Attributes of God: why should we teach them to our kids? w Elizabeth Urbanowicz -Podcast Episode 176

Welcome to the GotQuestions podcast. And joining me today is Elizabeth Urbanovich. She is the founder of Foundation Worldview.

We've had her on before, but they've just released a new curriculum that we wanted to spotlight today. So Elizabeth, and welcome back.

No, thanks so much for having me on today, Shay. It's a joy to be with you. So thank you for that. And I know as we were talking ahead of time that you guys promote

GotQuestions a lot to your listeners, to your group. So thank you for that as well. We always appreciate that.

And we've had many opportunities to point people towards Foundation Worldview as they've asked us for what's a good way to disciple my kids or to train our kids in apologetics and worldview.

So thank you for what you're doing as well. So for our listeners who may not be familiar, what is

Foundation Worldview? Yeah, so Foundation Worldview is an organization where we seek to equip

Christian adults with the tools that they need to get their kids carefully evaluating every idea they encounter so they can understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

And the primary way that we do that is through curriculum, that we create curriculum for kids four on up, eight on up, and 10 on up that parents can implement in their home or Christian educators could implement in school or church leaders can implement in a church.

And we just want to provide really easily accessible tools to equip kids to think critically and to think biblically.

So I know you've just released a new curriculum. What is this one about? And what led you to make this the,

I think the second major curriculum that you've released? So yeah, so this curriculum is our second one in the four on up category.

We have three other ones for older ones, but it is the second one in that category. And it is called the Attributes of God Curriculum, which at first I know for many people listening, you're probably like, oh,

Attributes of God, I've heard of the Attributes of God, no big deal. Where it's like, wait a minute, let's think about this. Who God is, this is so important for our little ones to understand.

And actually what made us decide to go this route to create a curriculum on the

Attributes of God, we're just seeing how different resources that were made available for children, sometimes even in really popular

Sunday school curriculums that just didn't have a proper hermeneutic. And the way that they were looking at scripture, they were just trying to twist out some moral lesson rather than approaching the text and looking at what has this text revealed about who

God is. And then another thing that really led us to be interested in this is as we started just listening to some more deconstruction stories of well -known evangelicals who have supposedly deconstructed or deconverted, we started listening to what they were describing their experience with Christianity and the

Bible, and then saying, oh my goodness, they're not really describing God as he has revealed himself in scripture.

And we thought, wow, when our kids are this young age, we really wanna make sure that we're grounding them in the truth of who

God is. So anytime they hear something about God that doesn't actually align with his word, whether it's in just some materials that have kind of like snuck their way into the church that are like really not biblically faithful, or whether it's hearing the story of someone who has deconstructed or deconverted their faith, or just anything they're encountering in the media, we want kids to have a biblically grounded understanding of the character and nature of God.

And so that's why we set out to create these resources to teach really big truths to little minds in a way that aligns with God's design for the child mind.

You're exactly right about the deconversion stories. So many of the ones that we hear at GotQuestions are people,

I've left the Christian faith, or I've at least left evangelical

Christianity because I can't follow a God who does this, or I can't follow a religion that teaches this.

And in many of those cases, it's like, God doesn't say that. Jesus didn't teach that.

What you're rebelling against is the actions of a fallen human being.

So grounding people in what God is truly like is hugely important. I imagine at some point you're gonna do like a who is

Jesus curriculum as well to really focus in on both Jesus and his teachings, because that's often the next step after attributes of God study.

So don't wanna put words in your mouth, but on jqkids .org, our site for kids, we've got a lot of questions of kids just trying to understand who

God really is. And really neat stories, neat questions, different questions that we get from adults.

So what you're doing is very much needed. And just looking at the curriculum briefly, I love how you broke it down.

Often we'll go with the, for adults, the communicable and the incommunicable attributes. And those sorts,

I like your breakdown of attributes only God has, and then attributes God invites us to reflect.

I love that definition of what led you to break them down that way. Well, as you mentioned, this is a traditional way that theologians throughout history have divided up God's attributes.

