Telling a God-Story, Warts and All

 Kentucky's Christian history is neither a Black story nor a White story. It is not an Asian nor a Hispanic story. It is a God story filled with surprises and awkward mishaps perpetrated by people who default to sin. When we make Christians into people who can do no wrong we are as guilty of obstructing the way to faith for someone who has yet to encounter God as if we put stumbling blocks in front of a blind person. If we as ministers of Jesus Christ who are responsible for introducing kids and youth to the Christian message do not remain humble and mindful of our own inconsistencies and failures, we misrepresent the church and make it less likely for people to search and perhaps find faith for themselves. 

At the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project we tell a complicated story. God is well able to defend His own reputation. We have chosen to be as realistic and honest about what has happened in and through Christians in Kentucky as the Bible is about the moral failures of such people as King David... a murderer, adulterer, father of an abuser but whom God declared was a man after His own heart. 

Failure is not our portion but when it happens it needs to be identified, repudiated, and reconciled with truth and justice. So, when you bring your kids and youth groups to visit the Walking Trail & Arboretum in Paris, understand that they will be introduced to many different famous Kentuckians who gave public credit for their achievements to their Christian faith. These men and women come from all walks of life, from all ethnicities and from all points in Kentucky's history since the 1780's. Your group will also be introduced to people who took advantage of Christians and their beliefs to perpetrate abuses such as Hernando DeSoto, perhaps the earliest representative of the Christian faith to reach the indigenous peoples in Kentucky but who pillaged, raped and kidnapped them for his own benefit.

Of course, when you schedule your group's field trip to the Walking Trail in advance, we customize the activities you will experience so that they are memorable and fully appropriate to the age-group you represent. Call 859-987-5407 to schedule your visit. We are always open and always free during daylight hours. Ocassionally, when we need to purchase supplies for a particular program we charge a nominal fee for participating. For example, the Arbor Poetree Day program for first, second and third graders will cost $2/person but each child will receive a worksheet, supplies to make a bark rubbing, materials to make a necklace out of a piece of wood from a tree, and a cookie. If you are interested in that program, make a reservation to come between 10AM and 2PM on Friday, April 28, 2023.

Summer Fun for Church Groups - Kids, Youth Groups and Families- in Paris, Kentucky

Are you planning this summer's activities for your church's children, youth, and families? We are open and ready to serve you. You have several options. 

Self-guided tours of the Kentucky Faith & Public History Walking Trail in the lovely arboretum with an eye-spy game to find out about famous Kentucky Christians is always free and open during daylight options. Plan to eat in the picnic area that seats 80. 

2-hour customized field trips include a menu of history-themed games. Schedule this in advance by calling 859-987-5407. There is no charge for this. However, donations in support of the project are greatly appreciated.

FAME for a Day - a full day (six hours) of fun. Learn about five FAMOUS Kentucky Christians who each had very challenging childhoods that they overcame as they pressed into their Christian faith. Play games inspired by their lives. Make and take home crafts. See puppet shows. Enjoy the walking trail in the arboretum and picnic among the trees. This adventure is good if you have a minimum of 20 participants and costs $10/person. Call 859-987-5407 to schedule when your group can come.

Each option introduces you to the stories of famous Kentuckians from the past who gave public credit to their Christian faith for their successes. Their lives are powerful to envision today's children to do great things for God's glory. These are people like Harland Sanders, Elisha Green, Mary Britton and Lottie Moon. They are athletes, poets, presidents, journalists, pilots, divers, homemakers, entrepreneurs, suffragettes, teachers and missionaries. Stories of thirty of these famous Kentuckians are told in the eye-spy game that is spread around the half-mile walking trail at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project. They are also found in the Famous Kentucky Christians Club series of easy-reader chapter books. Our website has links that can take you to more information about many of these famous people here. 

A Form for Youth & Children's Pastors to Use with Students

Have you ever provided an objective check list for your students to use to see whether they are Christians? We just created a form that students can use to find out. It is accessed on our Walking Trail by a sign with a QR. We are adding a set of interactive QR codes over the next several weeks that will enhance what the main signs explain about the Christian religion and its history especially in Kentucky. Every sign is written in objective, secular and non-devotional language. This form is like that. It is respectful and clear. It helps students evaluate whether what they believe agrees with Christianity's core tenets. They can arrive at one of three conclusions: they are clearly identifiable as Christians; they understand that they are not Christians but they intend to continue to think about the claims of Christianity; or they understand more about Christianity but they do not agree with its claims so they know that they are not Christians. Try it out and leave a comment about whether you think it is effective.

Youth Groups Should Consider the Impact of Christianity on Communities and Cultures

 The Christian message started to be proclaimed in Jerusalem on the morning of the Jewish Feast of Shavuot in the year 33AD. Within fifty years, adherents to the message could be found in Asia, Europe and Africa. Whole communities embraced Christianity. Then they destroyed the artifacts of their pagan religions. These stories can be read in the New Testament. They are also documented by contemporary writers and historians. 

