Baptized and Star Wars

My friend and I have been filling in every other week teaching in the second grade class in our children's environment at Grace. It's a lot of fun, and you certainly hear some crazy stuff. This Sunday was our week to serve so while we were waiting to go to the kids worship, I was talking to a boy in the class named Tristan. He told me one of his friends in his class "got baptizized so now he was a christian" the baptizized thing was funny (just like when one of the kids called the ten plagues the ten plagiarisms), but I told him "well Tristan, that's really cool for you friend, but being baptized doesn't make you a christian" to which he looked pretty bewildered (I may have ruined his Church of Christ background), so I told him "we become christians when we believe in Jesus, and being baptized is our way to show everyone we believe in Him" a little less bewildered but then I popped out this analogy which all second grade boys can understand, "you know when you love a movie, let's say Star Wars, and you buy a shirt that says 'I love Star Wars', well getting baptized is like that. it's showing everyone that you love and believe in Jesus" to which he responded in the enthused light bulb moment voice, "ooooooh, ok!". It felt good just to have a small moment of clarity. Kids aren't oblivious, they catch on to a lot more than parents choose to see sometimes, that's why it's so necessary to talk about the important things in ways they can understand. Volunteering for an hour on a Sunday may seem like a small thing, but teaching kids truths that will remain relevant through life is pretty incredible.
My closing statement would have to go to Conner, while talking about previous weeks he explained to his class who this John was, "His name was John.. and he was a Baptist..".