>> Welcome, everyone. I am in a different space today than I have been for the past two weeks. As you can probably tell, I'm in my car. I'm not driving. I'm in a Wendy's parking lot. I was actually at the doctor's before this getting some blood drawn for my COVID antibody test. I have a whole fun story about how my experience with COVID-19, and my nose swab test, and vomiting all over the place, and why 30 percent of tests come back as a false negative maybe. It's another episode. We're working
with some people to get an expert on here to talk about vaccines, to talk about the different tests, the antibodies, what all the immunity and all that stuff happens, but that is a different day. I did get the opportunity to wear my Socrates mask today. >> Nice. >> Which is terrifying. [LAUGHTER] Oh man, but you got to keep it light. Today, we are discussing children. We want to talk about how we are communicating this pandemic to children, while having them understand the science behind it and
also not scar them for life and make them afraid of everything that moves. Then also from a church perspective, we want to know how we can provide good programming for our children to grow spiritually through this time and to thrive in this time. To that end, our time today is going to be split down those lines for both of our guests have something to say on both of those issues. Ruth and I will introduce them because we are closer to one than to the other. I would love to introduce our first gu
est who is the Associate Professor of Elementary Science Education at UNC Charlotte, which means he is a professor who teaches future teachers who are going to teach science to children. Which I have to say, he is also one of the hosts of the Down the Wormhole podcast with me and when we had Dr. Scott, the paleontologist from Dinosaur Train on, Dr. Scott said, and I sent this clip, that he is doing the most important work in the world right now; helping to inspire educators to learn how to inspi
re children in learning science and creating a lifelong curiosity. I want to welcome Dr. Ian Binns. >> Thanks, Zach. May I go now, or do you [inaudible] this part, or do you want to introduce Karen? >> Let me introduce Karen. >> Yeah. >> We have Karen Ziel. Karen, I apologize, I'm going to stumble over your title here. You are the Youth Minister of Faith Formation, and something else for the Southern New England Conference, and held the same position in the historic Connecticut Conference for ab
out 12 years before the merger back in January. Karen and I have known each other professionally for a couple of years because my standing is in the Southern New England Conference now. I'm delighted that Karen is here. She's been the point person for the Southern New England Conference, and working with faith formation programs and COVID. We're calling on her expertise in that. Karen, if you want to say hello to everybody. >> Hi, everybody. My name is Karen. As Ruth said, the title is Minister
of Faith Formation and Leadership for the Southern England Conference, but what's in a title, right? [LAUGHTER]. >> The leadership part is important there. We are very happy to have everybody here. Just a reminder, I posted this in the chat but it's very helpful if you have questions that you'd like us to address to post those in the Q&A. I will monitor those and make sure that our panelists have an opportunity to answer them, and that's also a good place if you have questions that maybe don't f
all under this particular topic, but that you might want us to address in future episodes. I do have a collection of those questions ongoing, and as Zach said, we do have a mailing list. We will make sure that that link to the mailing list sign-up goes up. We are also part of the United Church of Christ Science and Technology Network. Some of you have heard this before, but Zach introduced me to the Science and Technology Network and I introduced him to Sinai and Synapses, which is where we both
met Ian because he was in our cohort. So this is like a family affair here. Without further ado, Ian, would you begin our conversation for us? >> Yeah, sure. First, thanks Ruth and Zach for inviting me. I'm excited to be here today, and I just have a few things. I don't want to take up too much time of me blabbing, just a couple of things I want to talk about when it comes to talking about the coronavirus and COVID-19 children. Then, of course, obviously if any questions come up, but just a cou
ple of things really. A lot of this, we're still trying to figure out just because of the fact that when everything really started hitting, all the schools are shut down, and we all had to continue. Sorry, my son is here. There goes one of them. [LAUGHTER] Those of you who are parents probably get it. Anyway, some of the things I have learned a lot over the past couple of weeks and months because I'm going to have to start teaching, Zach said, future elementary school teachers how to teach thing
s like the COVID-19 pandemic to children. It's a tragic event that we're experiencing throughout the world, but it's also a time where we could really learn about how science works. Some of the things that I'm going to really emphasize with my future teachers that I encourage everyone here to do is that when approaching this kind of conversation with children, sometimes the best way to do it is to just ask them what they know. Instead of trying to just be the teacher, or the parent, or the relig
ious leader and saying, "Here's what you need to know," ask them first what they know. It gives them a sense of ownership, and it gives them an opportunity to see that you care about what it is they're bringing to the table, but not just asking them what they know, but listening too. I admit, especially as parent, there are times I'll ask something then not just really listen, but we need to listen to them too because we don't really know what they know until we listen to them. Another thing, to
o, I'm trying to talk to children about this, and many resources that I'll share later to talk with this as well, is remaining calm. If you approach the conversation with a lot of fear in your voice or a fearful look, they're going to pick up on that. Pretty much what I wrote here is don't approach the conversation with telling them, "Hey, you know what? The world's about to end." Probably, it won't help you out very much in your conversation with children because these children, sadly, as we kn