The message has continued to upend lives and cultures in the two thousand years since. One example of a culture challenged and changed is the Auca Indian Tribe of Ecuador whose members massacred a team of missionaries in 1956 only to be converted by their widows in the 1960s. The story is told here. Other modern examples of the impact of what happens when people make the Christian message their personal mission and the template for their lives are documented by the Sentinel Group through carefully researched, powerful documentary videos. Two of them are about Kentucky Communities. "It's Only Cookie Dough" is about Lynch, Kentucky. "An Appalachian Dawn" is about Manchester, Kentucky. Both of these videos are appropriate for high school youth groups and could be the catalysts for conversations about what might happen if they acted on the claims of the Christian message to bring redemption and restoration to both individuals and communities. 

The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is committed to creating and disseminating resources about Christianity and about the Christian history of Kentucky in particular. Our books, our walking trail and the immersive hands-on field trip opportunities (field trips will begin later this year) are all carefully aligned with the Kentucky State Curriculum Standards for Social Studies. Unlike other textbooks about the Bible used in public schools, our resources are designed to show the impact of the Christian message on famous individuals who attributed their faith to their undeniably successful achievements. We agree that all students need to be familiar with the Bible as literature. It informs many of the metaphors in the canons of British and American literature. It allows the subjects of many Western artistic masterpieces and many important pieces of music to be understood. The Bible also has provenance as an historic text and can be used in conjunction with documents and artifacts from the ancient world to augment, query and confirm what we know about it. The Bible also claims to be a living revelation of the living God, its words living and active, penetrating as the sharpest of swords. It is the impact made on Kentucky by people whose lives were upended and transformed by this mystical message that our project tracks and traces. 

You can explore the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project on our website. You can keep abreast of what we are doing on Facebook, and you can follow our mischievous mascot, Scamp the Squirrel, on Twitter.

No Christmas Anywhere Without the Christian Message

December is the month churches decorate their sanctuaries and classrooms to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It's the season for singing carols and putting on nativity plays. More people than usual typically attend church on Christmas Eve. Youth and children's leaders remind their charges that the message of Christmas is that God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son and that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. That is the Christian gospel in a nutshell, recorded in the Bible in John 3:16. Most children who grow up attending a church have that verse memorized.  Perhaps a good thing to talk about with the people in your church or youth group is what it would be like if Jesus had not been born. Questions like the following may be helpful.

What if there had been no baby in the manger some 2021 years ago? 

Would we have a vision for peace on earth and good will to men if the angel had not proclaimed it to the shepherds? 

Would the descendants of ancient Israel still be awaiting the coming of the Messiah today if Herod had not interrogated the magi when they arrived at his palace after having followed the star to ask where the prophetic scriptures predicted they would be able to find the newborn King of the Jews?

We would not be scurrying around spending money to buy gifts for people. We would not be decorating our houses with lights and garlands. We would not be making cookies, stuffing turkeys, and baking pies. There would be no Notre Dame to restore in Paris, no Westminster Abbey in London, and no Crystal Cathedral in California. No pope, no prayer mountain in South Korea, and no Salvation Army. No Santa Claus, Charlie Brown's Christmas, or Grinch. 

In actual fact, there would be no Christmas anywhere without the Christian message. But since there was a baby born in Bethlehem (it is a historical fact, documented in ancient Roman and Jewish records), and since that child grew up fulfilling the Jewish prophecies about the Messiah, and since the Christian message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has been turning the world (and individual's lives) upside down for two millennia, perhaps there are other claims and prophecies left for wise men to contemplate today.

Books every youth and children's ministry leader should have

 Does your church have a library? Does it contain books about famous Christians written in language that is accessible to your students? The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project series of books about famous Kentucky Christians is written at the 2nd to 4th grade reading level. They are high-interest easy-to-read chapter books. Each is just 32 pages long. Each follows the same pattern. Four fourth graders are charged with preparing a display for a state-wide contest about an individual they know nothing about. The books chart their progress using the four-part inquiry process at the core of the Kentucky State Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: ask important questions, hunt for facts, show proof and tell what you've learned. Each book connects the life of a famous Kentuckian to a typical classroom scenario. Each book communicates the Christian message in objective, non-devotional language appropriate to a public school classroom. Priced at just $6/book, they are affordable for everyone. Eight books have been published in the series. Four are about women, four are about men. Four are about African Americans, four are about white Americans. You can find out more at our website here or go directly to Amazon.com. We are adding four books per year to the series so collect them all.

Many famous Kentucky Christians experienced very difficult childhoods

How many of your students would you say are experiencing difficult childhoods? People like Harlan Sanders shared that experience. His father died when he was very young. He had to help his mother care for his younger siblings which caused him to start working when he was ten. He did not attend high school. Yet, he went on to found Kentucky Fried Chicken and he ended up a millionaire. He is just one example of many individuals who overcame obstacles that we at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project talk about. Many of the famous Kentucky Christians we profile on our website and in the FKCC series of easy-reader, high interest chapter books also had difficult childhoods but they went on to become successful, contributing individuals. Consider the following:

Simon Kenton ran away from home after thinking he murdered his brother-in-law. It took decades for him to discover that no one had died. Meanwhile, he became a significant early Kentucky pioneer. The FKCC Book 1, Big Bully, portrays his life.

