How to Teach Children About God: God’s Clouds & Umbrellas

If you are a Christian parent, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing your child grow in faith. However, it can be challenging to teach children about ideas and concepts that extend past the physical realm, especially if they are young. Perhaps you’ve come across this post because you’re looking for ways on how to teach children about God.

This post is sponsored by Marjorie Gettys, the author of God’s Clouds & Umbrellas.

God’s Clouds and Umbrellas is a wonderful book that teaches children about God’s love and protection in an easy-to-understand way, by using physical symbols that represent His guidance in our lives. You can find the book on Amazon, and you can also reach out to her through her email for special discounts in bulk orders.

Other helpful links:

• God’s Clouds and Umbrellas Facebook Page: Community Literacy Project
• Marjorie Gettys Instagram Page
• Marjorie Gettys Twitter Page

How to teach your child about God: A parent’s aspiration

When I was still pregnant, I always had aspirations about how I would want my son to grow up in the love of Christ. I want him to have a faith deeply rooted, so much that even as an adult, he would still have that spiritual longing to seek and honor God.

Thus, I found ways to teach my child early on about the concept of God. It is never too early, nor is it too late to teach about God’s love. Here are some of the tips I want to share that has helped me as a parent.

How to teach children about God’s love: Effective tips

Using concrete ideas

When children are young, it is challenging to teach abstract concepts such as love, joy, guidance, or providence. Therefore, you want to access concepts that are familiar to them in day-to-day living. In the book, God’s Clouds & Umbrellas, the idea of God’s love is taught as it being an umbrella. An umbrella is used for protection against elements.

Using concrete ideas, such as the light that gives brightness in the dark, or water that helps plants grow, you can use daily objects as simple symbols to represent God’s love. These concrete ideas can help children create analogies about the idea of who Christ is to them.

Teaching early on

If you are a parent of a young child, don’t ever think that it is too early to teach him about God. Even if my child is too young to grasp or define love, I go through with him simple statements about how God made things, such as the trees, clouds, the sky and the animals.

I also teach him to pray–a spiritual discipline that you can teach as early as he can imitate you! My son enjoys praying before meals and saying “Amen”.

Another way to teach as early as you can is by reading books. Over here, I am using a highly-illustrated book, God’s Clouds & Umbrellas to imbibe ideas of God’s love. In the book, there are symbols such as a cross and a cloud. If you’re wondering how to teach a toddler about God, reading books is the way to go.

Teaching about how God loves others

When picking materials and even ideas about God’s love, it is important to teach that God doesn’t just love your child, but also all people.

The wonderful thing about God’s Clouds & Umbrellas is that children are taught that God loves everyone. There’s a phrase in the book that says “Yours, Mine, and Ours”. The word “ours” represents diversion and inclusivity in God’s love. He does not show favor anyone just because of their abilities or disabilities, their status in life, or even their cultural or racial heritage. He shows favor to those who are humble in their hearts and those who are obedient to Him.

God’s love should also be taught not just inwardly, but outwardly by providing lessons about loving and respecting others.

Set an example

Last, but definitely not the least, is teaching God’s love by example. You are your child’s first teacher. Aside from reading books or having discussions, it is important to set an example for your child.

As a parent and grandmother herself, Marjorie Gettys believes that being an example to your children is the foundation of their values later in life. She hopes to equip parents with the tools that they need to teach children about God’s love.

The verses found in Galatians represent how we should be to our children:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control.Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

As we display the fruits of the spirit, we set an example for them to walk on.

That’s it! I hope you found this post helpful. I encourage you to check out the book God’s Clouds & Umbrellas to help your child learn about God.

You can also read the following blog posts:

• Is Your Child Scared of Swimming? Help Them Overcome: Lottie Learns to Blow Bubbles
• How To Entertain Baby Without TV: Curious Baby Cards

How to teach children about God: Subscribe for more

Did this post on how to teach children about God become useful to you? If it did, we would like you to send you more posts on marriage, relationships, family, lifestyle, and spiritual insights! As a FREE GIFT, we would also be sending you our e-book called “Grow Your Love” to help you in your relationships. Just enter your name and email below.