His incommunicable attributes, the ones that he alone possesses, and then the communicable attributes, the ones that he invites us to reflect.

And the reason that we chose to follow this model is first we wanted kids to understand that God is so very different than us.

Because as fallen image bearers, what we naturally do in our fallen state is we view

God through the lens of who we are. So we see our limits, we see times when we're loving, times when we're not loving, times when we're gracious, times when we're not gracious.

And we then tend to project those things on to God, where what we need to do is we need to have a biblically grounded understanding of who

God is. So specifically in the first unit, we have 13 lessons where we just cover God's incommunicable attributes, the ones that he alone has.

And so what we do is in each lesson, we present a different attribute of God, different scripture that points to that attribute.

And then we have kids play games where they're actually comparing and contrasting to see how very different they are than this attribute of God.

We cover things like God is self -existent, he's self -sufficient, he's eternal, he's infinite, he's immutable, these things that we as humans do not have.

And then what we do is after we introduce two different attributes of God, we introduce how should we respond to God based on this attribute.

And we cover things like we should worship God, we should trust God, we should seek God, we should obey

God. And then in our next unit, we cover those communicable attributes or the ones that God invites us to reflect because we want little ones to understand that part of being an image bearer of the holy

God means that we get to reflect who God is to the world around us.

And we want them to understand like what an awesome privilege that that is, that God has invited us to reflect him.

Well, at the same time we cover in that unit, when we cover attributes like God is wise, God is faithful,

God is good, God is just, God is holy. When we cover these things, we help the kids see how we're a tiny, we can be a tiny reflection of that, but we're never gonna reflect that perfectly.

One, because we're not God, only God is perfectly wise, perfectly faithful, perfectly just, all of these things.

And then two, because we're living on the side of Genesis three. And because of the fall,

God's image in us hasn't been marred, but we don't perfectly reflect that. And so then we're bringing in the truth of the gospel that we're never gonna be all of these things that God has called us to be, but Jesus has fulfilled the law for us, that he's bore

God's wrath towards our sin. So anyway, we just really wanted to make sure that kids understand that we're not supposed to look at who

God is through the lens of who we are. We're supposed to look at who God is through the lens of who he has revealed himself to be in his word, and then understand that he is vastly different than us, and that is such a good thing, because he is perfect.

Yeah, well said, and an excellent illustration that we often struggle with is people who have trouble picturing

God as a father because of the miserable experience they've had with their own earthly father.

So trying to interpret God in light of our experiences, who we are and who we've experienced humanity to be, rather than viewing

God based on what the word of God says about who he is, what he's like, what his attributes are, that's hugely important.

And yes, we are like God in many ways, but nothing in humanity perfectly reflects

God, and that's hugely important to remember that. Look for God for the ideal, not to ourselves or to people around us.

Yes, and in my own adult life, I have seen how an incorrect understanding of who God is really plays out practically.

I know in conversations with friends in the past, I've heard beloved friends just say,

I just can't believe that God would forgive me for that, which from a human standpoint, that is completely understandable, because how do we forgive?

We forgive imperfectly. Someone asks for our forgiveness and we extend that forgiveness, but we have to fight every day to continue extending that forgiveness because we remember the wrong that was done against us, and we have to struggle with that every day of our lives, where if we understand that God is immutable, he is unchanging, then we can understand that, okay, so that means

God's forgiveness is unchanging. God isn't giving forgiveness based on some emotional decision, as we often extend forgiveness.

He's basing his forgiveness off of who he is, and therefore when he extends that forgiveness, he doesn't ever take it back, it doesn't ever change.

And so we really need this biblically grounded understanding of who God is to make sure that we are viewing him, as you said, through the lens of who he has revealed himself to be in scripture, not as our imperfect fallen human nature.

Absolutely. Let me maybe give our listeners an idea of what we're talking about, why kids understanding the attributes of God is so important.

You mentioned at the very beginning that it's not maybe a typical study for our younger kids, but I think you've explained it very well, but maybe this will help even a little step further.