Elisha Green was enslaved from birth until he purchased his own freedom as an adult. His enslaved wife and children were sold away from him several times. The FKCC Book 2, New Boots, is his story.

Dottie Rambo's father kicked her out of the house when she was 12 for refusing to sing secular songs after she became a born-again Christian. The FKCC Book 3, Hurt Feelings, is her story.

Effie Waller Smith grew up in a happy family but her husband was murdered, their baby died and she had to navigate the challenges of being an African American in segregated Kentucky. Her story is told in the FKCC Book 4, Picked Last.

The first four books are available here now. Four more books will be available in time for Christmas.

Blind Spots or What do youth group members think about people who claim to be Christians but hold opposing viewpoints on core values, norms, and behaviors?

How do you handle questions from your youth group members about when people who each claim to be Christians have serious differences of opinion about what God expects and requires? This question is at the root of our work at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project because we follow a specific set of criteria for selecting whom to present as famous Kentucky Christians from the past. Because we focus on past Christians, we also have to navigate changing norms and beliefs. What is unacceptable today (slavery, for example) was an issue about which Christians disagreed in the past. What is acceptable today (how we dress, for example) is an issue about which Christians used to be more divided. Our criteria for who is selected as a famous Kentucky Christian for our project are as follows:

• The individual must have lived, worked or been born in Kentucky. 
• Their Christian faith must be documented. We search for their own words to explain how they first came to faith and then what changed about their lives because of their faith. If we cannot find quotations or written texts by the individual, we look for statements from people who knew them personally. 
• They must have contributed to the community in some way that makes their reputation famous.
• Finally, their legacy should also connect, in some way to their faith.
•  In addition to these non-negotiables, we are committed to include men and women, African Americans, white Americans, American Indians and new Americans. 

It is impossible to tell a story about human beings without bumping up against behaviors and beliefs that dismay us today. Slavery, Jim Crow, the denial of basic rights to women, and the way the United States dominated and abused the American Indians are just four examples of issues that we call shameful today but that divided people, including Christians, in the past. 

For example, Zachary Taylor's First Lady, Peggy Taylor, was a woman of prayer. She influenced the founding of the first Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She may have been instrumental in the president's proclamation calling for a national day of prayer and fasting to address the cholera pandemic in 1849. But Peggy Taylor owned slaves, inherited slaves, and was not known to have emancipated slaves. Does this moral failing (that had plenty of adherents among Christian people and denominations prior to the Civil War) discredit Peggy Taylor's faith? Or does it demonstrate a blind spot that was strengthened by the culture she lived in? 

Kentucky's Christian history is not a Black or a White story. It is not a male or a female story. It is not a Protestant or a Catholic story. Christians might say that Kentucky's Christian history is a God story. It is a story that must navigate all the failures and frailties of the human condition. This is difficult to process, especially for teenagers, but necessary to understand. As Jesus is recorded as having said, "No one is good but God alone", so we must each come to realize that the Christian message does not attempt to portray its adherents as perfect and faithful representations of the God of the Bible. The Christian message is clear that no Christian can represent God accurately or perfectly all the time and that every Christian has moments when they are, in fact, abysmal reflections of their God. 

Today we reject the notion that enslaving others is compatible with the Christian message. This makes us harsh judges of people like Peggy Taylor but does it disqualify her as a Christian? 

Clark Karsner - Combining a Passion for Aviation with a Passion for God

 

Perhaps your students think that only pastors, Sunday School teachers, and missionaries are responsible to tell people about God, but this is not a biblical opinion. According to the New Testament, the Christian message can be shared by anyone. It does not take a pastor, a nun, or a member of the clergy. The Christian message does not need to be shared using a pulpit, a sermon or an evangelistic campaign or television broadcast.

Harry Clark Karsner’s life is an example of a person who combined his passion for aviation with his passion for God. He learned to fly a little Piper Cub single-engine plane in 1934, the year after he graduated from Monterrey High School in Owen County, Kentucky. A year later he earned his commercial pilot’s license. Within less than five years, he was teaching aviation. He taught in President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Pilot Training Program and, during World War Two, he was an Army Air Corps flight instructor. After the war, he built an airstrip and a hangar on his farm in Owen County. He erected a large sign on the side of the hangar that was visible from Highway 27. It said: “Christ is the answer”. After meeting evangelist Louis Arnold, Karsner collaborated with him to broadcast the Christian message from the skies over northern Kentucky, southern Indiana, and southern Ohio starting in 1948. This required figuring out how to mount large amplifiers from an Aeronica Champion plane, recording five-minute sermons preached by Pastor Arnold and hymns sung by Mrs. Karsner, and putting aside the time to fly in what everyone called the Gospel Plane. In 1959, Karsner was named the Kentucky State Aeronautics Commissioner. At the May 26, 2012 ceremony when a highway marker about the Karsner Air Field was installed on Highway 27, Bonnie Riddle said that Karsner “brought aviation to Owen County and the Gospel message to mankind.”

Can your students think of other lay people who combine a passion for God with another skill or career path? Do they find Karsner’s life inspiring? How?

