Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

God's First Book, Our First Classroom- Part II

Angela Boothby Frauenfelder

God’s First Book, Our First Classroom II: Part 1

Our Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for what you've given us in your word to guide us as we seek to live this life and help others into your kingdom.

And I just pray that the Holy Spirit will speak through me, that whatever I share will be acceptable in your sight, and that those here will know what to glean from this presentation to go and help others, whether it be in the classroom or in the home or in the church, whatever capacity you've called them, give them the resources and the knowledge to help others in this way.

I read a story years ago of a young child who was reading by the age of 2.

He had been to Harvard and gotten his degree in psychology And he really believed in just filling the child's mind with lots of knowledge, just pushing them academically.

And so by 2, his child could read English.

By 4, he was typing original work in French.

At the age of 5, he had devised a formula whereby he could name the day of the week for any given historical date.

You can tell me, like, in 1960 On December 20, it was a Tuesday.

So at 5 years old, he could tell you that.

He had devised this formula whereby he could determine that day.

At the age of 8, he projected a new Lagarthams table based on the number 12.

He entered Harvard University at the age of 12 and graduated with distinctions before he was 16.

So obviously this boy was a genius, right?

But his father believed in instilling within a child just a host of knowledge so that by the age of 10, they would have the knowledge of a college graduate.

People all over wanted to see where he was going to go with his life, what he was going to do.

But by his early 20s, he distanced himself from society and wanted nothing more to do with his father.

And to a lesser or greater degree we tend to do that in the training of our children.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting them to be the best, to make a difference in life, but are we doing it to their detriment?

So when we think of education, and if we were to define this, what are some words that we would use to define just education in general?

Typically, when we think of education, It's book learning, knowledge, skills, training, intellectual culture.

All these things we would define as education, typically.

But then what is the purpose of education?

When you're seeking to train a child to educate them, what is your goal in that process?

We want them to succeed, to not just be living off of others as they get older, but to be able to make money, right?

So typically, make money, get a good job, support yourself, get a degree, make a name for yourself.

But typically, when we think of education, is that the first thing that comes to our mind?

But we want them to succeed in this life.

If we were to simply define education, I think most people would agree that you could define it as the process of learning to attain knowledge for a useful life.

So if we want to look at life, a useful life, what is the aim of life?

And if we look at what is the aim of life, then what is life's purpose?

The purpose for which all training should aid in fulfilling.

I would submit to you as you look at education from God's word and not just asking people about it, When we go back to God's Word, I would submit to you that the purpose of life, the purpose ultimately of education is found in John 17, 3.

John 17, verse 3, and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Proverbs 9, verse 10 says, the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

In order to make our lives useful, we have to have knowledge, we have to have understanding, but it says the knowledge of God is understanding.

Jeremiah 9, 23-24, Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might.

Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me." When we're training our children, and you'll read it in the Spirit of Prophecy and it says, we train our children, we fill them with knowledge, but if they give up the knowledge of God, is it of any worth?

We're training our children, or the children in our care, we're filling them, we're making them wise intellectually, But what are they going to do with that knowledge?

Are they really going to finish the work?

This is from Acts of the Apostles, page 530.

It says, the knowledge of God, this knowledge is the foundation of all true education and of all true service.

The Son of God was appointed to come to this earth to take humanity and by his own example to be a great educating power among men.

His experience in man's behalf was to enable men to resist Satan's power.

He came to mold character and to give mental power to shed abroad the beams of true education that the true aim of life might not be lost sight of." The true aim of life.

Jesus came to show us the plan for education.

He wanted to dispel the myths about education and what life's purpose was by bringing forth God's principles.

This is found in Testimonies for the Church, no, Fundamentals of Christian Education, page 30.

The aim and object of life is not to secure temporal advantages but to make sure of the eternal advantages.

And this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

I would submit to you that it's to glorify God and bring souls into his kingdom.

God’s First Book, Our First Classroom II: Part 2

Dear Lord, I thank you so much for this day.

I thank you for the rain I thank you for the blessing that it is just to be alive and I ask that Lord that you inspire us for the seminar Lord and that it is your seminar and that we learn how to learn from you in your name.

Amen All right So here we go with ideas because I'm a teacher and I survive on other people's ideas.

And I find that in other people's ideas is where I get inspired to then waterfall off their ideas.

So 1 of the things that my teacher talked about for my master's was the importance of a sense of wonder and that he related to even with a with a walk of God if we lose our sense of wonder then we've lost a lot so it's important that we remember how to wonder and we remember how to be amazed about what God has done around us.

So I like this little quote because I think that really, that is what another thing we're missing in our society is just spending time with each other.

And that's 1 thing that phones do is often it takes up that time of just literally spending time with 1 another.

I long for the days where we'd sit on our porch and talk to the neighbor.

I think that would be so cool to live in that age, but I think sometimes You have an idea of the past that's not reality, but you just want to make it a reality in your mind.

So if a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he or she needs the companionship of at least 1 adult who can share it.

Rediscovering the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

Now kids can do a great job exploring on their own.

