How do you explain the Trinity to kids?

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Carolla

Carolla

wondering & wandering
Pronouns
She/Her/Her
Curious to know how you would explain the concept of the Trinity to elementary school age kids.

What wordings do you use?

I'm working on a project presently & got into an interesting discussion about this.
 
Hi Carolla...

Not sure about wording, pretty much case specific. Simple vocabulary and straightforward syntax. Key element is in the story teller's inner disposition. Warm, positive regard for the gathered imaginations and bodies goes a long way towards productive communication.

My language with young persons does not offer much content. It works to get the present imaginations engaged. Once engaged, those imaginations will learn lots about what you have to share.

Apple - Seed - Tree works nice.

George
 
carolla. Just wondering. Do you believe in the concept of the Trinity. If you don't, how can you teach it.

It was a wondering. Like how do you talk to kids about virgin birth, and a multitude of other things in the bible.

St Patrick used a shamrock, by the way, in Ireland.
 
The typical one I am aware of is comparing it to the 3 well known states of matter, usually with water.
Ice, water, steam.
 
Yes, I've heard the ice, water, steam idea also. Apple - seed - tree is new, similar idea. Shamrock is good too.

I rather like God beyond us, God with us, God within us, too. But that's maybe too abstract for the kids.

Would you say these are three forms of God? Or is that incorrect theologically? Should it be three persons of God?

crazyheart said:
carolla. Just wondering. Do you believe in the concept of the Trinity. If you don't, how can you teach it..
Click to expand...
Good question crazyheart .... I'm developing a colouring book regarding the symbols in our stained glass window - one of the windows has interlaced Trefoil & Triangle symbols - representative of the Trinity ... so the question then arises - what's the Trinity? How to describe that in brief text is the challenge.
 
It is a deuce of a thing only split by what comes between the two halves, or as the scripture says: where two or three come together .. there will be a' moor! This is spelt different in varied traditions that people will fight about as if conflict is the norm Eire!
. does this help as a visionary icon? ... צּ
 
If you try the phonetic form you get a better IDe-a but then you can't see it! Some people cannot put sound and visual images together and thus neurologically are single-minded until learning dual images in the psyche.

It you don't believe in thinking or far out conception ... you won't get this etude in abstracts, a mire projection!
 
How about a hard boiled egg ---one egg ---3 parts -----outer part --shell ----take shell off you see the inner white part of the egg and when you split the white part you see the yoke ----all parts in one egg ------Father -- outer shell ---Son --white part of the egg Holy Spirit center yoke ------
 
Focus on relationship.

Three different relationships with the same person - three different names.

Call up a person to the children's circle in church.
Ask three people (chosen in advance) if they know her.
"Yes, I know her; she is my mother." "What do you call her?" "Mom."
"Yes, I know her; she is my daughter." "What? I thought she was Jim's mother!" "She is. But she is also my daughter."
"Yes, I know her; She is my friend." "What do you call her?" "Mary."

Mom, daughter, friend - one person; three identities.
 
It is not really a problem that I am likely to confront now and even in my UCCan days, I was to all intents and purposes Unitarian in my theology. The Trinity was and is, to me, more of an image for understanding God than God's real nature.

As I wrote this, @Seeler kind of ninja'd me (posted what I wanted to say while I was busy typing it) though I was going to put it a bit differently.

Short version of mine: I as a person am a parent, a worker, and a friend and behave (and sometimes even look) differently in each of those relationships even though I remain the same person. God is like that, too. God is a parent as Creator of all that is. God is a friend who helps us out as the Son. God works to change the world and our lives as The Spirit. Or something like that. The same God, but seen differently and behaving differently depending on how we are engaged with God.
 
Carolla said:
Yes, I've heard the ice, water, steam idea also. Apple - seed - tree is new, similar idea. Shamrock is good too.

I rather like God beyond us, God with us, God within us, too. But that's maybe too abstract for the kids.

Would you say these are three forms of God? Or is that incorrect theologically? Should it be three persons of God?
Click to expand...


God beyond us, God with is and God within us is a formula I use, but more with adults.

Three forms of God is problematic; so, frankly, is three persons although it's the traditional formula. The "doctrine" of the trinity - while biblically supported - is, in its specific details (like, "three persons") a human construct - the Bible never speaks of "three persons," that's a human attempt to interpret the nature of God and is, therefore, perhaps helpful but always imperfect - designed to lead us to a greater understanding of God, rather than to be the final word. If it becomes final and absolute then we have made an idol of our doctrine. So, my question is: what does the trinity reveal to us about God?

For me it reveals a God who desires relationship and is relational and who relates to people in different ways. One way I've tried to explain that to children is to ask them to think about a man who is at one and the same time someone's father, someone's husband and someone's son. It's the same man, but relating in three very different ways to different people.
 
Then perhaps god in old folks is wiser than God in and about babes ...
  • Then we have the enigma of a borderline god between the two ...
  • and then between the three as heh/chi/IT emerges from the clump ... what the Celt refers to as gobshite, or fecund as a fertile area for thinking ... that domain of soul which isn't according to roules of incarnate haze ...
  • eliminated from the hard-shelled bruti sort in Latin as come 4th or latter dazed as Constantine with his controlling vision of a flaming sword to get the democrats in control ... still goes on today!
 
Any pair of diametric opposites, together with the transcendental power that unites and/or separates the two.

The Yin/Yang Principle.

The Principle of Complementarity.

The Principle of Uncertainty.

[CREATOR<=>CREATING<=>CREATED]
 
All this will hit those in contemplative stage with a BANG ... almost like canan ... a Hebrew reflective term parallel to how egos ...

Thus it was ... all wend out of shape ...
 
Okay, so let's summarize what we have so far:
  • Apple - Seed - Tree
  • shamrock
  • Ice, water, steam
  • God beyond us, God with us, God within us
  • hard boiled egg ---one egg ---3 parts
  • Three different relationships with the same person
  • I as a person am a parent, a worker, and a friend
  • a man who is at one and the same time someone's father, someone's husband and someone's son

The last three are all relationship based, so at first I thought it cheating to list them three times, but then I realized, "Hey! The Trinity is just like three definitions of the Trinity that are all basically the same, but spelled out three different ways!"

Am I doing this right?
 
chansen said:
Okay, so let's summarize what we have so far:
  • Apple - Seed - Tree
  • shamrock
  • Ice, water, steam
  • God beyond us, God with us, God within us
  • hard boiled egg ---one egg ---3 parts
  • Three different relationships with the same person
  • I as a person am a parent, a worker, and a friend
  • a man who is at one and the same time someone's father, someone's husband and someone's son

The last three are all relationship based, so at first I thought it cheating to list them three times, but then I realized, "Hey! The Trinity is just like three definitions of the Trinity that are all basically the same, but spelled out three different ways!"

Am I doing this right?
Click to expand...

Close, except for your statement that only the last three are relationship based. They're all relationshop based. An apple, for example, is dependent on both seed and tree. But the basic Christian premise is that God is a God who desires relationship. Any explanation or description of the "trinity" is imperfect in that it only point to relationship being inherent in the nature of God.

And, actually, dust, dirt and mud works fine as well.
 
What do you do if you slip up and give an explanation where a man is a son, a husband, a father, and an uncle? If you get carried away and go with four things, have you blown the Trinity?

I'm reminded of Douglas Adams, and "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy".
 
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