The fifth book in the FKCC Book Club series of easy-reader chapter books about famous Kentucky Christians, Great Idea – the Story of H. Clark Karsner, by Lesley Barker PhD., will be available soon on Amazon along with the other books in the series. These books are great additions to any church or classroom library.

The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project Walking Trail and Eye Spy Game will be free and open to the public at 616 Clintonville Road, Paris KY 40361. The Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony will take place on Sunday, July 25, 2021 at six o’clock in the evening. We invite you to come and to plan to return often with your students.

 

Combining Determination with Discipline to Fulfill a Vocation: James Bartlett Johnson's Story

 

This week’s blog introduces your students to James Bartlett Johnson, a Kentucky Christian whose life exhibited both determination and discipline. Determination is a virtue that, when added to discipline, opens the potential for people to fulfill their God-given destinies. Ask your students what they think about determination. Ask them to share instances when someone they know showed determination. Discuss if they think a person’s determination will make them succeed without being combined with discipline.

Then share about James Bartlett Johnson, an African American man whose determination allowed him to fulfill his vocation because he prepared with diligent discipline over a period of eight years. James Johnson was born in around 1830 in Taylor County, Kentucky. He was converted to the Lord Jesus Christ when he was an enslaved eighteen-year-old thanks to his mother’s teachings and prayers. From that time, he knew that God had called him to preach. He also knew that, until he was able to read the Bible, his preaching potential would be extremely limited.

Being determined to follow God’s call for his life, Johnson bought a spelling book. He taught himself how to spell and read using this simple text book. He started studying the Bible. He studied for eight years before he preached his first sermon. Meanwhile, he married Mary Buchanan who was a freed slave. The couple had a child. Then his master sold him, away from his family, down the river to Louisiana. There, he preached the Christian message for the first time. It was an effective sermon to which many people responded by coming to faith in Jesus Christ. This made the new master angry. He beat Johnson and forbade him to preach another sermon, but it did not stop him from preaching.

During the Civil War, Johnson served as a soldier in the Union Army. He started churches for the troops. At the end of the war, now emancipated, Johnson returned to Louisville to his wife and child. He became the pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Springfield, Kentucky. So many people received the Lord through his ministry that a revival broke out. It also ignited so much prejudice and hatred that arsonists burned down the church. It did not stop Johnson’s determination to be faithful to his calling to share the Christian message. Over the course of his career, he pastored and preached in many locations.

Determination kept Johnson faithful to his calling in the face of much adversity. Discipline started him on the path. What aspects of Johnson’s story interest your students? Is his life an inspiration for them? Are any of them willing to share how his life impacts and inspires them?

c. 2021 by Lesley Barker

 

A Conversation about Discouragement & Destiny for Youth and Children's Church Groups

 

About once every three weeks, this blog connects important discussion topics for church youth and children’s groups to the story of a famous Kentucky Christian from the past. This post considers Lottie Moon’s life. Although she was raised in Virginia and spent much of her adult life in Asia, Lottie Moon lived and taught school in Danville, Kentucky, where there is an historical marker telling about her life.

Perhaps some of your students have been discouraged from moving towards what they really want to do, what they may even feel called to do. Perhaps they do not feel that there is an opportunity or an invitation for them because of where they live, how much money they have, what their parents want them to do, or because they struggle with learning a certain subject. Lottie Moon’s story may be a way to start a conversation with your students about these challenges. Perhaps what has been a discouragement can be leveraged to shift your students to a tenacity and courage that will help them to push through what has been set against their dreams.

Lottie Moon was boon in 1840 on a plantation in Virginia. Her parents were wealthy slave owners. They were also Christians. Her cousin, who lived nearby, told Lottie that she could never become a missionary because she was a girl, and girls could not be missionaries. Lottie didn’t want to be a missionary, anyway. She was discouraged from believing the Christian message because she had seen and heard so many Christians arguing. She decided that the Bible must be nothing more than an old book of fairy tales. When she was in college, however, she revisited her decision not to believe in Jesus Christ. She wrestled using prayer and fasting to try to find what to believe. Finally, she had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This convinced her to believe in Him. It also shifted her career goals. She became a teacher which is how she came to live in Danville, Kentucky. But teaching American children did not fulfil her. She wanted to be a missionary to China where very few people had ever heard the Christian message. This was difficult because most missions-sending organizations agreed with her cousin that single women should not be sent out as missionaries. Lottie Moon disagreed. She was passionate about reaching Chinese women and girls. She persevered and was allowed to sail to China. There she started schools for women and girls. She worked to change the Chinese tradition of binding women’s feet so they could not walk fast or easily. She realized that missionary work could not succeed without the participation of people who would fund the costs of sending the missionaries and financing the things they needed to do their work. So, Lottie Moon wrote to Baptist churches throughout the United States to encourage women’s groups and Sunday School classes to send money for missionaries.

Ask your students to imagine what might not have happened if Lottie Moon had never re-evaluated her early conclusion that Christianity is like a fairy tale or if she never challenged her cousin’s insistence that girls can’t be missionaries.  See what obstacles your students have encountered that keep them discouraged from making their dreams come true. Discuss whether Lottie Moon’s example is helpful to inspire them to continue to move towards what they feel called to do with their lives. Remembering Lottie Moon’s work to stop the Chinese tradition of foot binding, brainstorm with your students some things they would like to see changed about the world. Do any of these things have the potential not to be addressed if one of your students remains too discouraged to pursue the passion that has been placed in their heart?

