Today, I am thinking about how we walk as church together. So frequently I hear and see church members from all over mourning the loss of families or youth in their churches. So I turned to a paper I wrote in Seminary and revisited how we walk with children in their faith development. Some of my comments come from the coursework at the time, many of them come from my earlier education courses in college and my experience in working with children in churches and choirs throughout my professional career as a Director of Music.
This is based on a Reflection I wrote in Seminary titled: What
was key to my faith development and how can I(we) respond or assist those in
those stages now?
Conversation on this will be welcome.
My family, my environments of
neighborhood, school and church were key influences in my faith
development. In James W. Fowler’s book, “Becoming
Adult, Becoming Christian,” he speaks of key developmental stages of faith. Here - I address Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective in my life, and I consider how I (or we) might address or respond to others who are in these
stages now. Many adults are at different places in their faith journey. Some of us treat children as if they are
small adults on the same faith journey, but children have a developing
awareness; their ability to process the world around them is quite different
from an adults. Ultimately, we need to
nourish the relationship of children and adults in our communities of faith in
all stages of development.
James W. Fowler speaks of the
Intuitive-Projective Stage in his book,
referring to children in this stage (age 3 – 7 roughly) as having an “inquiring
mind” that will “never again be so fresh and free of preformed constructions as
it is at this early age.”
I remember walking in the desert with my family, watching sunsets, catching
fireflies and looking at the stars in the night sky. We learned that our
Creator made snakes, coyotes, insects, the soil, weather patterns and cacti. I have deep long lasting memories of
liturgical worship, the mystery and wonder of God becoming man at Christmas and
the celebration of Easter from those years.
I still remember the luminaries everywhere at church and around El Paso,
to lead the Christ Child to our homes.
Fowler is right on for me. During this stage, I formed deep and long-lasting
images that have held together my “worlds of meaning and wonder.”
As we work with children in any
place, but especially in church, it is important to strive to reach each child on multiple
levels: listening, seeing, touching, or experiencing or combinations of all of
these! This will assist them in this stage of their life – their learning –
their growth. To teach young children ages 3 – 7, it is very effective to create an
appropriately colorful, interesting, tactile and symbolic environment for them.
Use colors, sound, visuals such as pictures, multi-media - things children can
touch, feel or hold. Create an
interactive environment they recognize as one designed for them - with chairs
they can reach to sit in, activity stations and a timed series of activities
that changes just ahead of their shorter attention spans. It is wise to speak
of things other than just your church’s things, so they know you are aware of their
world outside of church!
Excursions around the church can be innovative ways for the children to
touch, move and be immersed in a group experience. We once let every child snuff out a candle at
the end of our opening for Sunday school, and then we all closed our eyes and
listened to the silence for 5 – 10 seconds. (We used an adult supervised,
appropriate sized candle and snuffer of course!) Afterwards, each child spoke in one or two words what they were thinking or heard or felt. There was no
wrong answer – one little boy shouted out “dragons!” It is not about making the
children behave like small adults, but in giving them tangible experiences to
hold on to, to build on. This can help them stay open to experiencing worlds of meaning and wonder in many places - to receive the Word, the wonder of God's love.
This happens when the adults of all
ages in a church take time to work with children. Whether you have
children, grandchildren or no children – the environment of people caring and
willing to reach out to each child in this developmental stage is important for the child to grow, to be willing to reach out and respond. One of the best ways to assist children in these stages of faith development is to spend time with
them, get to know them and thereby have a base line to recognize faith
development or stage transitions when they occur. That takes intention – taking
the time to schedule this into our busy lives - in this we bring Christ to the
children.
Do you wonder what is happening to
families in the church? A lot of things – there is not one answer as to why you
may see fewer children or youth. Some of the children or youth we see have
plenty of growth stimuli at home, some have none. Some of them have only 1 parent or they have 2 parents
working hard to keep the bills payed with no time to even
read to their children. Some parents do spend time with their children, and some don’t take the time when they have it. I suggest we don't worry about that, certainly we must not judge that! Every person of every
age who walks in our doors is a gift from God. Let's invest some of ourselves
in them, that we might open up and receive them as Christ’s community. Why
would we expect a child or anyone else to open up to us – if we are not willing
to open up to them? We might be the only reflection of God’s
love and grace that they meet.
Stage 2: Mythic-Literal – coming soon…
