Join the Parenting After Deconstruction Cohort!
Answering all your questions about what to expect and how to know if it is for you!
When we planted Cascade in 2015, I wasn’t sure what curriculum to use. It was personal: the kids I was teaching about God were my friends’ kids. I was in small groups with them, had held their babies in the hospital. And when I held those babies, I desperately wanted to reimagine how we talked to them about God. I didn’t want them walking away with “good” and “bad” language that would shape who they were as they grew into adults. I wanted to reimagine sin and remove heaven and hell from the theology we taught kids entirely.
I will never forget one of the first times I taught a lesson on Adam and Eve to preschool kids. I did it one Sunday because I thought I “had” to, even though I didn’t believe in the story as something that had literally happened. I was hot, sweaty and stressed about it. Later, my co-pastor made a comment about the activity his kid came home with, saying, “But do we need to teach that?” And he was absolutely right: we didn’t need to teach it the way we had that morning.
In seminary, I began to obsessively study, “At what age does a kid deconstruct the Bible?” My undergraduate degree was in elementary education and child development, but something I discovered during seminary was the lack of age-appropriate theory, education, and training there is regarding how we talk to kids about the Bible. My professors walked adults through the process of questioning and stripping down old beliefs but didn’t talk a lot about how to do this using age-appropriate methods with kids. It seemed like everyone in seminary assumed doing kids’ and student ministry was just a stepping stone to becoming a lead pastor.
But now, I believe that kids’ and student ministry is actually one of the most complex and pivotal roles in the church because we are talking about God at critical developmental moments in a kids’ life. Sitting in a room of adults with their brains fully formed is very different than working with kids whose brains are still developing—and perhaps much more influential.
While all of this was happening in seminary, I had a church full of adults who knew what they didn’t want to tell their kids about Jesus but weren’t sure what they did want to say. I was regularly asked, “What kids’ Bibles should I use?” Spoiler alert, at the time Book of Belonging and Peace Table didn’t exist—there were slim pickings! They asked, “What books should I read my kid?” or, “But what if I don’t believe any of it literally happened anyway?”
I kept having the same conversation with hurting parents who had been in evangelical systems, deconstructed their faith, and didn’t know what to do now that they had kids. These were systems that handed teenagers purity rings instead of encouraging sexual ethics and curiosity. Systems that said being Christian meant not having sex before they were married, being straight, buying into power dynamics (women submitting to men), and that the Bible was the literal authority of God. The people in my community felt like deconstruction was not pulling them further away from God (as is the popular conception) but that instead, they were being invited, nudged, and shoved toward a more loving and inclusive God—one that had maybe been there all along. So, how could they tell their kids about that God?
The Parenting After Deconstruction Cohort was born out of this conversation. It was a collision of watching the parents I loved not have a language for how to give age-appropriate theology to their kids. We ran the first cohort in 2020 in my own community and from there have I run it in many different cities, churches, and communities. We are beginning the Winter Cohort this January, and I would love to see you there!
What can you expect from a Parenting After Deconstruction Cohort?
Week 1 (January 13): Tell Your Story—We think a bit about your faith journey.
Week 2 (January 20): Naming What We’ve Let Go Of—We use Kathy Escobar’s book Faith Shift for shared language on this.
Week 3 (January 27): Talking with Kids about God—This is the research from seminary about age-appropriate theology.
Week 4 (February 3): Reimagining Rituals + Practices—What do you want to move forward with?
The Winter Cohort begins on Tuesday, January 13, from 7-8 PM via Zoom. I run the cohort as live sessions because I believe this is a beautiful conversation where we learn best from one another. That being said, I get it—you may not be on our timeline! There will be replays of all the sessions so you can watch them at your convenience.
Also, I want to be clear that the goal of this cohort is not that you be part of a church community or rejoin one by the end of the cohort. In full disclosure, I’m a pastor of a small progressive church in Portland Oregon. However, my goal is that you feel empowered to reimagine kids’ and students theology whether you are in a church or creating something at home or in community with the kids you love.
What are real people are saying about the cohort?
“I have three littles, and at one point when my oldest asked me what I was in a former life—my insides stalled. I sputtered something out that wasn’t an answer but more a question. My brain knew that was the right way to handle it... but my heart was racing."
“It was then I knew I needed to find a group that would help me calm my own anxieties about my kids questions. Parenting while deconstructing made me feel not so alone, it helped calm my heart and know it was okay to not know the answer. I finally felt understood as a parent. It was a place that I knew was safe to ask any question, and a place of growth.” -Ashley
“I loved this class as a space to connect with other parents who struggle to know how to talk about their faith with their kids. I don’t know much, but I do know I want my kids to grow up with an understanding that faith happens in community. It was so helpful to connect, ask questions, and learn from others who are hoping to create authentic connections with their kids around the topic of faith.” -Danielle
“The Parenting After Deconstruction class gave me so many tools for sharing my faith with my kid in healthy ways. It’s given me the confidence boost I needed to be able to lean into the hard questions with the same curiosity that my kid has, instead of just deflecting or avoiding them.” -Madison
Sign up here for the Winter Cohort! Questions? Email sarah@zippeekids.com
***If you are a Pastor who wants this specifically in your community, let’s find dates! There is a 90 minute version or we can run the 4-week cohort specifically in your community.
What’s new at Zippee?
Pre-K Christmas Podcasts- Want a model of how to talk to a Pre-K kiddos or something to listen to in the car with the kids you love? Here are the Christmas Stories!
Nativity Stickers! This is a LONG time dream and I’m so excited that Breena Bard (Author of Wildfire and Trespassers) created these! Purchase options for families or churches.
Hear the Angels Sing—New Zippee Kids song on all streaming platforms. Add it to your Christmas playlist!Meredith Miller and I co-wrote a Christmas Series (it also launched Zippee!) and you can get that here! We have Pre-K, Elem, and parent tool kits
Book of Belonging and Zippee did an exciting collaboration for a 4-week Christmas curriculum for Upper Elementary (3rd-5th) + MS/ HS. Get the bundle here! In order to use this, you will need to have Book of Belonging, which is a beautiful Bible storybook that I highly recommend
I’ve written a MS/HS devotional in case you are a parent who wants to hand something to your student to do together this Christmas. There’s also a MS+ HS Christmas curriculum in case you don’t have the Book of Belonging and can’t use that curriculum.
I recently preached a sermon at Vox Veniae “Reconstructing Sunday School: from literal fear to Imaginative Love”. It talks all about how and why we reimagine kid + student theology!
We are always running our Weekly Subscriptions! If you want to take the thought work out of your PreK, Elem or MS/HS lessons, I’d love to talk to you about subscription models that can fit your community.