But BibleQuest focuses on the long sweep of biblical narrative Abraham and Sarah, Jesus and the disciples to ignite the child s imagination. According to Olthuis, children learn better through story than any other way. That s spelled out in the Foundations Paper, another topic of discussion at Atlanta. It s an outline of the principles behind the curriculum, including the idea that people of all ages can encounter and interpret the story. There s no overriding moral at the end of each session, says Louise James, who co-ordinates the national United Church effort.
Children listen and participate and the learner interprets the story.
Olthuis says it s the first curriculum I know of that takes this approach. While other resources tell them what to believe, she says, with BibleQuest they are simply asked to respond to the story until it becomes part of their own lived story. All this talking and observing at the Atlanta event may give the Canadians a large enough taste of BibleQuest to see how United Church-friendly it is. Or even Canadian-friendly, in an enterprise in which the Canadian churches are outnumbered eight to two. According to James, many of the American denominations include a Canadian on their four-person writing teams.