Excerpt from Proverbs 1: 20-33

"Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?"

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

I couldn't stand Sunday school as a kid. Long before the Xerox machine, we sat on uncomfortable chairs filling in the blanks on worksheets we called "dittos." The only good thing about dittos was the smell.

Next came the craft; usually something involving glitter, glue, uncooked macaroni and pipe cleaners. I hated crafts. Everything stuck to my fingers. But if you protested, they stared you down like a blasphemer and gave you yet another tedious activity. "If you can't engage in the class activity, Lillian, you can sit in that corner and color in this ditto of the blessed baby Jesus."  Oh no, anything but that.

Since then, we've come a long way in children's spiritual formation. At our Sunday school, we, like many of you, use the rotation workshop model, in which children learn the same Bible story by engaging it in multiple ways. One week they may be acting out a play, another working on computers, another in the kitchen. In this way we acknowledge that not every one learns in the same way.

In today's passage, wisdom cries out in the street. People of faith don't just learn by being book smart. We need to be street smart as well. There is more to being a Christian than filling in the blanks on a worksheet. The church should be forming disciples who can find God's wisdom in all kinds of activities.

So if you have a Sunday school teacher you appreciate, send them this devotional, and thank them for moving beyond the simple answers to the wisdom in the streets.

Prayer

Teaching Christ, let me find your wisdom in unexpected places. And bless those who teach our children, drawing out their gifts, in the many wonderful ways they learn. Amen.

About the Author Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is the author, with Martin Copenhaver, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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