The Bible in Fifty Words

I have been meeting every month with another children’s ministry director and we have been reading and discussing the book Making a Home for Faith by Elizabeth F. Caldwell. This has been a great book for us to read and talk about. Last week we discussed chapters 3 and 4. There were several useful ideas in just those two chapters. One idea that I liked from chapter 3 is one that Caldwell got from something that had been passed around on the Internet for a while: The Bible in Fifty Words. (The original source of the list is anonymous.) Here is the list:

The Bible in 50 Words (read down)

God made,                people walked,              love talked
Adam bit,                  sea divided,                  anger crucified,
Noah arked,              tablets guided,              hope died,
Abraham split            Promise landed,            Love rose,
Joseph ruled,            Saul freaked,                Spirit flamed,
Jacob fooled,            David peeked,              Word spread,
Bush talked,              prophets warned,         God remained.
Moses balked,           Jesus born,
Pharaoh plagued,      God walked,

I thought this was a fun activity, to try to summarize the Bible in just a few words with a specific pattern like this.  Caldwell suggests that you could start with this list and then discuss the biblical texts that are implicit in this list.  It could be an interesting activity to use in Sunday school with adults or teens.  For example, older children and teens could rewrite the Bible story they studied that day in a similar format. Could a story be summarized in ten words. Maybe it would only take six. How many words do you need to summarize the story? This could also be an interesting way to review a lesson and to share it with the congregation. Put the class's lists in your churches newsletter or display them on a bulletin board for members of your congregation to read and respond.

Do you have other ideas about what you could do with a list like this?

Making a Home for Faith has lots of good ideas and I have found it a helpful book, especially when I get to discuss it and brainstorm ideas with other children’s ministry directors.