That is true, but there is something much more magical when they share it with you, because how many times when they find something, what's the first thing they do?

They want your confirmation that it was a great idea and a great find.

And I don't know about you as an adult, but sometimes I need that confirmation too.

Like, yeah, that was really good, wasn't it?

Like, you know, for some reason, unfortunately, we crave those words of affirmation.

And so I think it's the same thing with God, though.

When we find something amazing that he has done for us, we want to share it, right?

Fill your classroom or personal library with nature books.

My classroom had these really old, ancient, ugly, like ugly as you can get, brown encyclopedia books of animals.

And my little ones would pour through those books every free moment they had.

I mean, they would pick those up 9 times out of 10 compared to all the fun flashy ones because they loved the pictures of animals.

But what was really weird to me is the pictures inside the books weren't even that nice.

And for story time, they'd ask me to read 1 of those and I would have a hard time being like, Lord, how do I make this exciting for them?

Because as soon as I start reading, I know they're gonna be bored.

But they would want that more than they would want froggy ghosts to the doctor.

Like, they would actually prefer the animal books.

So fill your personal library of nature books, and I challenge you to take out your cartoon animal books.

I'm not saying you have to get rid of them forever, but just do a little experiment and see what happens and just fill your library, fill your personal library, fill your school library with the books that you want to fill your kids' minds with.

Even though those other books are fun and those stories are fun, it's amazing to me that they want something more.

The kids really honestly want something more.

Another thing that you can do is just be intentional.

You know, we have to be intentional about our time with God, right?

We have to say, I'm going to set apart 30 minutes to spend time with him.

I'm gonna make it a priority to spend an hour with him.

Well, you need to do the same thing with spending green time outside.

You just need to make it a priority and say, I'm going to spend an hour outside.

So 1 of the ideas that I found that was really cool was just 30 minutes, as soon as your child gets home from school, they're outside.

As soon as they get home from school, they just know they're outside.

So whenever, I don't know what your different schedules are, but if you have kids, if you don't have kids, make a schedule time for yourself where you're just 30 minutes outside doing everything you can to just enjoy being outside.

If you're a teacher, make a structured recess and call it green recess.

And they love it when things have like, it sounds so much more exciting when it has a title.

Just because it has a title, everything is cool.

It's just unstructured, imaginative play and see what they come up with.

You know, all of a sudden, a stick is a great, I don't know, conqueror's thing.

And then, you know, everything becomes really fun and cool and make it maybe, you know, 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Or where I taught, I structured my classroom so I had 3 recesses.

And so 1 out of my 3 recesses would just be free play.

And they weren't allowed to use the playground, and they could just play everywhere else, in the woods, and around.

But yeah, So I know that there's difficulties with ticks and everything.

1 thing I did as a teacher, I think I only have 1 teacher, so I have 1 in a school setting.

1 thing I did is on my supply list, I put rain boots.

You know how you send home a supply list for your kids.

1 thing that was just on the requirement was rain boots.

I think it was probably the most random thing anyone had ever seen on their supply list.

So for those of you who don't know, I taught her youngest son kindergarten 3 years ago.

1 of the things I had in the supply list was rain boots.

Now looking back at it, I probably would also throw in a rain jacket and maybe other things like that too, just to get them outside and comfortable.

Because I once heard a quote that you never had bad weather, you just have bad clothes.

If we're prepared, same thing in Michigan, everyone's like, oh, how do you handle it?

I'm like, no, I just put a jacket and hat on.

They're like, oh, it's so much bother to put all those clothes on.

1 of the biggest things that they taught us in our master's program was the importance of site development.

So you need to go out and you need to look around where you live and you need to take time to do site development.

And you need to take an environmental inventory and go around and see what you have and see, you know, become familiar with it and see what you need to add to it to make it more of a natural preserve.

A lot of my ideas came out of the newest Richard Louv book which is called Vitamin N.

God’s First Book, Our First Classroom II: Part 3

Dear Jesus, I thank you so much for this beautiful day.

I thank you for keeping us safe last night in the storms.

And I just ask that you be with everyone who's trying to dry out, Lord.

May they not be too miserable, and may they still see that even through the rains, there are so many blessings, Lord, showers of blessings.

We love you and we just surrender this time to you completely.

This is absolutely my favorite presentation.

And I wanna start with A quote out of Education, page 120.

It starts on page 119 and goes to page 120.

And I just think it's absolutely amazing.

Says, he alone who recognizes in nature his father's handiwork, who in the richness and beauty of the earth reads the Father's handwriting, He alone learns from the things of nature their deepest lessons, and receives their highest ministry.

Only He can fully appreciate the significance of hail, hill and vale, river and sea, who looks upon them as an expression of the thought of God, a revelation of the Creator.

And I don't know about you, but often we try to figure out what people are thinking, right?

Like, oh man, I wish I really knew what that person was thinking.

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could know what God was thinking?

And I know that I have learned how to do it.

It's taken me time, years actually, but now when I go out I honestly feel like I see God's handwriting.

Like it's just super hard for me not to come up with a Bible verse when I go outside.

It's super hard for me not to think of a hymn.

