Posters

Reading the Psalms with Kids and Why You’re Going to Want to Start

Reading the Psalms with kids offers a treasure trove of wonderful reflection and teaching. Maybe this is already something you’re already doing. And maybe you’ve never even considered it. Either way, we’re here to tell you why it’s awesome.

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Why Reading the Psalms with Kids Is Awesome

Reading the Psalms with kids exposes them to a wide range of human emotion. Those who penned the Psalms wrote from their hearts in all seasons of life. As a result, we read a wide range of emotional experience. Consequently, children learn to name their emotions, realize their emotions are normal and valuable and are encouraged to share them with God.

Reading the Psalms with kids teaches about prayer. Much of the book is what we might call a prayer journal to The Divine. This teaches children that praying to God is giving voice to our experiences and sharing them with God. It doesn’t have to be perfect or sound right, just honest.

Reading the Psalms with kids encourages theological creativity. The Psalms name and describe The Divine in several ways. For example, the authors offer names such as Maker, Shepherd, Strength, Savior, shield, mother, hiding place, exceeding joy, guide, and many more. Consequently, children can learn to think beyond the language often codified in faith education. For even more, check out this feminine reading of the Psalms.

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Reading the Psalms with kids teaches about trust. The Psalms tell of the authors’ deep struggles and joys. In effect, we read of the way in which our spiritual ancestors trusted God in the midst of uncertainty and hardship. So, children have the opportunity to see how they can trust God during all the seasons of their lives.

Reading the Psalms with kids describes God’s faithfulness. Some of us go back and read our journals to see how God has been with us. In the same way, the Psalms show us how God was present at all times of the authors’ lives. As a result, it’s possible for children to begin looking for God’s faithfulness in their own lives.

Reading the Psalms with kids relates concretely to life. As children study the Psalms, reading of the authors’ experiences, they may be reminded of experiences they’ve had. Consequently, conversations about their own lives are possible. This gives us an opportunity to speak into their lives.

Reading the Psalms with Kids

Experiencing the Psalms in Color

Reading the Psalms with kids contains a journey into the heart and has the potential to open and deepen conversations about their lives. Are you hoping to invite your children to an even deeper experience of the Psalms? We’ve got you covered! Check out our brand new Psalms Coloring Posters here. We’re pretty excited about them, and we think you will be, too!

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR PSALMS COLORING POSTERS? Download an informational PDF to read later or share with friends and colleagues by clicking here.

We hope this has inspired you in reading the Psalms with your children. Don’t forget to share what you love about the Psalms and how you’re reading them with your kids in the comments below.

How Churches Plan to Use the Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters & Curriculum

Adam Walker Cleaveland Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, we began accepting pre-orders for our Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters. Since then, we’ve had almost 50 churches pre-order their posters for this summer. Since we had so many early-adopters, we figured that many of them must have had some specific ideas of how they would use the posters and we wanted to share their ideas with all of you.

Below are just a few of the responses we received from churches and we’re excited to see how people are already dreaming up ways to use these posters that we didn’t even think about. And we especially love the intergenerational focus of some of these ideas.

Hopefully these ideas might inspire you to try out the curriculum and coloring posters this summer. If you have other ideas – we’d love for you to share them in the comments section below. And if you haven’t pre-ordered your posters yet, you can do so here.

JesusBaptism — An example of a colored version of our coloring poster of the Baptism of Jesus

Colorful Reminders of God-colors

We are so excited to use our Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters this summer. Our summer theme is “Celebrating God-colors” taken from The Message translation of Matthew 5:14, “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.” The Illustrated Earth curriculum fits perfectly with our theme.

We will be using the curriculum and the coloring posters in an intergenerational Bible study on Sunday mornings. Our children, youth, and adults will gather together to learn from the Bible and each other. As we have shared our plans, it’s clear that our adults are as excited about the giant coloring posters as the children are!

Each Sunday as we finish, the poster will be hung in our foyer, so that by the end of the summer, bright and colorful reminders of the God-colors found in creation, Scripture, and each other will be everywhere as we enter our sanctuary.