ow from science is that this is not the last time we're going to have to deal with pandemic. These children will have to go through this experience again, and some of these children could be the future scientists and experts in various fields who solve the problems that we're unable to solve now because the science isn't there yet. Making sure you stick to the facts. There's so much false information going on out there about the coronavirus. I see it every single day, and it terrifies me as a pa
rent, as an educator that this is the stuff that we had to combat, but really, making sure they understand what COVID-19 is. One of the first things is to help them understand what COVID-19 even means. I think Zach mentioned it before, maybe in the first one, I can't even remember the exact acronyms but it's coronavirus disease and 19 is the year. I've heard some people say, well, 19 was that it's the 19th time and just like no, that's not at all the cases, it's the year. Basic things like that
is a great way to start with them. When it comes to handwashing, some of the things I found earlier that I thought were really great when it comes to hand washing and social distancing is making sure that these children have a sense of responsibility. Helping them understand, because if you think about it, children love to help people. Sometimes they may not act that way, but they do, especially the younger they are. They really like to help others. If you talk to them about, well, wearing a mas
s can be really helpful to your friend who you don't want to get sick. Those types of conversations with children are really helpful. The handwashing, turn it into a game. There's all this talk about having them sing the ABCs and then whenever I talk about that with my children or singing happy birthday, they'll say, "Why they're singing happy birthday faster than you?" My response is, "We sing it twice." But talking to them about ways of doing things. With children, if you don't want to freak t
hem out, one way to do it is to turn it into something fun while still making sure you use accurate information. Then the last thing I want to bring up is this idea I already referred to, it's the importance of helping people understand how science works. I do research on nature of science along with science and religion, and I approach all my work in that without lens at trying to help people understand what science is and how science works. Refer to this as a tragedy, what we're dealing with r
ight now, but it is an opportunity for us to learn about the scientific process. A lot of the things that we're seeing in the news with what appears to be that information is constantly changing, so then people will say that, well, they lied earlier but now they're not lying. How am I supposed to trust this particular scientist or this expert when this information they tell me now is totally different than what they supposedly told me before? My response to them, and I see a lot of my former stu
dents bringing this up in social media, "That's how science works." Typically, we as the general public, we never see that process; we see the finalized product. While that's nice, it doesn't give us an accurate understanding of how science works, how scientists do their work. This back and forth conversation, it used to be originally that people said never wear masks. One thing with that is that it wasn't necessarily they were saying never wear masks, they were saying don't go out and buy N95 m
asks and other types of things that medical professionals need. There were still some debate about if any kind of mask was worth it, but now we know that it is a good idea to wear masks. The reason why that change is our scientific understanding improved. We started having a better idea of ways to stop the spread of this virus. That's the reason why that has happened. I see that as a good thing. There are many people who see that and say that, ''This just shows that scientists don't know what th
ey're doing.'' To me, whenever I hear anyone tell me that, it just helps me realize that they don't understand what science is, they don't understand how science works. If someone says that to you and you have that thought, don't turn to them and say, ''Well, you just don't understand science.'' That probably won't help you out, because it'll be a little confrontational. But maybe help them understand. We know the reason why are there recommendations or changes because our knowledge is improving
. Children can understand that, too. This is something that we're teaching children all the time about the scientific process. I have more I can say, but I want to give Karen a chance, too. >> Well, I'm just going to jump in here and say one of the ways that you can help people make the leap between what science once recommended and what's now being recommended is to realize how much the treatment in hospitals has evolved, because that's a scientific process. We hope that the death rate will dec
rease because they've gotten better at treating people. Like they now know that putting people on a ventilator in a prone position has a better outcome for more people than the traditional position. That, they did the studies to figure that out. Sometimes it's just a matter of orienting people to, okay, so you've seen this and how do you want them to treat you? The way that they did at the very beginning, or with what they know now? Sometimes that can move people along as well. Karen, you were n
odding along. Go ahead, Ian. >> Yeah, just one last thing with that. What is tough for people to understand, and I get this is that science for generations has been presented as this, we know everything type mentality and that if within the scientific community, or something comes out and scientists will say, ''I don't know the answer to that, or this is based on our best understanding at this time.'' But some people will look at that as, ''Well, then we can't trust you at all.'' Again, that get
s back to this notion of, when people view it as that, it's got to be 100 percent or it's nothing, it shows they don't understand science. As I said, we are witnessing the scientific process live and it's tough, because it's a very messy process, and it can scare a lot of people who think that science is absolute. They realized, one thing that may come from this is, hopefully, people understand that's not how it works. Sorry, Karen. >> No, please don't apologize. This is a great conversation. Th
anks folks for having me this afternoon. We've been having a lot of conversations. One of my roles is to support people who are faith formation practitioners, leaders and our local congregations whose role it is to nurture children, youth, and adults in faith formation and discipleship. We've been asking ourselves a lot of questions, and busily making faithful accommodations why we're not in building together. How can we help folks to continue the process of forming faith for themselves and for