How about give me an attribute that only God has, and then also an attribute that God invites us to reflect that would be especially important for kids to understand.

Obviously, all of them are important, but what's something you have found that once kids get this, like they have the eye -opening moment or the light bulb goes off, what are some of those particular points that you've noticed in your ministry?

Yeah, so I mean, it's so hard to narrow it down because all of God's attributes are equal.

God isn't broken up into parts, but I think I always really enjoy teaching children that God is self -sufficient, that God does not need anything outside of himself for two reasons.

One, because it's a lie that we humans constantly believe that we're self -sufficient. We constantly think we have it all.

You know, like if our oxygen supply was cut off, we would survive for a very short amount of time. You know, we have so many needs.

And so I always love teaching children this. You know, like we talk about what are all of the things that you need?

And sometimes we'll have them draw pictures. You know, we need shelter, we need food, we need water, we need oxygen.

You know, we need physical touch, we need other people, we need relationships. And then we talk about, is it the same with God?

You know, and then we take the kids to scripture and, you know, about verses about God not needing to be served by human hands.

You know, he is not in need of anything. And all of a sudden, some, not every child, but for many children, the light bulb starts to go on in that like, oh,

God doesn't need me, but he chooses to love me.

And that is a really powerful realization for a child, but also for adults as well.

And sometimes we can feel like, you know, God's acceptance of us is based on our performance. You know, and if we don't do all of the right things, you know,

God's gonna cast us to the side where it's like, no, it's very clear in scripture that God accepts us based on the righteousness of Jesus, which has been given to us.

But when we can understand, God has no need for anything, including me. You know, God doesn't need me as a person.

He doesn't need my worship. He doesn't need my praises, but those are things that I get to joyfully give to him. And that, you know, he chooses to love me.

So that's one that I just, I love getting to teach kids that because so many of them all of a sudden realize like, whoa, God doesn't need me, but he still loves me.

And that's just like an amazing realization. And then an attribute of God that's communicable, that God invites us to reflect.

I really, again, I can't just choose one and be like, this is like, you know, the only light bulb moment, but one that I really enjoy teaching kids is that God is just.

He always does what is right. And punishes sin. Because this is an attribute, you know, this is just a concept that first of all, justice is very, the understanding of justice is like very skewed in our culture as to what justice actually is.

And as you kind of hinted at before, you know, people saying like, oh, I could never worship a God, you know, who does this?

We give lots of examples in this lesson of what it would be like if the children were living in a home, if there were their parents were not just, where their parents didn't seek to do what was right and punish the sin of the children.

And kids really, they understand really quickly when we give examples, like what if your brother came into your room and you took your favorite toy truck and he didn't ask your permission, he played with it all day and then he broke it and he didn't do anything about it.

Okay, and then your parents, they look at it and they say, you know what? It's not that big a deal. It's okay.

You know, what would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? And you'd be feeling angry. You'd be feeling this is not fair because it's not fair.

And talking about how God is a good God and part of his goodness is that he is just.

Now, of course, in the next lesson, we talk about God being merciful. And the way that God is merciful is because of the cross, that he cannot give us the punishment we deserve because Jesus has already paid that price.

But just love seeing kind of like the light bulb turn on for kids and understanding like, oh, it's really important that God is just, that God would not be good if he were not a just God.

Yeah, I think it's amazing that you chose those two. Those would not be the first two that I would go with.

But like you said, I mean, all of the attributes of God, the ones we do reflect and the ones we don't, crucially important.

I mean, the Bible reveals them to us for a reason, help us to understand God and all of his fullness.

As much as we were able to in our finite minds, of course. I love what Foundation Worldview is doing.

I love how even advanced that you don't treat kids like they can't understand these things.

They're like, no, these are important things for children to understand. What do you say to someone who would maybe say,

I've seen children's ministries where it never amounts to much more than Jesus loves me, this

I know for the Bible tells me. So that's the gist of every lesson. I mean, you're going significantly deeper than that.

