How To Connect Your Intellectual Child With God With One Simple Question - Little Shoots, Deep Roots
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Of the 9 worship styles for kids, a child that leans toward the Intellectual style is one who probably loves to learn! But how can you help your keen learner connect with God through what they’re learning, even if it’s not a strictly spiritual topic?
My eldest son loves to learn about specific topics. He goes through phases of obsession. For a while it was sharks, then magic tricks. His current obsession is stop-motion animation.
While it’s easy to just let him direct his own learning obsessions, I can point out how his interests relate to eternal things and give him material that piques his curiosity.
But all truth is God’s truth, so I believe that if you take the time to find out what truly interests your child, you can help them find ways to tune into God through that interest.
One perfect question
One simple question you can use for any topic is study is this: “what can you learn about God from this?”
For example, if your child is interested in astronomy, you can ask, “what can you learn about God from this?” They might come back with something truly profound about God’s immense power but his love for his creation.
(Or they might just shrug and say “I don’t know!” But either way, you’ve got them thinking.)
How about dinosaurs? What can we learn about God from dinosaurs? Maybe we can learn that God has unending creativity!
We can learn about God from almost anything
History can show us things about God, graphic novels can teach us about God, as can math, airplanes, and trains.
Christ “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), and every good gift comes from God (James 1:17). Therefore God can be found and worshipped through study, if we keep our eyes open for him.
Resources For Your Intellectual Child
One of the best books I’ve found for a Intellectual child is The Radical Book For Kids by George Thornton. It’s really piqued my son’s interest and is teaching him all kinds of things I didn’t know until Bible college!
The Radical Book for Kids engages all kinds of topics related to faith in a child-friendly and very interesting way.
It talks about how to read different genres in the Bible, delves a bit into church history and the historicity of the Bible. It also teaches kids really fun things like how to make their own sling or sundial. My son consistently asks to read it together several nights per week. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of the Radical book for kids if you have a child that loves to learn!
You can ask your local Christian bookstore to bring in “The Radical Book for Kids” or nab it from Amazon.
Another couple of books I think are helpful for young intellectuals are An Extraordinary Teacher (a picture book about the Biblical teachers Priscilla and Aquilla) and The Ology, which is systematic theology for kids. (I find that last one a little dry, but lots of other people think it’s incredible.)
Check out The Ology on Amazon.
More on Sacred Pathways
This article was specifically about the Intellectual worship style and seeing God through nature, but did you know there are actually 9 worship styles for kids?
I have a downloadable quiz that you can take which will help you determine which of the 9 worship styles your child leans toward. Take the quiz here.
The concept of Sacred Pathways comes from Gary Thomas’ book by the same name. Check out Sacred Pathways on Amazon.
Other Sacred Pathways for Kids
An overview of the Sacred Pathways
- The Traditionalist Pathway
- A longer article: How to help your child grow spiritually
- A shorter article and video: One practical tip for teaching children about Jesus
- The Sensate Pathway
- A longer article: God gave us 5 senses: Here’s how our kids can use them to worship God
- A shorter article and video: Helping our kids engage God with all 5 senses
- The Naturalist Pathway
- A shorted article and video: Seeing God Through Nature
- The Intellectual Pathway
- This longer article on 5 ways to help an intellectual child grow in faith
- A shorter article and video: How to help your intellectual child with God through this one simple question