their family members, their children, their youth during this time? There are as many questions as there are answers, and it sounds like that's true science as well. It's great that we have a spirit of experimentation, that folks are actively seeking answers, but also listening and being willing to, again, experiment and try to see how all of this will come together, both now and in the future. A couple of things that Ian said, he talked about the scientific process and the fact that these young
people that we are in ministry with, in education with currently, maybe the future scientists. Well, faith plays a role in that, I think faith and science are two sides of a wonderful coin. [LAUGHTER] Helping to nurture curiosity and wonder and awe, sharing stories, engaging children and using their gifts, that sense of responsibility that you talked about, Ian; engaging children and youth in using their gifts and being a part of this process with one another, with their younger peers, I think
the church has a role to play in that as well. It's wonderful that we have this time. It's not without stresses or challenges. So we know that parents who suddenly found themselves in the role of educators, [LAUGHTER] or seemingly in the role of educators, felt overwhelmed and out of their depth in some ways, many parents, and out of their depth. But we also know that they are the primary faith formers of their children's faith, and it's primarily their role that faith nurture happens in the tea
chable moments from Monday through Saturday, and making sure that their children are affiliated with or part of a congregation in a faith community on Sunday. This moment, if you will, is helping the church to face it's sin of perhaps omission or commission. In the last three generations of having all of the resources and the specialties and the staff and the personnel, to have the church take that role as primary. Now, what we're realizing is that it's really a partnership of mutual support and
responsibility that we work with families, that we work with parents, that we work with neighborhood groups or community groups in ways that we help be a part of the nurture of all children, and especially those who are part of our faith community. How do we do that responsibly, and how do we use our gifts and our resources to do that? Well, we don't have a lot of answers. We think we've developed some good questions and a good process for congregations, and the staff and volunteer leaders who
will be making decisions both now and in the future about what to do with programming and how to reach children and youth outside the gathered church with ways to faithfully serve and offer resources and support for that ministry and that work. It starts with defining the why behind your efforts and your faith formation ministry. What is it you really hope to accomplish with young people? What is it you want to nurture in them, and how will you do that? But it starts with the why. When we talk a
bout questions to address before resuming on-site faith formation programming, there are a whole lot of things to consider, including possible alternatives to maintain the safety for all, including if you're leaning forward holding onto an event on site, what faithful accommodations and safe accommodations will you have to make in order to be able to gather young people together. We were talking informally earlier about, can young people be expected to wear masks for longer periods of time? What
about bathroom procedures? What's the safest? What's transmission on surfaces, and how often do we have to sanitize, and all of those safety questions that need to be answered. Who will do the sanitizing? What about our volunteers? How will they be trained and equipped? In gathered programming, they typically have a primary responsibility for helping to enact the ministry. But how will we equip them to be able to do that, and will they feel confident in doing that? I think that, that remains a
significant question if we talk about getting back together. Finally, prayerfully just weighing the pros and cons of holding on-site programming, and what's the hybrid of this. What have we learned in this time? What are the innovative things in ministry that people are doing to nurture faith in this time where we can't be gathered as we have been, especially with groups of children and youth? How will we measure its success, and how will what we've been doing enable us to make faithful decision
s about how we enact ministry in the future? I've said a lot in a little period of time [LAUGHTER] and I'm not sure if that's what you were hoping to hear, but I'm going to be quiet now for a minute and see if any of you want to respond, and if you have any Q&A questions. Ruth, thanks. >> I would, if that's okay. I keep going back to Jesus saying that we must have the faith of a child and, anyone who thinks that means that we must have an unquestioning faith has never met a child. The whole poin
t of a child-like faith is a faith that's constantly asking really good questions. Above all else, like when we're putting together programming for children in a difficult time to echo in and again, it must center around allowing those children to ask those questions. I think about my two boys. I've got one boy who is five. Goodness, pandemic time. His birthday was in April during the pandemic; it was a difficult time. He had spent a while when he was young with somebody who is terrified of bees
, and they instilled the fear of God in him of anything that buzzes. Anytime now there's a fly in the house, there's anything on wings, he is catatonic because he's terrified of these things, because he was demonstrating the fear of that somebody else had about these buzzing creatures. My other son is two and a half, and nobody has told him yet to be afraid of things. We were out just the other day, he and I usually are because he loves bugs, looking at what must have been 20 or 30 bumblebees al
l flying around our mint plants. I asked him, "What do you think they're doing?" They're eating. "Do you know they eat flowers? They make honey." He went to go get a flower to give it to them because he's so sweet. "I have flower for bee." I had to stop him because I didn't want him to get stung and find out the hard way. But I had this image of my older son in my mind, that I don't want to scar this little boy to be afraid of all buzzing things and so I said, "Well, how do you think you would a