What gives you the confidence that kids can understand this and can actually apply it to how they relate to God and to then communicate

God to other people? I love that question because I think it's a really important one, but it's also one that we don't ask often enough.

And so what gives me confidence that kids can actually understand these concepts? I think really understanding how

God designed the child mind to learn. That God has given children just these amazing intellectual capacities.

We just have to understand how do children learn best? So if I sat a child down and I talked at them for 30 minutes, they're not gonna hardly get anything because that is not how

God is primarily designed for them to learn. Even when we just think about a four or five year old, they're moving their body constantly and they love to run around.

And with the way that God has designed their minds to learn is that if we can get their bodies involved in the learning when they're saying things, they say things loudly or they say them quietly or they say them with their hands up or they have to sit down.

Whenever we can get their bodies involved from a physical perspective, this is just getting the blood flowing, the oxygen circulating all the way up to their brain so that they can think well.

But also it's helping form just muscle memory and really stimulating different regions of the brain.

And so if we understand this with what God has allowed us to learn through modern medicine, through brain science, we can really understand how kids learn best and what we can do to teach them these concepts at an early age.

And now just thinking about, you mentioned kids ministries where things are kind of dumbed down. Early on in my teaching career, that's my background.

My background is in elementary education. I was teaching Sunday school at the church that I was attending. At that time

I lived just outside of Chicago and I had this one interaction with one of the third grade boys in my class that just kind of, it kind of forever changed how

I viewed teaching kids. And I was in the coffee bar area of the church in between services, just working on something.

And this little boy from my class saw me and he saw me and he goes, oh no, it's you. And I kind of laughed and I was like, well, it's great to see you too this morning,

Samuel. And then I was like, can you tell me why are you not super excited to see me? And he's like, oh, seeing you here means that you're probably gonna be the teacher in our class.

And I really don't like when you're our teacher. And I was like, whoa, well, this is different. My students generally like me. Like, why don't you like when

I'm your teacher? And he goes, because whenever anybody else teaches our class, I just say Jesus as the answer every time.

And they're fine with that. Except for when you teach, you make me explain why Jesus is the answer. And he's like, that makes me think, and I don't like that.

You're not supposed to think at church. That's what school is for. And, you know, I kind of chuckled, you know, just at his ability to articulate this at eight years of age.

And I said, you know, Samuel, I don't think you meant that as a compliment, but that is one of the best compliments a child has ever given me.

But what he articulated so well is just what happens so frequently in kids' ministries at churches, that we try to get them pumped up and excited about being in church, where I'm just like, okay, where biblically in his ministry did

Jesus ever try to get people pumped up and excited about listening to his teaching? Like, Jesus said hard things that actually thinned the crowds.

You know, throughout his ministry, he did that. And then when we look at the early church, like, where do we see the apostles trying to go out and get people excited about Jesus?

You know, they were excited about Jesus, but not because there was a pizza party and loud music, but because they're like, hey, the

Messiah has come. Like, you gotta see this. And so we need to really shift our focus from entertainment because kids pick up on that and not be so concerned, are they excited to be here?

But are we actually helping them understand who God is? Are we helping them read, interpret, and apply his word?

Because you know what? Most kids actually would prefer that than the hyped up entertainment because they realize that they have a responsibility then to do some thinking and that they're old enough to learn.

And when we actually give them that proper respect, you know, as an image bearer of God, they really quickly pick up on these concepts that we want them to, you know, understand.

And so those two things, you know, we have to understand how God designed the child mind to learn. And then, you know, make sure we're teaching in a way that aligns with that.

And we need to just ditch the entertainment mindset and say, no, these children are worth more. And God has designed them in a way where they can understand more and we're gonna feed them.

We're not going to try to entertain them. That's an excellent point.

First, you made me hungry when you mentioned the pizza party. So I have to change my lunch plans so that I can eat pizza.

But even the learning styles, how children learn differently. I was just having a conversation with a friend the other day about how even adults have learning styles.

And I don't remember what the percentage is, but it's only a certain percentage, maybe 20 % of people who learn best through like a lecture format.