Save a spot on your calendar to bring your students to Paris, Kentucky, where they will experience the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project’s walking trail and re-imagined early nineteenth-century camp meeting. This hands-on, outdoor experience will be opening to the public in late summer 2021. Watch our Facebook Page and website for information.

©2021 by Lesley Barker

Discussing Purpose or Vocation with Students - Sandy Tucker's Story

 

Some kids know what they want to be when the grow up from a very young age. Others struggle to identify their interests and passions. Still others seem to flit from one eclectic idea to another, as if they were butterflies tasting one flower after another but not quite landing on any. Sandy Tucker’s story may be a way for you to start a conversation about purpose and vocation with your students.

Sandy Tucker lived near Liberty, Kentucky, where she and her husband founded the Galilean Children’s Home[1]. After the couple got married, they wanted to have a baby but it did not happen for a very long time – seven years. Sandy loved children so she was disappointed not to be able to get pregnant. Because she was a Christian, Sandy prayed about her problem. Because she was a Christian, she read the Bible every day. She believed that God talks to people through the Bible. One day she found a verse that seemed to be God telling her what He wanted her to do with her life. It says: “Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy” (Psalm 82:3). Because of this verse, the Tuckers started taking care of children whom nobody else wanted because they had disabilities or serious diseases or because their mothers had given birth to them in prison. They adopted their first sick baby in 1969. Since then the Galilean Children’s Home has taken care of more than 1,000 other children. The ministry even received the 1992 President’s Annual Points of Light Award from President Bush. Even after Sandy Tucker died in 2007, the Galilean Children’s Home continues to do its important work. So, you could say that Sandy Tucker found her purpose because she prayed about her disappointment and searched the Bible to find what she understood as God’s calling or vocation for her life. Then she acted on what she believed God wanted her to do.

After you tell your students about Sandy Tucker’s life and work, ask them what they think they will do when they grow up and why. Ask them how they are or will know that they have chosen a good direction for their lives. Discuss how Sandy Tucker’s Christian faith influenced her life’s work. Then ask them to think about whether and how their faith plays any role in what they plan to do with their lives.

 

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[1] https://galileanhome.org/

 

Exploring the issue of freedom with youth and children

 

Have you ever explored the issue of freedom with your church’s youth and children? This week’s famous Kentucky Christian may be a way for you to open the conversation.

Peter Durrett was an enslaved, biracial man, whose father was his first owner. He believed the Christian message and received it into his heart during the First Great Awakening in Virginia. He became a Baptist exhorter when he was twenty-five. He never was ordained because the white church officials prevented it. But his enslaved condition did not stop him from following his calling as a pastor.

Peter Durrett and his wife, Dinah Durrett, came to Kentucky in 1781 with the Traveling Church. Peter and Captain William Ellis were the guides for this group of some 500 Baptists who emigrated from Virginia. Peter and Ellis had been to Kentucky before. They knew the way through the mountains, and they had planted crops in Kentucky. They also helped build Grant’s Station. Both Durretts were enslaved to Pastor Joseph Craig, one of the leaders of the Traveling Church. They were never emancipated but they were able to hire themselves out to prominent people. Peter was the first African American to preach a sermon in Kentucky. He and his wife started the first African American church in Kentucky, the third in the nation.

Do your students think that they would be willing to do what Peter Durrett did especially if they knew they would always have to be a slave? What do your students think they would do if their freedom was taken away? Why? Would their faith be something they would be willing to share if they understood that they would be imprisoned for talking about?

 

 

 

A Youth Group Discussion on Perseverance based on Martha Cross' Life in Liberia

 

This week’s famous Kentucky Christian is Martha Cross. Her story may trigger conversations in your youth groups and children’s church about perseverance.

Martha Cross emigrated to Liberia with her husband, Alexander, and their seven-year-old son, James, in 1853. They were the first missionaries to Africa sent from Kentucky by the Disciples of Christ. Theirs was an interesting story. Alexander was an enslaved barber. Both Martha and James were free people of color. They attended the Ninth Street Christian Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The church decided to purchase Alexander and to fund the family’s expenses to join the Kentucky Colonialization Society. This obliged them to leave the United States. The church paid for their passage on the ship, Banshee, as well as for the cost of a piece of land and their expenses for the first year. Unfortunately, both Alexander and James died soon after arriving in Africa due to a tropical disease. Martha stayed. Eventually she married another missionary.

Ask your students how they think Martha Cross must have felt after sailing across the ocean to a land she did not know to start a new life for herself and her family. Then ask how they think she may have felt after both her husband and her son died. She knew some people who had been passengers with her on the Banshee but she was left grieving and alone. What would your students have chosen to do? Would they have stayed in Liberia or would they have tried to return to Kentucky? Why? If they had been listening to her praying, what do they think she would be telling God? How do people keep going when it seems like life is against them to steal their future, hope and destiny?