ct if somebody ran at your face with something? What would you do if your brother ran at you with something? Would you be scared?" He started to think about it then he thought, "Okay. Well." I could see that the gears turning, and he left the flower on the ground next to it for them to get to on their own time. We talked about how they have stingers, and how they can be dangerous so we need to be careful. But they're also really beautiful, and they're so cool. We took pictures so that we can loo
k at them close up. Just kept trying to get him to ask me questions, and I'd ask him questions about what he thought about them. I think hopefully by the end of it, we realized that they were dangerous, but that there was also a lot there to be learned and gleaned, and to watch his little mind just keep blossoming. I think that's the gift that children can give us in these times too, is that they're not instantly thinking about the death toll and the statistics, and the things we see on the news
. They're able to look at this with a more inquisitive, naturally scientific mind. I always say that the good scientists and good mystics have the same mind [LAUGHTER], the same inevitable draw to the unknown. That's the same mind that these kids have. In all the ways that you are putting together programming whether it's in your church, or in your university, the teachers who are going back to school, that is something that I've taken away from you all. Thank you for for that. Ruth, are there a
ny questions coming in? I can't see the Q&A from here. >> We don't have any questions yet, but I'm going to pose one because I think it will start the questions going. Karen, I know that the Southern New England Conference is recommending that faith formation in person not happen for youth and children, until there's an all-clear moment, whether that's herd immunity, which is a whole another piece that we'll talk about on another episode, or vaccines, that kind of thing. Some of the conversation
s that I've heard in other venues have been, "Well, if our kids are going back to school, couldn't we do something similar?" Karen, I want to ask you first why that recommendation has been made by the Southern New England Conference. Then, Ian, if you can tag in with what you see as some of the things that are being talked about by the people who will actually be in the classrooms, not the people trying to make the decisions. But if you could each talk a little bit about that, and then the Q&As
are open folks, and if we can't answer them here, we've got future episodes. >> Thanks, Ruth. Well, I think some of that is about the unknown and the uncertainty of keeping everyone safe with the disparity of resources. We know that we have churches who have more resources, and churches who have fewer resources to bring to bear when we we're talking about the gathered church, and coming back together. Even asking yourself some simple things like, what is the level of custodial support, how do we
train volunteers, how our volunteers effectively monitored and supervised? A lot of our decision has to do with how safe we're able to keep people, and our own level of vulnerability in bringing people back together. What are the resources we have to bring to bear to be able to do that effectively, and what are the challenges and the risks in that. One of my roles as well is I do a lot of safe conduct training or safety training, really, like the resources that all of our insurance providers. I
think the top 3 are, probably, United Church of Christ Insurance Board, GuideOne and Church Mutual. All of them have really comprehensive resources on their websites to bring to bear on the questions at this time when you're concerning safety. In Phase 2 when you're talking about returning to worship, and in one of the things that families have to ask themselves, if families with small children cannot ensure the ability to maintain proper social distancing, do we need to encourage them to conti
nue to attend virtual services and the other web-based and Internet-based programs that we're offering or opportunities that we're offering? What happens to someone, a congregant who's back and had gathered worship experience who develops symptoms during that experience. How are we prepared to handle that? What are we prepared to do? I think I had a practitioner a couple weeks ago write to me and asked me some very simple practical questions like, my church is leaning into coming back together,
and wants to see the children and youth back together in a physical setting. But what do we do with supplies that are in the class, is it safe to keep them? How do we handle the sharing of supplies by children? Are there guidelines for nursery care? All of these things are beyond our will and our desire to be in community because that's who we were created to be. But beyond that, all of these resource safety questions have to be answered, and plans have to be made by congregations before they br
ing the most vulnerable populations and that includes our seniors back together. The church has the gift of five generations. We are one of the few institutions that touches people's lives, where people are gathering who are five months, and five years, and 15 years, and 55 years, and 85 years. How do we keep all those folks safe and how do we make a plan to do that? So much of this really is born and the inherent goodness of relationships, I guess I want to say. Even when Zach was talking about
answering his sons questions, and leaning with them into the lessons around the flowers on the mint plant and how bees work, the goodness of that moment was a fathering relationship with his two children. I think, parents, grandparents, whoever the caring or nurturing adult is in a child's life, the goodness of that relationship can be formational in the moment if we ask the question and we make the observation that this is part of God's creation. We don't understand everything about the myster
ies of bees, some bees are supposedly too big to be able to fly but yet they fly. There are a lot of things that we don't know, but we do know that it's being able to ask the questions, being able to share my joys and concerns. Even with the youngest child in a children's chapel, if you open that sacred space for children to share their joys and concerns, what's on top for them. What I'm I holding most close at this moment? What's on top? You don't ask them that way. But the way you ask enables
