The Power of Doing it Again & Again

In our K6 Experience Studios we repeat the Biblical teaching for 4 consecutive weeks. There are several reasons behind this approach: One – kids don’t attend every week; Two – we’d rather spend the time and let the kids get a firm grasp of the story verses covering 52 stories; Three – it’s a good flow for our teachers.

When I pregnant with my first child, the only piece of advice my 70+ year old mother gave me was “Lori, kids do better with a routine.” So I wasn’t surprised to see that same theme in the book “Perspectives on Children’s Spiritual Formation.”

Kids thrive in an environment of routine and rituals. This love for routine can be seen in bedtime rituals, daily routines and endless desire to read the same book again and again. Repetition and routine support kids’ need to know that they can trust those responsible for caring for them. Without these consistent patterns, kids can perceive their own world as chaotic and their well-being at risk.

Often as adults we may assume something is boring for them or that they need “fresh” creativity. In fact, repetition may well be one thing for which kids yearn. G.K.Chesterton expounds on this point beautifully. He writes:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown up does it again until he is nearly dead. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy; for we have sinned and grown, and our Father is younger than we.

What a unique thought. That God the Father, the creator of the universe, chooses to do things again not because He can’t come up with a better idea but because like a child, He is awed again and again by the same thing!

Jesus said unless you become like one of these, you will not enter the Kingdom of God. I pray that I am humble enough to learn from these little kids. I have drifted far from my childhood days but still have much to learn.