Melissa Scott
Associate Pastor
Colonial Avenue Baptist Church – Roanoke, VA

Intergenerational Sunday School

In the past, our church has cancelled children’s Sunday School in the summer. This was in part to give our teachers a break, but we also didn’t have very many young families that would attend Sunday School in the summer. This past year, however, we have a class of young adults that have children and they want to keep meeting all summer long! Which means we need something for their children as well.

In addition to the coloring posters, we will be using the An Illustrated Earth curriculum as well, which will allow for children to engage with the stories on a deeper level. We plan on letting the whole church family know that we are offering this, and look forward to having some others join us, making this an intergenerational event. We are excited about this creative option for Sunday School that will allow children and adults alike to explore their creative sides together.

Kristen Koger
Pastoral Resident
Tabernacle Baptist Church – Richmond, VA

Using Posters in Many Different Ways

We first used Adam’s coloring pages at Advent, with children, youth, and adults (at a Session meeting couldn’t wait to get coloring!). We also used the Family Advent packet and the wandering Wise Men were a hit!

Then we ordered the Lent drawings with the intention of using them, but we went with a theme for Lent that didn’t incorporate the drawings. No problem! We bought the digital files so we have them to use whenever we need them. I went on a weekend retreat with a friend and brought copies of the drawings for us to color as part of our relaxation. She ended up coloring “Believe” and turned it into a Confirmation gift for her confirmands (you may have seen the picture from Trinity Presbyterian Church in Butler, PA). Inspiration!

We just pre-ordered the summer packet. To be honest, I don’t know how we’ll use them yet, but I know that we will. It may be for quiet time in Vacation Bible School, a summer night with youth, personal time on Senior High Mission Trip, or group coloring on a Sunday morning. Adam’s work is always inspirational, meaningful, and fun!

Rev. Meg Rift
Director of Christian Educational Ministries
Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church – Oak Park, IL

A colored version of one of our coloring posters

Coloring on the Beach

I am very excited to introduce your water stories series to the children I teach at our 8am summer beach service as well as to the children who come to our 10am service. We will share our finished creations with you when we’re done.

Rosemary Lamie
First Congregational Church of Greenwich – Old Greenwich, CT

Coloring at Camp

Hi amazing Illustrated Ministry Team! Thank you for the contribution your work is making to the wider good and to the big work of nurturing children’s faith and spirituality. It is a joy to be able to draw on your gifts to deepen our ministry here in the United Churches of Langley, and in Camp Spirit.

The Illustrated Earth posters will be a part of our support for children and families through the summer this year. We have been holding mid week, multi-age worship times in past summers. I picture the colouring posters being a feature of those gatherings as one of our stations.

During camp at Camp Spirit, we have a time of quieter engagement in a variety of spiritual practises for children kindergarten through grade 6 – and their leaders; the Illustrated Earth posters will be a wonderful option for contemplative practice for campers. Thanks again for all you are doing!

Allison Rennie
United Churches of Langley – Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Combined Classes

In the summer, we combine our pre-K and K-1 children’s church classes and I plan to use your Illustrated Earth curriculum and coloring posters in that setting.

Jill Winter
Director of Children’s Ministries
Centenary United Methodist Church – Danville, KY

An Update on Poster Paper for An Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters

Adam Walker Cleaveland Leave a Comment

We are getting ready to launch the pre-orders for our Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters, but first we wanted to give you a short update on the paper that we’re using to print these posters.

We’ve been very pleased with our previous printer, and the quality of the posters we’ve sent out. They have worked well, and we know some folks have actually framed their finished posters. With our previous printer, however, we were limited in our paper options. So we are very thrilled to be able to share that with our new printer, a local Chicago family-owned business, we now have more options to choose from for our posters.

For our Illustrated Earth Coloring Posters, we’re going to be printing them out on 32 pound paper. Our previous posters were printed on 20 pound paper. I don’t know if you can tell in the photo above, but the paper is thicker, and is also a whiter paper. This also means that the illustration pops off the white page more.

For those of you who are interested, we’ve put together a little video to try and show you the difference between the two papers. And yes, it does feature a few appearances by one of our tried and trued product testers here at Illustrated Ministry, Caleb Walker Cleaveland (who is four years old). Be looking for the announcement of pre-orders starting for these posters soon!