them to respond in that space, and in the company of their peers and that's really a powerful experience for them. We know that there is a goodness in being together as a gathered community that we're missing, but there are lots of things we can do in the intervening time. >> Thank you, Karen, for that. I wanted to use it as a transition to talking a little bit about schools, is that one of the things. We have nine-year-old twins; they're going into fourth grade this year. My family and I were E
piscopalians, and the church we go to has a wide range of ages and generations as you alluded to, Karen. But you still have that range of generations. One of the things that my wife and I talked about, well, I help lead a service, an evening service every Tuesday night on Facebook. I really enjoy going to my church because it's such a sacred space for me. Zach and Ruth know my background with my troubles with religion, organized religion. It's just such an inspirational area for me to go to, and
I'm craving that inspiration right now. One of the things we've discussed is that when our children do go back to school whenever that is, they're going to start being exposed to a lot of different people, and our bubble is going to expand dramatically. So even though we know that there's a high likelihood, or a greater chance, of potentially someone getting diagnosed with coronavirus or something else at schools, that's the way it works. We don't know if we would feel comfortable going to our
worship space when the worship space starts to allow us back in. Because of the social distancing, that's tough to get children to follow that and because of the order population. Do we want to put them at risk because our bubble has experienced significantly while theirs is not? I use that to then get into this conversation with schools because, Ruth, I like how'd you ask what are some conversations that maybe teachers and school leaders were having then. I'm not privy to all of the conversatio
ns, but I know that the once I am privy to, they're all over the place. In my role at the university, I'm part of a planning team when it comes to, when we come back, what it's going look like? It's all over the place. It's because we know that. I saw a great description of this in an article earlier today, is that it's a massive Petri dish that we're opening up. What does that look like? Many of the teachers I know are very nervous about what it could look like because it seems to be that the p
rimary focus of the conversation is making sure that children are back in the classroom setting so they can get some sense of normalcy, but they're not potentially focusing on the adults in the building. In certain places, our teaching population is much older than people think. I get it. I'm a parent. I teach future teachers, and I know that having children in school settings where they're able to learn is very powerful. I use the term school setting loosely. That's not just in a class room, th
eir butts in a chair, but in a learning environment. It is very powerful, and they need that. But you have to weigh how do we handle that. There's a lot of conversation, at least in where I am, in North Carolina, of having to go back part-time, and then other part-time is having to be online with their teachers. Our governors are going to come up with this announcement apparently at the end of this week to let us know what schools could look like this coming year. [inaudible] told kids are suppo
sed to be going back in like a month, and we're still not sure. The UNC Charlotte, so we're in Charlotte. The RNC was going to be here. So when we had to come up with our calendar for us, at least at the higher ed level, is that we pushed our start date back to Labor Day. So many universities in the UNC System, their start date is in three or four weeks because they wanted to get done prior to Thanksgiving. So when students go home for Thanksgiving, they're in their home, and the semester is ove
r. We did not do that because of the RNC. Now, the RNC has moved, but we're still keeping that calendar that we've set forth because now our numbers are going up and out of control. So there's just a lot of unknown right now to be able to make a definitive decision. >> I think that speaks to all of it, that we are living in a time that what happens from day-to-day changes the course of history in ways that we can't know. We've got a couple of questions, I read both of them. Ian, as an education
professor, I think you might have some input, generally speaking, to the second one in particular. Karen, these are right up your alley. So the first question is from Judith West, and she says, "I'm interested in the mechanics of what churches are doing. We are not doing in-person, families report children being zoomed out. What alternatives are there for making them feel community and for building their faith?" Then the second one is from Brenda Clark who says, "What would an effective video fo
r Christian education contain and list the vital elements?" Ian, I think as an education professor, you can probably speak to what generally an effective education video would contain, regardless of the topics. I think we have a third question about helping children deal with the unknown and the anxiety it produces, which will save for the end for that. So Kimberly, if you hold onto that question, we will get to that before we close. So Karen or Ian, whichever. >> I can definitely get more into
the the second one, the question from you, Brenda. I do have some thoughts on the first one, but I think Karen has a lot more background and expertise in that area, so I'll definitely refer to her. But I think when it comes to an effective video for Christian education and education in general, Brenda, I like how you list the vital elements. That's really hard to do because if you get a bunch of educators in one room and say, "What are the vital elements?" you're not going to have agreement; you
'll have agreement on maybe a couple. One of the things that I think online education has to have is that, first of all, it cannot be a strict lecture, which is what people tend- When the school shut down at the K-12 level, in the higher level around the level, both levels around the country in the spring, sadly, that tended to be what people are going back to. Let's just get the worksheets and this lecture because we just don't know what to do. That was a survival instinct, which I don't fault
