Children’s Pastor Scott Wylie often gets to field the tough questions. In fact, last fall he invited them. He asked the kids of Colonial Corners, fourth and fifth graders, to write down on index cards any question they wanted to ask him. He then spent the next two weeks of class time responding to their questions. Here are a few, with Pastor Scott’s responses:

Question: Does God celebrate holidays? Answer: No, but He is glad that you do. The Bible tells us that God designated some holidays to help us remember Him; God doesn’t need any help remembering Himself!

Question: What does it mean that God has no beginning? He had to begin sometime! Answer: I don't know how He has always existed, but I know He has. He would not be God, if there was ever a time when He did not exist. “Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Psalm 90:2 

Question: If your friend thinks that being a Christian is going to church, what should you say? Answer: I would tell him that going to "Five Guys" makes him a hamburger! Just kidding, but the answer is: Going to church does not make a person a Christian; going to church is something that Christians do. Your own experience probably proves my point. If you are saved, think about how old you were when God saved you. Did you attend church before then? If so, you were an unsaved person attending church!

A few other thought-provoking questions: Did dinosaurs go on the ark?—Why is God waiting so long to destroy the world?—What is so bad about frogs in the plagues; why were there frogs?—Can we be angels?—And…Will my cat be in heaven? I really hope so!

Sunday evenings, AWANA has its own set of inquiring minds and sage life-observers. AWANA is separated by age; the youngest age group is Cubbies, which includes four- and five-year olds. One little guy didn’t want to join AWANA, because he didn’t want to leave his mom and dad. His older brother and sister, both AWANA Clubbers, kept coming home from club meetings and reporting how much fun they were having. That’s all it took to help him decide, “I want to go to AWANA. It is more fun than staying at home with you!” 

Another Cubbie thought, when he heard people saying “AWANA,” that they were saying “Iguana.” He’d go around happily proclaiming, “I love Iguanas!” Another came home singing what she called the “Santa Song”—“Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Santa!” Her concerned parents checked with the Cubbies Director and learned that their daughter had really learned to sing “Ho, Ho, Ho, Hosanna!”

Some Cubbies were a little confused when asked, “In what country do you live?” They had been learning about the children of the Thaw-Paw family, a family from Burma being supported by an AWANA service project. So, where do some of our Cubbies live? One said, “I’m not from the country; my family lives in the city.” Another, “My house is way out in the country.”  And one proud North State resident declared, “I live in the country of North Carolina.”

It’s not just the youngest kids who aren’t pulling any punches. Leaders of the AWANA T&T group, kids in third through fifth grade, often tackle questions about Pastor Davey’s morning sermons. One morning, Pastor Davey mentioned that Martin Luther had been very brave at the Diet of Worms. Later, at AWANA, a leader was asked: “Why did Martin Luther have to eat worms?”  In response to Pastor Davey mentioning that the children of Israel wandered in the desert forty years, one concerned T&T clubber wondered: “Where were the parents of Israel?”