Our family recently returned from a week in the Appalachian Mountains—climbing wooded trails and playing in rock-strewn rivers, soaking up summer sun and cooled by a lovely mountain breeze. I love the outdoors and look forward to such an expedition every summer, but I’m still routinely struck by its effects on us all.
The natural world offers profound reminders of God’s sovereign reign, creative power, and intricate design. The psalmist praises God for this work: “You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills. . . . Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work” (Ps. 104:10, 12–13).
Experiencing nature also reminds us we’re a people meant to be placed. One often neglected consequence of the global digital age is that we can be simultaneously anywhere and nowhere at once—we’re a people displaced. Yet, as Christians, we know our humanity is deeply connected to the earth for which we were made.
By taking our families outdoors and exploring the natural habitat, we experience opportunities for “placing ourselves” by encountering the plants, animals, weather patterns, and land features of home—and it helps us know and enjoy the God who created it all.
Why Place Matters
Our humanity is deeply connected to the earth for which we were made.
Craig Bartholomew writes that we’re in the midst of a “crisis of place” with devastating implications for the isolation of individuals and Christian care for cities and communities. The idea of place doesn’t merely connote land features and geographic coordinates, but it at least includes such things. We need to learn where we’re placed in order to care about it. Bartholomew reminds us,
The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of a world alive with God amidst the rolling hills and valleys of Wales. In another poem he speaks of Christ as the one who “plays in ten thousand places.” The world is indeed charged with the grandeur of God but it is in our place, one of those ten thousand places, that we are called to find and join Christ at play.
Finding and joining Christ at play in the natural world requires intentionality, whether for ourselves or as we serve our children, but we’ll find it well worth the effort.
As George Washington Carver explained, “To those who have as yet not learned the secret of true happiness, which is the joy of coming into the closest relationship with the Maker and Preserver of all things: begin now to study the little things in your own door yard, going from the known to the nearest related unknown, for indeed each new truth brings one nearer to God.” Nature exploration begins when we exit our doorstep, and there are countless ways to engage our Creator and his world.
Help Kids Find Their Place in Nature
Some who are now adults have benefited from the example of grandparents or parents who led us into the great outdoors, pointing us Godward with every trail exploration, birdsong, or plant identification. But some don’t know where to begin—how to present the gift of the natural world to a generation increasingly captivated by screens full of artificial images.
The good news is you don’t have to be a wilderness guru to engage nature with your children—you just need to get outside.
Our family has appreciated several quality resources aimed at helping kids encounter nature. Though these books are written from a secular worldview, Christian parents can use many of their ideas and activities in the context of conversations about God as Creator. Books such as Nature Anatomy (and its accompanying journal, activity book, and sticker book), Outdoor Activity Lab, and Encyclopedia of Insects offer engaging information and activities for children, spanning multiple skill levels. Nature’s Art Box, Watercolor in Nature, and The Lost Words are helpful texts for kids who might be more motivated by art and language than fort-building and fire-making. Of course, a simple drawing pad and pencil or a large magnifying glass are catalyst enough for some young explorers.
You don’t have to be a wilderness guru to engage nature with your children—you just need to get outside.
We’ve particularly enjoyed the simple, creative approach of How to Play in the Woods by Robin Blankenship. This text advertises “activities, survival skills, and games for all ages”—and it’s true to its word; families with children of multiple ages are well served by its contents. I brought this resource along on a recent walk with my husband and one of our sons, hoping to “make string and rope from plant fibers” or engage in some “random rock-breaking to get a sharp-edged tool.” Using Blankenship’s instructions, we managed to twist some tall roadside grass into passable twine with relative success, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it was rock-breaking that quickly captured my son’s attention.
At Blankenship’s direction, we scanned the ground for rocks large enough to hurl down at other rock surfaces to create sharp tools. What most farmers in southwest Missouri loathe became our treasure as we discovered the rock that yielded the best result—chert, the same kind of rock native Americans used to create arrowheads and other sharp tools. This rock consistently broke into slivers with edges sharp enough to scrape the bark off a stick or clean an animal’s hide, a testimony to the God of order and design who created it. And with every new rock we turned over, broke, and examined, we grew a little more in relationship to our place: the hills of southwest Missouri, a veritable treasure trove of rocks.
Placed by Our Creator
Regardless of the resources you use, getting kids—and yourself—outside offers the gift of connection with the natural world and an opportunity to know the Creator who intentionally placed us in it. As Psalm 19 explains, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (v. 1).
Nature is an untapped blessing for many Christians—and one our children desperately need in a digital world where we’re increasingly isolated and displaced. Get outside with them, and experience the joy of encountering the God whose “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20).
The Gospel Coalition