that. I think now that we have a little bit more time to prepare, you want to make sure that the videos in the online resources you're using have students doing things. There will be time where there's some sort of lecture-type format where the presenter or the teacher is giving the information. But there needs to be time where, if you're using something like Zoom, you have breakout rooms, that needs to happen because you have to mix it up because children are not going to just sit there. We sig
n up for a science camp, I think this next week for my son, and they're sending us a bunch of resources ahead of time. There will be online components to it, but a lot of it is on it's own with us. Now, as a science educator, I'm going to geek out and do it with them. But that's part of the process, is making sure that if it's possible to make it hands on, one of the things that I will prepare my future teachers for this fall is how you could deal with a situation like this. So coming up with ac
tivities and ideas that use very basic home supplies and materials that you have easy access to, even things as basic as using water. So you want it to be something that they are still getting that hands-on component and moving around that type component. Karen, [inaudible]. >> Thanks, Ian. So two trends or theories that are particularly helpful right now are thinking about playlists. This is an idea that's been further developed by practitioners ecumenically and really has been lifted up by Vib
rant Faith Ministries and the folks of Vibrant Faith who have an online engagement app for practitioners and faith formation leaders, called Vibrant Faith Catalyst, which is a mighty network, so it uses a Mighty Networks app. But it's a great place for crowdsourcing and online sharing and for the development of some things which Vibrant Faith has been in the forefront of. One of those is playlists, which are weaving together faith-forming experiences into a sequence to pathway centered on a comm
on theme. So you could take the theme of seasonal theme of Lent, and create a playlist which is a series of micro learning experiences, engagements that are short form, 5, 10, 15 minutes long. Many of them experiential, some of them using online resources like YouTube videos that exist and think about the multiple ways of learning in your multiple intelligences, and how to include them and create a practice-oriented learning playlist of mixed methods and media. So the idea that you would have, a
reading, and there would be a story book, or an article for adults or something, a short engagement with reading. That there might be a writing or a journaling reflection element; that there might be a storytelling element, a video to view, or podcast to listen to and reflect on; that there would be art projects; that there would be spirit sightings, ways of bringing through the examiner at the end of your day, the high points and low points of your day, where did you see God's presence? When d
id you experience God's absence? Playlists are getting quite a bit of play, if you will, in terms of ways to offer faith-forming content in manageable experiences and a mixed scope and sequence of experiences that people can choose from. Any given time, if they've had too much screen time, they can pick some other experiences from the playlist and they don't need to go to that YouTube video or that 15 or 20 minutes Zoom conversation. People are doing creative children's chapels online. People ar
e doing creative VBS online that includes all the learning stations and rotation experiences, where there are crafts and there's music, and there's storytelling. Using simple elements that are home, using your environment for an experience and a response. So that it's not complicated learning, but it's a series of brief engagements that people can go to as they feel compelled to, so 3-4 minute children's messages. Again, young people want to use their gifts, and they want to make a difference. T
hey want to matter; they want a responsibility. I was just on my home church's' playlist today. We have virtual VBS going on now for five weeks, and some of the most creative videos were a minute and a half or two minutes long, and they were done by our tweens and our teens and it was really nicely done. One young man had his white board and he had a whole list of ingredients, and he offered the kids today an opportunity to make a bear bite, [LAUGHTER] which was a piece of toast with some Nutell
a and some banana slices for the ears, and some blueberries for the eyes, and the point of the nose. In a minute and a half, he was so engaging to his peers and they had a great snack together today. So I think those are some of the things that we're doing and some of the things that we're leaning into that may just teach us a lot about the everyday and in-the-moment value of faith formation as well. >> Yeah. Can I jump in here? [OVERLAPPING] Are you-all familiar with the KiwiCo company? The sub
scription box company, one of these that every month they send you a box, but they're specialized towards kids and they have, "This is the engineering one, the art one, the cooking one," whatever, the different ages. We're taking that model, and we're using that for our VBS this year. Because our wonderful VBS leader had put in so much work at the beginning of the year to get everything done because she knew she'd be really busy this time, and so everything's already finished. [LAUGHTER] We were
so sad to not be able to use it until she realized, "Well, if it's finished and other parents aren't going to get the whole couple hours of babysitting thing that they normally get with VBS, but if they're willing to engage with their kids, we can just create an in-home VBS this year." So the way that we're doing it, because we're having snacks, you have to come by every day, and if you want to engage that day, you come by our secured pickup, and you pick up your box for the day of VBS, and you
bring it home for your kids of whatever age group they're in, and there's an activity, there's a Bible story, there's a YouTube playlist of the music that we're doing. That's all embedded on our church's website. There's a snack, and at the end of it all, we normally have this big ice cream party with the huge ice cream bar in a gutter. So this time we're going to have it in our cars, and we're going to give everyone Dixie cups, and we're making t-shirts that say like, "I survived COVID VBS 202
0." [LAUGHTER] We haven't made them yet, but we're trying to lean into the weird and let the kids engage in the weirdness, and let the weirdness form something new. Hopefully now with the parents having to get involved, it will help the parents to then learn how to do that spiritual formation. Karen, I think that is what you said that earlier, it stuck with me, that parents are the primary spiritual leaders for their children. As a pastor, I'm just thinking of all the times that we've been tryin
