KY Faith & Public History Resources for Children's Ministers Blog

Friday, January 22, 2021

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?

Friday, January 15, 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.

[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

Friday, January 8, 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?

Thursday, December 17, 2020

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.

[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.

Friday, December 11, 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?

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

[2] Ibid.

Thursday, December 3, 2020

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

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

Friday, November 27, 2020

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.