Teaching Kids to Read Scripture with Wonder

There’s a reason our curriculum asks questions like:

I wonder how Jesus felt?
I wonder what it was like to sit in that crowd and eat the fish and loaves?
I wonder what the disciples were afraid of?
I wonder what surprised people most about Jesus?

Because theology is not just about memorizing information.

Researcher George Loewenstein describes curiosity as an "information gap." We become curious when we realize there's something we don't yet know. That gap between what we know and what we long to understand motivates us to keep exploring, asking questions, and learning.

That's why "I wonder..." is such a powerful phrase.

As Brené Brown writes, "Wonder fuels our passion for exploration and learning, for curiosity and adventure." Wonder slows us down. It keeps us open to learning something new and leaves room for God to surprise us.

Knowing how many disciples there were, how many fish and loaves were shared, or how many days Noah stayed on the ark might help on a Bible trivia card—but those facts alone rarely sustain us when life gets hard. They do not tell us what to do when we lose someone we love, when we are lonely, afraid, or trying to choose the next faithful step.

But wonder helps us enter the story.

Wonder invites children—and adults—to ask deeper questions:

What is God like?
How does God move in the world?
What does love look like?
What does mercy feel like?
Where is hope when things fall apart?

That's theology.

At its core, theology is the lifelong work of discovering who God is and how God relates to the world.

The mystics sometimes call this a "beginner's mind"—a posture still willing to be surprised and still awake to mystery. But the older we get, the more we crave certainty. Quick answers. Clear outcomes.

And yet Scripture keeps inviting us back to wonder.

The Psalms are filled with people asking:

Where are you, God?
How long?
What are human beings that you are mindful of them?

Children are often better theologians than adults because they have not yet lost the ability to ask honest questions.

A child staring at the stars asks:

Who made all this?
Does God see me too?

And maybe those questions matter more than getting every Bible answer exactly right.

That's why we ask wonder questions throughout our curriculum. We want children to enter Scripture deeply enough that the stories become alive inside them. Faith is not simply learning information about God. It is learning to notice God, to remain curious about God, and to discover, over a lifetime, the beauty of who God is.

Our hope is that children won't just know the stories of the Bible—they'll love reading them for the rest of their lives, always leaving room for God to teach them something new.

Maybe that begins the same way it always has:

with curiosity,

with imagination,

with open hearts,

and with the courage to whisper—

I wonder…

For children's ministers, wonder questions create space for conversation instead of performance. They remind children that faith is not a test to pass but a relationship to grow into. Wonder helps kids connect Scripture to their own lives, emotions, and experiences, teaching them that God is not afraid of curiosity—and that honest questions are often where the deepest faith begins.