g to do children's chats while we're filming our services this year, and how my older son keeps saying, "I don't want to read the Bible anymore, I don't want to talk about Jesus," for my whole church to see. [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING] >> Thank you fans because I've seen those. [LAUGHTER] >> [OVERLAPPING] I love children. I love them very much. [LAUGHTER] But sometimes I could use some help with a box that is pre-made, and that is good for them. I've been thinking about this as well throughout the
fall. We're not going to have Sunday school as it is, because we don't have, like you said, we're always fighting to have the correct amount of teachers to begin with, and now, those teachers which are primarily in high-risk categories, are now expected to do way more work, way more cleaning with smaller groups of kids, and it's not feasible for what we're doing. Now, I'm trying to think about, maybe we'll make up subscription service for our kids, and we're probably going to have to find fundin
g for this [LAUGHTER] because we're not a huge church. But if this works, then we take faith formation for children out of just a Sunday morning Sunday school deal, and then we bring it home, and we make the parents have to learn and engage with their children too, and it might end up being better for everyone. >> It just might. I'm going to snag onto the end of Judith's question about making them feel community and for building their faith. One of the things that we've done here, I have a very
small contingent of children and a few of them have unfortunately been lost to us with the COVID thing because of parental custody things. But our Sunday school teachers came up with an end-of-the-year altered scavenger hunt based on the 23rd Psalm and the Beatitudes. They came up with it and said, "Pastor Ruth, will you weave it into the Sunday school, into the children's service?" We had this online virtual service with contributions from the whole church. Different people give me different id
eas, they sent me pictures, that kind of thing. It was a really fun service, and even though it was primarily my voice that they heard, I was voicing what the children had sent and what the other adults in support of the kids had done. In this past week, one of my parishioners who has a child, came down. She just needed some prayer time in the church, and while she was doing that, her daughter and I did the children's message for the online worship service. It was great because we walked around
the campus properly masked, and there's places on the video where you can't hear her because she's a little farther off, and so I had to repeat what she said. But on our Zoom coffee hour afterwards, people said, "It was so nice to just hear this child and to be reminded that this is why we do what we do for these children." It was also interesting because it tags directly into the last question that we have, which is, do you have suggestions for helping children deal with the unknown and the anx
iety it produces? Just that little bit of time with her, one-on-one, properly socially distanced outside, we talked a little bit about how anxious she is to see her church friends, but also how much she knows that if she has to go back to school, she can't come back to church because she doesn't want to make her older friends sick, going right back to what you said, Ian. Having that background, her mom is a science geek, and so her mom's been talking about the science of all of this with her. It
's really lovely to see that. Karen, I know you've had some things and, Ian, you also don't lose some of this with anxiety. Zach shared a little bit already about his older son and his anxiety about bees. But in our last four, five minutes here, anybody want to have a go with us? Oh, let's see. >> Kimberly, when I saw your question pop up, I got excited, because I think it's such an important question, so thank you for asking it. Helping children deal with the unknown and anxiety produces this.
Clearly, I'm not an expert on it, but I have some experience with it. Partly, for me, it's more on the personal side, but I am open about the times the anxiety that I have. Especially as a male, I think it's going to give me my soapbox for a quick second, but I think one of the issues is that tragically, men, somehow we get this idea in our head based on societal influences that we're not supposed to share our feelings. My son is the one that tends to have a little bit more trouble with anxiety.
So I talk about anxiety that I had experienced through this process, and the things that I struggle with because of the fact that I don't know the answers. What I find very interesting though is that there are so many things in the world I don't know the answers to, but I'm okay. It's just this because of the fact that that totally out of my control. But I like to be honest with them about some of the struggles that I have. I really focus for both of us. We definitely do it for the children, bu
t especially for myself, of limit the amount of access I have to the news and sometimes social media, as a way to just help myself, as a way to make sure that I'm able to just keep my mental health bucket solid and then doing okay. I don't want to be where else, I just overflow with emotions out of nowhere, which does happen, and when it happens, I let it happen. I try to not necessarily let my children see all that, but I talk to them about it. This is the reason why I'm having a hard time with
this, because I want it to be an open conversation. Then also, too, I really go and I was pulling up some things from different websites about how we can help children through anxiety, especially because of what we're going through. But I really focus on trying to make sure that they know that I'm going to do everything in my power to keep them safe. That's the goal. My wife and I are in the same way. We tell them, "Your mom and dad are not going to put you in unsafe situations," and we make it
clear. If we felt, when schools are opening back up, that is unsafe for you, there's no way we'd let them go. So those are the types of things. So we're just honest about it. But that's just from my personal experiences. >> It's a great testimony, Ian. [LAUGHTER] I couldn't think of a better way to suggest to that. Parents offer their children that accompaniment and support through their anxiety. There are a lot of tools that we can use and a lot of spiritual practice that we can begin to engag
