For our Sunday school kick-off, I lead the kids, age 3 – 2nd grade, in writing their own back-to-school psalms. I told them that God’s story didn’t end with the last book of the Bible–we are part of God’s story today. So we can write psalms about what we’re experiencing, what we’re feeling, and what we know about God–just like David and the other psalmists did.
My pattern for writing psalms with kids is:
This is what’s happening in my life…
This is how I feel about it…
This is what I want help with… (oops, forgot this one with the first group)
This is what I know about God…
This is what I’m going to do…
So here are the two psalms we wrote on September 10, 2017:
Back to School Psalm 1
God, this week we saw the Nina and the Pinta with our friends.
It is our sister’s birthday, and she thinks she’ll be 4 forever.
We did homeschool.
We are feeling happy and glad,
angry and sad,
and relieved.
God, we know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.
We know that he’s our savior.
We know that he loves us.
In fact, if we say we love others and we don’t,
then we don’t love you,
because you are love.
Because of who you are and what you’ve done,
I’m going to be kind,
I’m going to share,
I’m going to be happy,
I’m going to put others before myself.
Back to School Psalm 2
God, this week some kids went to school for the very first time,
and some kids had their second week of school.
To be more precise, some kids had their 8th day of 1st grade.
We played with dinosaurs,
and we got tattoos.
Some of us are excited to have some days off school,
and others are sad to have days off school.
Some of us are happy about school,
and others are nervous and sad.
We need your help with singing when it’s superfast.
We need your help with school,
and especially with sharing.
We know that you made all natural things, and you provided materials and made people who can make things who made things like this table.
We know that you are here, here, here, here, and everywhere!
We know that you love us.
You love us so much that you know all our prayers–
there are no prayers where you say, “Nah, I don’t want to look at them.”
Because of that, I’m going to give hugs,
I’m going to say “I love you” to people.
I will always say, “DONUT forget that God loves me!”
So when I’m in the weeds of recruiting volunteers and making schedules and hardcore crafting and organizing (as I am right now), it’s important for me to read these psalms, and the previous psalm we wrote together, to connect to the pleasures of doing faith formation with kids. And seriously, DONUT forget that God loves you!
Those psalms! Cuteness overload. It amazes me what profound things kids spout. Definitely have to hang onto those nuggets to get through the craziness that is teaching kids. I’m taking a break this year from Sunday school with the little ones, but do you mind if I pass your psalm idea to our children’s ministry leader? Great idea! Thanks so much for posting this, Natalie. (And it was great to meet you at Breathe.)
I really enjoyed meeting you at Breathe, too. Absolutely pass the idea along! I heard later from a couple of parents that the kids were really impressed that they wrote a Psalm together 🙂