By Lesley Barker ©2021

Women of God (from Kentucky) on the American Frontier

 

This week’s featured famous Kentucky Christian introduces the ideas of commitment, achievement and recognition. When your youth group or children’s church learns about Sister Mary Rhodes perhaps they can be led to think about what people whose lives were set apart for Christian service have achieved even when their circumstances appear to have been hard. Perhaps the students can be helped to understand that recognition and rewards for what they do may not come in their lifetime but that that prospect does not, for a Christian who believes in eternal life, diminish either the value of their work or the size of their reward.

Sister Mary Rhodes was a famous Kentucky Christian. She came to Kentucky in 1811 where she started teaching children who had no other access to a school. Soon she was joined by two other women and the school grew into a boarding school. The women and the school were Roman Catholic. The women decided to devote themselves to teaching and to God. They became the first American order of Catholic nuns. Mary Rhodes was the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Loretto for ten years. She must have been a skillful leader because by 1822, the order had grown from three to 160 nuns. By then, the order had spread to nine different locations where nuns from Kentucky were educating children. By the middle of the twentieth century there were 70 communities of Loretto nuns in the United States[1].

These nuns as well as women from other Catholic sisterhoods were vital to the spread of education and to the introduction of Christianity among the Native American tribes in the nineteenth century American west[2]. They were undaunted by the challenges they had to face perhaps because they were confident that they had fully given their lives in the service of Jesus Christ. Some historians think that the nuns who lived and worked on the American frontier are great examples of how women can challenge gender norms with a creativity and finesse that gets big things done[3]. Perhaps a lot of people did not know about their work during their life-times but the impact of what they were able to achieve is still producing results two hundred years later.

By Lesley Barker©2021

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.lorettocommunity.org/about/history/

 

[2] Ann M. Butler, “Nuns on the Frontier”. New York Times. 2012. ONLINE at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/opinion/nuns-on-the-frontier.html. ACCESSED 1/14/2021

 

[3] Erin Blakemore. “How Frontier Nuns Challenged Gender Norms” in JStor Daily. 2018. ONLINE at https://daily.jstor.org/how-frontier-nuns-challenged-gender-norms/. ACCESSED 1/14/2021

An important question based on the life of the tenth president of Liberia for youth groups and children's ministries

 

The story of the tenth president of Liberia can be used in youth and children’s ministries to pose an interesting and important question. Here is a brief summary of his life.

The tenth president of Liberia was Alfred Francis Russell. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1817. When he was sixteen, he moved to Liberia. Because he agreed to go to Africa, his grandmother, who was also his owner, set him free. He did not know anything about Africa, its climate or how to survive there when he arrived. Neither did any of the other 200 emancipated American slaves who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with him, but they learned. Some people caught malaria and other tropical diseases that are not in Kentucky. Some people died. After a while, Russell became a farmer. He grew coffee and sugar cane, two crops that do not grow in Kentucky. He became a Methodist minister and took the Christian message of salvation to the native tribes living in Liberia. Then he became an Episcopalian priest.  He was elected a senator and then vice president. The president resigned while Russell was the vice president which is how he became the tenth president of Liberia.

What do your students think they would do if they had the opportunity to travel far from home if they knew 1) they would probably never get to go home again, 2) they believed that the move would give them the opportunity to prosper and 3) they thought that by moving, they would be able to share their faith with people who had never heard about the Christian message?

By Lesley Barker ©2021

 

What Youth Groups Can Learn About Reputation and Legacy from Nancy Green's Story

 

The Kentucky Faith and Public History Education Project is committed to telling the stories of famous Kentucky Christians who were public about their Christian faith. This week we consider one woman whose reputation is controversial today because it intersects with the racial divisions and the way they have been articulated over the past 200 years in America. By sharing this information with your youth group, perhaps you can guide the conversation to be about reputation and legacy – how to live so that what people remember about them is consistent with their core values and commitments.

It was 1893 in Chicago. Grover Cleveland was the president of the United States. The Civil War was over. Formerly enslaved African Americans had been emancipated thanks to President Lincoln for thirty years. The Chicago World’s Fair was the main event, at least for white people. Very few African Americans were able to enjoy it. Some African Americans worked at the fair doing menial jobs. A few Black performers were more prominent. Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist, spoke there. Some people remember what he said. But everyone in attendance saw one woman, who had been born into slavery in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, telling stories and cooking pancakes. Her name was Nancy Green. More than 50,000 people got a pancake she made in the exhibit for Aunt Jemima Pancakes. She was so popular that, after the fair was over, she received a lifetime contract to travel throughout the United States representing that brand. Her fame helped her raise over $3 million for charities like the Rock Island, Illinois Boys Club. She was a leader at her church, the largest Baptist church in Chicago, Mt. Olivet Church. Many African Americans had moved to Chicago to find work. The church was where they learned the ropes of living in the city, where they found new friends, and where they were led to commit to live a Christian life. She died after being hit by a car.

The problem is that Nancy Green’s life was forgotten so much that she was buried without a tomb-stone. What people remember is the character she played. It offends people today because they feel that she allowed herself to become a racist symbol that the Quaker Oats Company exploited for the money. The Ferris State University’s Jim Crow Museum includes Aunt Jemima as an example of “Anti-Black Imagery”[1].