e very simply. We don't want to add to anyone's anxiety by adding something that feels uncomfortable or isn't natural to them, or their faith journey, or their comfort level of faith, nurture, and support, but there are some really simple things that we can do. There are a lot of great resources online. I'm finding, actually, through our local children's hospital, that a lot of practitioners are writing some really beautiful things and some really helpful things to parents and families about how
to help to manage anxiety and stress in the household during this time. I think that turning to your local resources, your services bureau, your local children's hospital, your local educators, folks like Ian, your local pastors, folks like Zach and Ruth, that's so powerful and so helpful. I think there are practices now, culturally, that mirror spiritual practices that faith communities have adapted and adopted over generations, things like mindfulness meditation. Again, just giving children a
place to express their joys and concerns, their wonderments. Creating those safe spaces, whether it's around a campfire in your backyard at the fire pit, and you're making s'mores and you're talking about the joys and the challenges of the day. When was I happiest today? When was I saddest? What was my high point or low point? What am I most grateful for? What am I least grateful for? That whole riff on the examine of Ignatius of Loyola, I think is a way, just a very simple spiritual practice f
or families to engage together that helps everyone to name those things in the context. We know that naming it takes away some of the power of it over us; being able to name what's really challenged me today, being able to say that, articulate that, in an age and developmentally-appropriate way, I think, is really beneficial to anyone. >> Can I add one? I know we're almost out of time. But Karen, I love the fact that you brought up mindfulness meditation. Zach is fully aware of this, that right
before the pandemic started, I finally started getting into a daily meditation routine. Being I am someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, it has done a world of difference in how I've handled this entire pandemic since the very beginning. If my wife were here, she'd probably be nodding in the background like, "Oh, thank God." I mean, it really has changed how I approach things. I still have my struggles, I'm human, everyone does, but I'm really embracing that. One of the things that I
learned recently I heard in a talk and I had to write it down right away, was this great quote that I can share with you, Ruth, to share with others. It's about this woman that I learned about from the Ten Percent Happier app, named Yael Shy. She's Jewish, and she said, "The interesting thing about fear is that it doesn't like the light. The more you bring a flashlight to your deepest fears, the more they won't be able to survive," which just I absolutely love. I think, Karen, you talked about n
aming it, and it's just something that I go through on a daily basis of learning how to approach my fears and learn to deal with my fears. So this is something I had to write down, and I'll definitely send to you. >> Great, thanks. >> Or as Saint Rogers once said, "Everything that we experience is human, and everything that is human can be mentioned, and anything that is mentionable can be made more manageable." Which, speaking of mentioning, I want to mention a huge thank you to both Ian and Ka
ren for spending an hour with us today. Your contributions have been invaluable to myself personally, and I'll speak on behalf of all the people who were here today and who will watch later, I can't thank you enough for that. Ruth, I don't have my things on me. Do we have next week? >> We actually don't know exactly what's happening next week because we're still looking for some experts. But I can tell you that we are still planning on our HVAC episode on the 10th of August, which is very exciti
ng. We've got some things coming up. We're looking to have an expert talk to us about singing and choral readings and that kind of thing. We're looking about risk assessment and contact tracing and epidemiology pieces. We're also talking with some folks to do some discussion about trauma, both the science behind trauma and how we can help our communities with the trauma. Then, we're also looking at testing and vaccines and that kind of thing. So we have several episodes that we'd like to do, and
we're just waiting to line those up. I put the link to the e-mail registration in the chat room, as well as the Facebook page, from which you can find the group to be admitted. I just want to echo my thanks to Karen and Ian. I learned a lot. We will get everything together and send that out in an e-mail along with the registration link for next week's episode when we have all of that put together hopefully by Thursday. >> Can I just clarify that the reason why we're not entirely sure about next
week is because some of these webinars, we are just handling as the Science and Technology Network. Some of them we want to bring in a specialist, so the specialists are the ones that are going to decide which Monday works best for them. We need to maybe have that one open for them, and if not, then we can slide in one of three or four that we're prepared to talk about. I will say that the HVAC episode, I wish we could bump that one up because my Facebook feed is all flooded with people now. Th
ere are some recommendations that COVID can spread through air conditioning and you should keep the temperature up and all of these things. We actually have lined-up one of the foremost experts on viral spread through air conditioning and heating systems. The head of the pandemic response team. >> American Society of Heating and Cooling Engineers? >> Yes. The acronym is like ASHERAH, which the Old Testament nerd in me is like, oh my goodness, we're bringing in [inaudible] , but it's not that. [L
AUGHTER] That's going to be a very informative episode. Next week, you get to find out if I have COVID antibodies or not, so you might as well tune in for that too. [LAUGHTER] >> Exactly. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for your questions. We will send all of this out. Thank you, Ian and Karen, and thank you, Zach. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> I enjoyed it. >> God bless you all. >> Bye, everybody. >> Bye. [NOISE]
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