the New Testament, and I can see them slowly learning the books. I told the students if they can learn the books of the New Testament, we will have a cupcake party. I use the big cupcake on my wall as a reminder to the students.

Learning new information is hard, but the information that is in the Bible is valuable. And later in life, it will be worth the time we invested.

Callie Grisham, a student at Midwestern State University, is serving with Go Now Missions in Tahoe City, Calif.


We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.

Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.

More from Baptist Standard