Last fall the kids and I brought home two six-week old black lab puppies. Over the past months, they have grown into rather large puppies, and into our hearts. I have trouble remembering what it was like before they became entwined in our lives.

Not so my husband. Although he has a very tender heart towards animals, he has not bonded with these puppies. It’s too much of a risk for him. He has lost too many dogs and the emotional toll is not something he’s willing to subject himself to— yet. So he avoids building a relationship with the puppies.

This morning, he woke me at 5:15, just before he left for work. He’d let the puppies out on the porch. They had opened the gate. (Did I mention they’re very smart?) They were gone, and they wouldn’t come back when he called. Since he had to leave for work, he asked if I’d come down and find the puppies. I grabbed a couple of treats (which he’d also tried) and headed outside. I called "Velvet!" twice before I heard the telltale thundering of footfalls across the porch on the opposite side of the house. They were so glad to see me, each turned his body into one big tail that threatened to knock me, and each other, over. Ron said, disgustedly, "They are your dogs. They sure wouldn’t come for me." I looked at him and said, "You don’t have a relationship with them."

It’s all about relationship, isn’t it? Whether you’re talking about dogs, your spouse, your kids, your co-workers, or your friends. It all boils down to relationship. It’s that way with God too. You know prayer is important. It’s part of a real relationship with our God, the Great God of the Universe, who also happens to be our Father, if we’ve taken that step of repentance and are experiencing conversion. You know that your relationship with Him improves if you spend more time in prayer, Bible study, meditation, fasting, and fellowship with like believers. You experience more peace and contentment when you actively seek Him and willingly submit to what you see in His Word.

But sometimes we don’t connect all the dots. We miss seeing a big connection in helping our children to know God. Oh, we take them to church. We read the Bible with them. We make them memorize the Ten Commandments and memory verses every day. Still, we agonize over whether they will choose God when push comes to shove, when they are no longer in our home, when they are on the threshold of their adult life.

I think it’s still about relationship. First, you have to have a good relationship with your Heavenly Father. He has to be an integral part of your life—one that your children see. It has to be a relationship in which they see you making the hard choices to follow God when it would be so easy to do something else. They need to see you ready to go to God in prayer at any time during the day. They have to see you living in a way that glorifies God. Then your children know that God is important—important enough for you to submit to Him—and so wonderful that you couldn’t imagine it any other way.

Secondly, if you want your children to know God, you have to have a great relationship with them. What good does it do to have a great relationship with God if you ignore or neglect your children? And, really, if you’re doing that, maybe you should rethink how great your relationship with God truly is. Part of having a solid relationship with God is following His will. And if you have children, His will is that you would have a close relationship with them.

That leads directly to the third point about relationship. Tell your children that God wants a relationship with them, that they are princes and princesses of the King of the Universe, and that He cares for them. Model for them how to go to God with cares and concerns. Talk to them about God’s way when you lie down and when you rise up. Show them how to read the Bible and how to use a concordance. Explain Scriptures to them so they will understand.

Your goal is to have your children in God’s Kingdom with you. I know it is! But it’s a process of building relationship. Think about it. You want to have the kind of relationship where your children will come when you call. You want them to have the kind of relationship with God where your children will come when God calls.

Thanks to our dedicated, serving, teaching staff, CEM provides some of the best Feast classes found anywhere for our children. We hear time and again that families come to the CEM Feast site because of the YEA classes. They want their kids in YEA classes because you have helped create such a great reputation for the YEA Feast classes.

Classes are staffed with volunteers who are not always the same every year. Whether you’re new to the YEA teaching staff or have been with us for several years, you’re serving with admirable goals. You want to learn as much as you can. You want each lesson or seminar to reach the minds of every student and keep them coming back each day so you can bring them one step closer to being a part of God’s very family. This isn’t done by waving a magic wand. Doing the right things from day one is important. Then what are the right things to do?

• Have high expectations for every class and for every student. This means you need an optimistic belief that whoever you teach or whatever you do will result in success or achievement. By having high expectations, you will be alert and aware of opportunities to help you be successful. You should expect every child or teen in the age group you are working with to attend every class. You should expect to meet the objectives laid out in each lesson. You should expect every student to enthusiastically participate in class. You should expect them to learn the Bible. You should expect the students to love your YEA class or seminar. If you expect these things, then you should work toward them.
• Preparation is the key. Preparation begins when you receive your YEA Feast packet. Read your YEA books from cover to cover with a pen and paper beside you. Make lists of: 1) questions you may have; 2) supplies that need to be purchased; 3) things you need to pray about; 4) how much time you should allot to each section of the lesson; 5) how the classroom should be set up for each section of the lesson; and 5) if you have been selected to be the teacher, ask yourself who on your staff is best suited to administer the activity, recitation of the memory verse, attendance records, and review questions.
• Have a student-friendly classroom. CEM is limited in what we can ship to the Feast site and we encourage teachers to add any appropriate decorations to what we supply. Few Sabbath School or Sunday School classes are provided more supplies and decorations to make teaching easy, and to help with successful learning, than the YEA Feast classes. We provide these things to make your job easier. More than that, we realize students will be drawn to a classroom that has visuals, color, excitement, and a welcome feeling. Everything, from the door poster, to a backdrop or visual focal point, to music, to seating arrangement are important in creating an invitation to learn and an atmosphere of excitement.
• Never forget that teacher needs to connect with every student. To do this, he or she needs to see every face. Seating students in a semicircle is the best arrangement. It allows the teacher to stand or sit in that gap and make eye contact with every student. A circle of chairs puts the teacher’s back to some students, which is not good. Theater-style seating is probably the worst arrangement of all.
• You can’t do it alone. Pray for the effectiveness of each YEA Feast class. Pray that every student will love the YEA classes and return every day. Pray that every student will learn and remember the Bible lesson. Pray that every student will make a commitment to serve and please God.