What You Are Is What You Were When You Were Ten

More years ago than I care to admit, I was challenged (near the end of a 16mm HR training film) to reflect on the impact that my life at age ten had on my "after age ten" existence. The premise of the film was that a lot of our attitudes, beliefs, and practices are imprinted at about age ten. From that time on, we don't change all that much.

Maybe that's a stretch, but as I hear it today, it has a ring of truth, at least in matters of spiritual formation. A child's attitudes about church and Sunday School, his or her beliefs about what God is like and what life with God is all about, and devotional and worship disciplines at age ten may predict where that child will be in ten, twenty, or fifty years later.

What if this is true? What would you like that ten-year-old child to be hearing, learning, and experiencing?

• Opportunities for service in the church and community?
• Sunday School lessons filled with forgiveness for sin and assurance of God's love and mercy?
• Weekly participation in worship and Sunday School as a family?

What was life like for you at age ten?

What specific attitudes, beliefs, and practices would you like to imprint on the children you teach?

God bless you as you teach His children (and their families) His Word!