Our 3-year-old granddaughter was wearing a chain necklace. Alarmed that she might hook the necklace on some play equipment, I said, “Aren’t you afraid that necklace could choke you?”
She looked at me and said, “Grandpa, I’m not going to eat it!”
—Wilbur Doeksen
Quite often when we are reading the Bible after supper, I stop and ask our 6-year-old daughter a question on what we just read. Last night I was reading from Ecclesiastes 1. The verse was, “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” Then I paused and asked, “Brooklyn, what does the teacher say?”
Immediately she responded, “Quit talking, sit down, and do your work.”
—Eric Haan
A little boy, raised in a Protestant church, attended a concert with his parents in a large Roman Catholic church. As he studied his surroundings, the boy noticed a large crucifix at the front of the church. Quite loudly, he asked his mother, “Who is that guy up there?” The embarrassed mother whispered that this was Jesus who was hung on a cross to die.
The little boy followed with, “What did he do?”
—Marion Van Soelen
While teaching my preschool Sunday school class, I thought I had done an exceptional job of telling the story of the man who had been blind from birth. I had blindfolded the children, had them feel objects and identify them, and had them walk around the room. I was pretty sure that when I removed their blindfolds and asked kids what they thought the man saw when he opened his eyes, they would immediately answer, “Jesus.”
Instead, without hesitation, one of my students said, “A coyote. Yup. I bet he saw a coyote.”
—Beth TenHaken
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed a little girl standing in the church foyer, staring up at an enormous plaque covered with the names of fallen soldiers.
When the pastor came to stand beside her, the little girl asked, “What is this?”
“It’s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service,” he said.
Soberly they stood together, looking at the plaque. Finally the little girl asked, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:00?”
—Alvin TeWinkel
We were driving down a busy road after leaving my parents’ house when my daughter, about 3 at the time, noticed many cars going the other way. She said, “Look at all the people going to Grandma’s house!”
—Robyn Lilek
A little church in the suburbs suddenly stopped buying from its regular office supply store. The dealer phoned to ask why.
“I’ll tell you why,” replied the deacon. “Our church ordered some pencils from you to be used in the pews for visitors to register.”
“Well,” interrupted the dealer, “didn’t you receive them yet?”
“Oh, we received them all right,” replied the deacon. “But each was stamped with the words ‘Play golf next Sunday.’”
—Jan Veltkamp
A worried man went to the vet with his goldfish.
“I think it has epilepsy,” he said.
The vet took a look and said, “It seems calm enough to me.”
The man replied, “Well, I haven’t taken it out of the bowl yet.”
—Richard Bylsma
