Blue Dogs and Crying Frogs

By Pam Kumpe  

Are you sure of your message? Sure of what you believe?

One Sunday during Kids Super Church, I asked my children to whisper a message into the ear of his or her neighbor. I started the three-sentence whisper session with a little girl, one I felt could make a good attempt at memorizing my hand written note.

She looked at it, and giggled. “This is it. I don’t think I can remember it.”
I quickly said, “But you hold the message and we need to hear what it is.”
She practiced under her breath, and I encouraged her to begin the whispering.

Here's what she saw on my note:

A blue dog jumped over a frog. The frog cried. And Jesus up in heaven looked down and smiled, saying, "I love blue dogs and frogs."

Now the gist of this illustration was simple. I wrote the phrases so the children would most likely mix it up, to use my lesson to drive home the point that if we're sharing Jesus we should know our message. And be sure we are getting it right. Telling it right.

In other words, if we believe in Jesus, we can tell others who He is to us, and what He means to us. If we say Jesus is our Savior, we can tell someone in simple easy sentences.
As the whispering continued, my 13 students listened to the song, the one where Ariel sings in the "Little Mermaid" — the one where she longs for land, for feet and wants to rid herself of those fins, the ones that keep her in the water.

By the end of the whispering about a blue dog and crying frog, the classroom roared with laughter. Some had a portion of the story right. Others had no idea what to say.
The last boy heard the secret, and stood announcing his version of the story. He said, "The blue dog jumped over the moon, and left a frog behind."

Again, the laughter erupted, and after we gathered ourselves up from the floor; I taught the student from Romans 16: 1-2 where Paul mentions Phoebe a servant of God, a helper and messenger of the Gospel. She had walking shoes of faith. We should have the same walk in our life, and unlike Ariel, we already have feet.

And we should know our message, the one about Jesus Christ and spread the Good News.
To conclude our class time, the children each grabbed two oversized pieces of foil and we quickly turned them into foil shoes. We wrapped our feet with the foil, to remind us to walk and share Jesus with others.

We can have walking shoes of faith too.

The kids loved the whispering, the Little Mermaid song, the foil shoes, and the story of Phoebe. How do I know? I heard them telling their parents why they were wearing the foil on their feet. It’s the first time, they probably ever learned about Phoebe, blue dogs, and frogs in a lesson about God.

Somehow, I know I’ll dream about blue dogs and crying frogs. Still though, it’s important to challenge our kids to share their faith.

By the way, I have plenty of foil left from that Sunday’s lesson for anyone who could use their own "walking shoes" of faith! Any takers?

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