And yet that's become the dominant way that we teach even in churches to adults is just sit there and listen for half an hour.

And you'll absorb the information you need to absorb. It's like that only works well for a small number of people.

The rest of the population is learned to adapt because that's the only way they're presented information.

But even learning from kids like, wow, there are other ways to learn than just through lecture. There's touch, sight, audio, so many other things that can be part of the learning process.

And yes, we grow and adapt from when we're kids, but the way we see and observe kids learning best,

I think it's applications even beyond just kids too. And I think we could apply some of these principles you're talking about to how we teach adults as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. So we're about out of time. I'll include links to a

Foundation worldview to the new Attributes of God curriculum and other resources you offer. But to our listeners, what's the best way for them to find out more?

Perhaps order this. So who specifically would you say the curriculum was for? We're talking before the interview a little bit about how you originally had one idea that how the content would be used and you found it being used in a different way.

And that's great. So how can people learn more? And what are the best ways for them to get in touch with your organization?

Yes. If you can just remember the organization's name, Foundation Worldview, you can go to FoundationWorldview .com

or if you just type in Foundation Worldview into your search engine, it should pop up because fortunately we have a good team that works on SEO.

So we should be the first thing that pops up. So just go to FoundationWorldview .com or type this into your search engine.

And then as the question about who are these materials for? As you and I were talking beforehand, I was saying how

I'm a teacher. That's my background. And so initially, when I created the first Foundation Worldview curriculum five years ago,

I had Christian schools in mind, which we do have a number of Christian schools that use our curriculum. But over the years, we found that 95 % of our license holders are families, whether they be homeschooling families or families that do not homeschool, but are just interested in family discipleship.

So families, schools and churches all can go and check out the curriculum. And have you found parents who maybe don't have a whole lot of experience teaching?

Material is very family friendly. You don't need to have a teaching degree to be able to communicate this. I'm not a parent.

God has not never chose to bless my wife and I with kids. But we do a lot of ministry with other people's kids and kids in our church.

But for someone who finds teaching kids a challenge, from what

I've seen and gone through, I think your curriculum would seem very easy to use.

And so many different pointers on here's how to communicate this. Here's a lesson that goes along with it.

Here's an activity. Here's an art project. So many different ways to reach the kids and teach that you don't feel like you don't have to prepare a, like we were talking about, a 10 minute lecture to teach a lesson.

It's very much more interactive than that. Absolutely. And we say that as long as you know how to press print and play, and sit there and interact with a child, you can implement these curriculums because we do have videos for all of the teaching times so that you don't even need to do the teaching if you don't want to.

And then we have our activities. There's a guide, a sheet that goes along with it to guide you through the activities.

So we've tried to make it as user -friendly as possible. So if you know how to press print and play, you can implement one of these curriculums with the children

God has placed in your care. Fantastic. So again, we'll include links in the show notes and description on YouTube when this video goes live and also at podcast .gotquestions

.org. So Elizabeth, last question. What's coming up next for Foundation Worldview? Yes.

So the next curriculums we're working on, I'm excited about, also a little intimidated by. We know that there's so much confusion today about what it means to be embodied, what it means to have gender, what it means to be a sexual being, have marriage and family.

And so we're actually creating a series of curriculum. First, it'll be for four and up, Lord willing, eight on up and then 10 on up called

God's Good Design, where we're giving kids a biblical reality -based understanding of what is

God's good design for gender, for sex, for marriage and family. Well, fantastic. That's much needed.

That topic is exceedingly difficult to communicate to adults. So some practical tips on how to communicate that to kids of various ages, hugely important.

So please do proceed with that. That's a fantastic idea. Again, much, much needed.

So Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me today. I enjoyed our conversation as always, and we'll continue promoting and praying for Foundation Worldview because we absolutely love what you're doing.

Oh, thanks. And we will continue promoting GotQuestions because we love what you guys are doing. It's so needed.

Thank you for that. This has been the GotQuestions podcast with Elizabeth Urbonowicz from Foundation Worldview.