What do you think Nancy Green would have said if someone accused her of being a symbol of “anti-Black” propaganda? In 2017 Lexington’s Lyric Theatre hosted a performance, “Nancy Green: Being Aunt Jemima the Pancake Queen” starring Debra Faulk. The promotional literature about the performance states- “She was a real Kentucky hero: a community activist, philanthropist, and church missionary”[2]. The article goes on to say: “Green became one of the first prosperous African American women in the United States, and she used her wealth to empower her community.”[3]

The president of the Bronzeville Historical Society told NPR journalist, Katherine Nagasawa that “removing the Aunt Jemima image could erase Green’s legacy – and the legacies of many Black women who worked as caretakers and cooks for both white families and their own”. She said, “I look at Nancy Green as a Black mother figure, and Black women are the lifelines for generations, both Black and white”[4].

We’d love for you to post comments telling us what your youth group members say when you ask them what there is to learn from Nancy Green’s story and what they want to be remembered for.

By Lesley Barker ©2020

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[1] https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/antiblack/. ACCESSED 12/17/2020.

[2] Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center. “Nancy Green: Being Aunt Jemima the Pancake Queen”. ONLINE at https://www.lexingtonlyric.com/event.php?id=1118. ACCESSED 12/17/2020.

[3] IBID

[4] Katherine Nagasawa. “The Fight to Preserve the Legacy of Nancy Green, the Chicago Woman Who Played The Original ‘Aunt Jemima’”. Chicago’s NPR News Source WBEZ. June 19, 2020.

How a Movie Star from Kentucky Shared Her Faith

This week our famous Kentucky Christian is the actress and movie star from Louisville, Irene Dunne, who starred in the picture, I Remember Mama. Her life was not the easiest. Her father died when she was a child. Her mother brought her up in church where she decided to follow God. She said that she never strayed from His paths.  Her faith became much more central to her life later, after her mother died. Writing about her faith for Guideposts Magazine in 1951, Dunne posed the essential question she tried to answer regarding each of her relationships. She wrote: “How can I find a simple, uncomplicated, sincere way of telling others about the richness, satisfaction, and joy that my religion brings to my life, so that they, too, may desire to open the door and let God in?” [1]

How would your students answer that question if you put it to them in a children’s church or youth meeting? Would they point to ways that their faith is a source of richness, satisfaction and joy? Do they think about how to talk about their faith with their friends? Have they figured out how to introduce their faith in ways that make their friends want to experience it too?

Can you model your own experiences in sharing the Christian message with others? Can you find words that are not christianese or that do not presume that the other person understands that many Christians consider what is in the Bible to be their final authority on matters of faith and behavior?

Irene Dunne gave an example of how she talked about her faith with people who did not share it.  She said that “it was something like seeing your friends for the first time since your return from a wonderful trip—let’s call this a heavenly trip. You had such a glorious time, you’ve already sent post cards, saying, ‘Wish you were here.’ If you have the gift of words, your description of the place will make them want to go.”[2]

Comparing her faith to a wonderful trip was a clever way to start a conversation about God. By itself, it did not explain how Christians enter into a faith-walk. It did, however, make it possible for her friends to ask a question that could lead to more explicit information about what she believed. This is how a Kentucky movie star baited her conversation hook so that her friends might want to know more about what she believed. Is hers an example that your students might want to follow?

By Lesley Barker ©2020

 

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[1] Irene Dunne. “Irene Dunne on Her Faith Journey”. Guideposts. 1951. Reprinted 2015.

[2] Ibid.

What Makes a Famous Kentucky Christian?

Each Monday we use our Facebook Page to introduce another famous Kentucky Christian from the past. By a famous Kentucky Christian we mean someone who was born in or worked in Kentucky, whose accomplishments were meaningful within the community, and who gave specific testimony to their faith in the Christian message. We are being intentional to include both men and women from every race and ethnicity that we can find. This is a kind of treasure hunt through Kentucky’s history. Famous Kentucky Christians have been presidents and slaves. They have risen from adversity to become prosperous entrepreneurs. They have served in faraway places, in the military and at home. We are looking for these people to build a who’s who of Kentucky’s Christian history. Our children need to see examples of people whom they resemble who overcame challenges and made history happen.

This week we introduced Albery Allson Whitman. He faced more adversity than most of your students can imagine as you can see in his own words:

“I was Born in Green River Country, Hart County, Kentucky, May 30, 1851. I was a slave until the Emancipation. My parents left me and went to the Good Land when I was yet a boy. My chances for education have not been good. In that matter, however, I have done what I could. I have labored with my hands, taught school and preached a RISEN, present Savior – not a bad lot after all”[1].

Whitman was 26-years old when he wrote those words in the preface of the first of six volumes of his poetry. He had finished a degree at Wilberforce University and would go on to plant and pastor churches in Georgia, Kansas, Ohio and Texas. His poetry was popular enough for him to have been invited to read one at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Some even called him the “poet laureate of the Negro race”.

What do your students make of Whitman’s words? If their parents had both died and left them enslaved, would they push themselves through college? Would they find comfort in the Christian message enough to continue to make it known to others? Why or why not?

