The Open Arms Curriculum: Goals & Methods

Our Goals

Our overall goal is the same as that of our Lord Jesus Christ. We take up the cause which He shared with His disciples shortly before He rose to return to His Father’s right hand in heaven. The Gospel writer Matthew records it this way:

Jesus… gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age. Matthew 28:18-20 The Message

These words make it clear that God’s goal for us is to enjoy and live out our life WITH HIM. This is why He created us and our world. It is why Jesus became one of us; He gave Himself to restore our opportunity to enjoy life with Himself, with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. It is why Jesus established His family of faith, the Christian Church, through the work of His disciples and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As followers of Jesus, therefore, we enjoy life with Him, and we also join in the goal of leading others to enjoy it with us. Here is how we work to accomplish this in a Christian early childhood ministry with the Open Arms Curriculum.

  1. We help a child learn to know Jesus and His love for him.
  2. We help a child to learn to know themselves and God's design and plan for them.
  3. We help a child to learn to know the gifts they have been given, and how to develop and use them to respond to God’s love and God’s plan.
  4. We help a child to learn to live in God’s love, and to wrap others in it also by their words and actions.
  5. We help a child to learn to know the world around them, to discover how it works, and to care for it and use it to care for themselves and for others.
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Our Methods

As we live out OUR OWN life with God, the children we care for will learn to live out their lives with Him also. We need to take them along on our walk with Him. We need to show them and tell them how we talk with Him, listen to Him, thank Him, and praise Him. They need to see and hear us deal with life according to God’s will and purpose. They need to feel His love through us, as we appreciate and share the love we feel from Him.

We need to enjoy hearing the messages from God’s Word first for ourselves, so the children can see and sense our wonder about His works and His ways. They need to hear us admit our failures to Him, so they can learn to recognize God’s will, and to admit their own failures, and to take those failures also to their heavenly Father for His forgiveness and new life.

When God was giving His commandments to His people Israel as they were settling into the land He had given them, He told them how important it was to share His words with their children.

Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so that you'll live a long time, and your children with you, on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors for as long as there is a sky over the Earth. Deuteronomy 11:18-21 The Message

A child development ministry is such a wonderful opportunity, therefore, to help children learn to know and enjoy life with God because it has us living with children much of the day, in most cases. This provides the best opportunity for them to observe and to begin to practice this lifestyle.

For the teacher, this means that as she plans the themes, the lessons, the Bible stories, and the learning activities, she is planning them first for herself and for what she can learn and gain from them. Then also, of course, she plans with an eye for sharing the riches of her own life with God with her children, sharing her wisdom and knowledge, her sense of role and purpose, her skills and experience, and her love for God and for them.

Then will come some of the wondrous reward from her work. Her children, even the little ones, will grow in the grace of God. They will respond to His love in their words and actions, by the power of God’s Spirit. They will lift their little voices in praise to Him. And they will share His love with each other.