It's super hard for me not to think of God.

I mean of course I just want to and it's just the way I think now because of the fact that I've just been taught by the Lord to see Him through His nature, see Him communicating with me.

Many illustrations from nature are used by the Bible writers.

And as we observe the things of the natural world, we shall be enabled under the guiding of the Holy Spirit more fully to understand the lessons of God's Word." And I love this.

It is thus that nature becomes a key to the treasure house of the Word.

I've been talking to some of my pastor friends.

I'm like, so what do you think about, you know, starting with nature nuggets every morning at church?

And what do you think about including nature applications in your sermons?

What if we called them, you know, the key to the word?

Or I don't know, I still have yet to coin a creative phrase for that.

But I just, I'm excited about that because I've been talking to some people and they're like, yeah, we should think about doing that in our churches.

Starting, you know, we have offering, we have prayer, we have the first hymn, and then after that throw in a little nature nugget.

You know, Pathfinders does nature nuggets and special spiritual retreats do nature nuggets.

Because every time a farmer or somebody was walking that heard Jesus' sermon, they instantly related it to something.

And that is what I'm gonna hope that at the end of the session you see that, is that God honestly longs to communicate with you.

And I don't know about you, but I think with all my heart that the reason people leave Jesus is because that communication gets severed.

And they just feel like, I've been praying about this for years, or I've been talking to you, and you just aren't talking to me.

I think that's like the biggest struggle for youth, for ourselves, is I've been talking to you God and you're not answering.

Like my deepest desire, I don't feel like you're answering it or you're not even communicating with me.

And when I learned that He does want to communicate with me, which I'm going to show you.

And it's just that there's nothing to fear when you know that God is going to communicate with you.

Children should be encouraged to search out in nature the objects that illustrate Bible teachings and to trace in the Bible the similitudes drawn from nature.

They should search out both in nature and in holy writ, every object representing Christ, and those also that He employed in illustrating truth.

Thus they may learn to see Him in tree and vine, in lily and rose, in sun and star.

They may learn to hear His voice in the song of birds and the sighing of the trees and the rolling thunder and in the music of the sea and in every object in nature will repeat to them his precious lessons.

To those who thus acquaint themselves with Christ, the earth will never more be a lonely and desolate place." And why do we struggle with loneliness?

Everybody, you know, I've been amazed how many people struggle with loneliness.

Because I'm single, so usually like the single people are, right, the ones that are classified as lonely.

But I've gone to different groups of people and stay at home moms are really lonely.

And then the moms who have empty nesters are really lonely.

And then those who their kids go to college, they're really lonely because they're no longer running things.

And then those who their kids get married, they're really lonely.

And then those who retire are really lonely because no one's seeing them anymore.

Like loneliness is just very much a part of our lives if we choose to look at it that way.

Loneliness is just very much what we feel no matter what stage of life we're in if we choose to look at it that way.

And so I just love that promise that the earth will never more be a lonely and desolate place.

So with the presence of Him once who dwelt among men.

And just like, you know, Christ walked in the garden with Adam and Eve.

And there are times where I just feel like I just, I'm sitting there with my Bible and I'm by a pond and I'm going through my Bible, flipping through verses.

And you know, it all started because I saw something in the tree, and that made me go on this verse, which led me to this verse, which led me to this verse.

And I was thinking, I'm like, God, it's too much.

I just feel like I just can't explain it, except it's just like I'm right there.

And he's just giving me this verse and this verse to encourage me.

Just to encourage me to say I love you, I'm taking care of you, I'm with you, encouraging me.

And I just found it so absolutely incredible.

So let's talk about a little bit how to do this.

So a sit spot, I've kind of mentioned a sit spot.

Try to pick a place where you can sit regularly to commune with God.

Now, for me, I don't just have a regular sit spot because I'm always traveling and I'm always on the move and my location of place is always changing.

And so for me, there's variety of places, but I still have that mentality of a sit spot where I sit and I just take time with my Bible to look at what's around me, all right?

And for your kids, I think I mentioned this before, you can put an easy White Quote somewhere and they have to go out and journal about it.

You can put a bio verse and they have to go out and journal about it.

But what I do is I simply go out there and sit and I just talk with him for a long time.

I just talk to him for a long time and I'm like, Lord, I don't even know where to start.

I don't even know what I need right now, but I know that I'm empty and you can fill me.

So please, Lord, just tell me what I need.

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Series

God's First Book, Our First Classroom- Part II

God’s First Book, Our First Classroom II: Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

God's First Book, Our First Classroom

4. Take Your Family Outdoors

1h 5m

Better Together – Intentional Family Connections

04 Adventure Outdoors

58m

Connect

04 Connection through Nature

54m

God's First Book, Our First Classroom- Part II

God’s First Book, Our First Classroom II: Part 1

1h 9m

Better Together – Intentional Family Connections

02 The Education Experience

48m

Seeing God's Character in Nature

4. Metamorphosis

1h 13m

Better Together – Intentional Family Connections

01 Family Worship

44m

Better Together – Intentional Family Connections

03 The Nature Connection

58m

Sound Doctrine