Do your students know about any famous Kentucky Christians that we may not yet have discovered? If so, how have their lives been impacted by them? If not, do you know who their heroes and role models are?  

When your youth group or children’s club visits the Kentucky Faith and Public History Education Project’s Walking Trail (expected to open in 2021) in Paris, Kentucky, they will encounter information about the Christian religion and its history, especially in Kentucky starting in the early nineteenth century with the camp meeting revivals such as the 1801 Cane Ridge Revival in Bourbon County. Each child will also be challenged to play an Eye Spy game in which they must find seven clues hidden along the Walking Trail in order to learn about a famous Kentucky Christian. At the end of the trail, they will receive a trading card about their person. Trading cards will also be available soon in sets on our website. Famous Kentucky Christians are also the subjects of the FKCC book series. So far there are four books. Big Bully is the story of Simon Kenton. New Boots is the story of Elisha Green. Hurt Feelings is the story of Dottie Rambo and Picked Last is the story of Effie Waller Smith. Each book is a high-interest easy-reader beginning chapter book written at the 2^nd through 4^th grade reading level. If your church has a children’s book section in its library, these books should be available. They make affordable gifts too.

 

By Lesley Barker c. 2020

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[1] Albery Allson Whitman. Not a Man and Yet a Man. 1877.

Discussing the Consequences of Avoiding Responsibility through the Life of Simon Kenton

 

Simon Kenton’s story may be a way for youth and children’s pastors to start a discussion with their students about the consequences of running away from or failing to take responsibility for any bad things they may have done.

Simon Kenton arrived in Kentucky before most Americans. Using an axe to mark trees with his initials, he claimed thousands of acres of this western frontier of Virginia for himself. He would make lots of money on the sale of land in what would become Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri. He was a big man, seemingly fearless. He could shoot his rifle while running. He faced Shawnees in battle. Tecumseh considered him a worthy enemy. He protected new settlers and settlements and became a general in the United States Army during the War of 1812. His renown continues to this day. The Ohio River bridge at Maysville, Kentucky and Kentucky’s Highway 68 are both named for him. Multiple historical markers attest to his bravery and to his significance to the early history of Kentucky. He is the subject of books[1]. He is a famous Kentuckian, indeed.

Simon Kenton may never have come to Kentucky, however, if he had not had a fight with another man over a girl. He knocked the other guy down and thought he had killed him. Even though he was still a teenager, he knew that if he was caught, he would go to jail. Perhaps he would be hung as a murderer. So, without telling anyone what he was doing, he ran west. He met a man who lived in the wilderness who took him in and treated him well. His name was Mr. Butler. He did not tell Mr. Butler why he was alone in the wilderness but, eventually, Simon Kenton decided that Mr. Butler’s house was too close to the scene of the crime so he stole a gun and ran further west. He decided to change his name to prevent anyone from associating him with the murder. He told everyone that his name was Simon Butler.

Decades later, after Simon Kenton a.k.a. Butler had married, had children and helped many frontier families find and settle on their new land, he met one of his brothers. His family thought he had been killed because he disappeared so suddenly and completely. His brother told him that no one was after him because the man he had fought had not died. He had just been knocked unconscious. There had been no reason for Simon Kenton to run away or change his name or to live in fear that he would be caught, taken to jail or hung. Simon Kenton’s fear and impulsiveness had been stronger than the truth. Simon resumed his right name. He continued to live and work in the frontier areas of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri. The truth broke the power of his fear and shame.

Simon Kenton was still troubled by the fact that he had killed lots of Shawnees. He worried that God would not ever forgive him. Just like when he ran away thinking he had killed another person, when he finally heard the truth, he found a new freedom. This happened in 1808 when he took his wife to a camp meeting revival. He listened to what the preacher said and asked that man to walk with him in the woods so they could talk in private. He confessed all that he had done wrong to the preacher. He asked the preacher if he thought that God could ever forgive him. The preacher told Simon Kenton the Christian message that Jesus Christ had died on the cross to take away all of Simon’s sins. Simon believed this message. When he returned to the camp, he ran around shouting to everyone that he had been saved. This is how Simon Kenton became a famous Kentucky Christian.

Perhaps the students in your youth group or children’s church will be able to relate to Simon Kenton’s pattern of running away from taking responsibility for what they have done. They may be willing to discuss what alternatives choices he could have made. Perhaps some of them are struggling because they may feel that what they have done is so bad that they can never be forgiven. Simon Kenton’s story may help them to rethink that conclusion.

The book, Big Bully – the Story of Simon Kenton[2] by Lesley Barker may be of interest to your students. It is a high-interest easy-reader chapter book of 32 pages written at a second to fourth grade reading level. It is available here as a paperback or a kindle e-book.

 

 By Lesley Barker c. 2020

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[1] Eckert, Allan W. The Frontiersman: A Narrative. The Jesse Stuart Foundation. Ashland, Kentucky. 2001.

[2] Barker, Lesley. Big Bully- The Story of Simon Kenton. A Kentucky Faith & Public History Project Publication. Paris, Kentucky. 2020