It was good practice, and I write as one who for twenty years of my ministry was deeply involved with the development of leaders in children’s ministry. I know good practice when I see it. The road drill alone communicated.
One of the things which has greatly encouraged me this summer is the number of such children’s clubs being organised by churches of different denominations and inter-denominationally. It is a sign of several vitally important things.
Firstly, it shows that children matter to the church. And that is as it should be. The birth, childhood and youth of Jesus is a reminder that the God in whom Christians believe took the risk of becoming a child, of becoming human, to show the divine’s love for us. A Christ centred church will prioritise its ministry with and to children. Both these words are important – ‘with’ and ‘to’. ‘With’ implies that children too have a ministry to exercise.
Secondly, the Christ in whom I believe used a child as the supreme example of the key to his kingdom. Scripture states he took a child and setting it in the midst of his disciples said – except you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. There is innate faith in the child who must be given opportunities to express faith and respond to it.
Thirdly, there are many schemes and tactics which a church may adopt in a quest for renewal of its overall life and faith. It would be a great advancement if all churches recognised that childbirth is God’s natural way of renewing the church community. In the very inquisitiveness of a child there are opportunities to share the faith. The basic question, “But why do we do that?” is a God given opportunity to answer and to faith share, to faith nurture. At the beginning of their Passover meal, when our Jewish friends gather at their most solemn act of remembrance, it is the role of the youngest child present to ask the most senior person present, “What do these things mean?”. The senior then starts to tell the faith-salvation story of the Hebrew scriptures, of slavery in Egypt and the escape from it. That story implanted in that way sustained these people throughout periodic pogroms and the holocaust concentration camps. Responding to a child’s question about faith and its practice can be a test of mettle for any Christian concerned about the communication of their faith and the gospel story of love, forgiveness and eternal hope.
I often think of the people who helped my faith develop – the folk our American cousins would call “significant others”. My maternal grandmother who died when I was only aged seven, but who had by then frequently read to me the stories of the Old Testament heroes of faith. Of wee John, my parish Sunday School teacher in those days when rote learning was not decried, who made certain we learned a verse each week of a well known hymn. I remember framing the answer to a post-graduate exam question in doctrine at Trinity on the Trinity, by reciting to myself the words of a hymn he got us to learn… And it did the trick! It brought to mind the needed parts of the set text books.
Having read and written quite about about children’s ministry and the sort of people you need involved in it, I always come back to a secondhand book which George, a mentor and fellow-worker in this cause, brought me from a visit to London. It was a report on a massive enquiry into children’s ministry in Australia. It was inter-denominational. Having waded through several hundred pages, the researcher-author delivered a simple but obvious conclusion. He outlined all the expressions of children’s ministry he had observed. He noted how he had seen them all being successful in some locations, but not in others. His punchline message was, “Anywhere I saw a child growing in faith, I saw an enthusiastic adult. Children respond above all else to enthusiasm”. Thank God for the enthusiasts at work on behalf of Jesus with the children in our communities this summer.
Houston McKelvey –
First published in The Newsletter, Saturday 21st July