We Like Sheep - Wandering Astray

Harold,

I think you are asking a few good questions. Let me offer some general thoughts and then move into more concrete examples of what I have done with kids in the past and where our crc is up against this right now.

General:

First, don't lie - I tried to never speak of God or theology in ways that conflicted with what I understand now. So no discussions about god who is up there, etc. My goal was that would not have to unlearn harmful theology later.

Second, kids are not adults, trying to simply have them repeat and use the theological code words their parents use is just going to produce dogmatic eiers or crcers. We need a model of what spirit maturity looks like at every age. Fowler's stages of faith might be a way to start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_faith_development

Third, on the whole on of the things I think is wrong with the current sociological structures of is the stratification of each person and need into groups with independent programs targeting each of them. As if a spiritually mature child can be nurtured by dogmatic fundamentalists. To think that lasting change can happen without the education of younger generations is a wish-dream. For most of humanities existence, we have nurtured children in multigenerational extended family groups. I posit that this holistic group (which is larger then a nuclear family) is central to well socialized, spiritually mature, young adults.

Fourth, this means that on the whole the engagement with children needs to be an every-person activity and not simply something for parents. As we envision the CRC as a alternative loci of faith, we need to distinguish between the form of a CRC liturgy and the body of people that meet. I can't imagine that I know someone who is a parent without knowing their children. If we conclude that the CRC liturgy is not the correct place for children, then we need to also consider how as a group of people who meet in a CRC we can support and nurture the children in our group.

Fifth, I think that with tweens and teens one of the most determinant factors in thriving is connections with other caring adults outside of the nuclear family. Otherwise as the strugles within the nuclear family to redefine roles they are left without connections they can trust to the world outside their peers. One of the best books I read when doing Youth Ministry was: Hurt, by Chap Clark http://www.amazon.com/Hurt-Inside-Todays-Teenagers-Culture/dp/0801027322 it lays out the isolation that I think is endemic within the adolescent period. Some of the most helpful things I did as a youth minister was taking concreate steps to form these relationships in 5th and 6th grade.

Sixth, I think we need to separate formation into christiandom from the nurturing of spiritual maturity. I think we need to lay out some basic values that are at the core of a healthy engagement with religious practice. I am speaking here of openness to new things and experiences; embracing their own creative spirit and expecting to have a voice; finding points of mystery and not having all of the answers; an aweness of others who are different; and practice uniting for co-operative action. These can be developed in a lot of different ways and this is not some little list of moral niceties.

Seventh, from 3-11 is really when the mind learns most of its language, so part of what we want to do is introduce children to the poetics of the christian symbol system. Not because they will totally understand it, but because it gives them words to describe what happens later on. One of the things I am most thankful for from my upbringing was a firm grounding in the phrases and rhythms of the bible. I was able to draw on these narratives later on, when I found myself in the middle of despair. Alan suggested a book about Brother Grimm fairy tails, which says that the goal of those fairy tales was to give children language when they met monsters in real life. The poetics of the scripture have this wonderful characteristic, they unwind themselves the more you study them. So for me starting to feed these disorienting parables and stories to children is about planting seeds. So take some time to sing and play and repeat the great poetic sections from scripture. A great orator helps do this and the retelling of these stories can be a communal activity.

Eighth, adults need interaction with children and to hear from children. The bible contains examples and promises of children as role models in many places. Our own lives reflect the times when a childs willingness to extend embrace, to ask the naive questions we dared not, to dream universal dreams when we are in the particular, to dance wildly, and to remind us of long term thinking - the world we leave for them - are all critical and irreplaceable. When we do not involve children at some level in our community we loose something deeply nurturing and we fail to live lives in awe of the sum total of reality.

So what does this look like in practice? Here are some of the specific things I have done that I think worked:

1) Involve kids in service projects. Our church was going to do a canned food drive for the local food pantry. I got a bunch of grocery bags donated from a local liquor store. I passed out a series of coloring sheets w/either bible story themes or pictures of nature / symbols. As the kids worked on coloring them I lead a discussion about the stories; mixing story telling with frequent breaks to have the kids ground specific parts. Then we assembled all the decorated bags w/shopping lists of needs for the pantry and the kids gave them out at the door each week. From start to finish we took time to explain why were doing this, who benefited from it, what it might be like not to eat for a day (the older kids actually fasted from sunup - sundown one day to tell us about it) and when the food came in we took pictures to show them of the food in the church and of the shelter when we delivered it. This starts to establish a link between organized action on the part of the kids and results for other people in the world. Other projects like this included collection a dollar a kid each week to start paying off specific named apportionment's in the church budget (with public announcements during the worship service to encourage other groups to do the same), making get well and birthday cards for use by the church office, ornament making during advent, and a school supply drive before the new school year. These crafts that echoed the church year helped to involve and explain the rhythm of the liturgical year.

2) Scavenger hunt improv days: When I had really restless kids, I would take them outside and ask them to search around for 10 minutes to find something to bring back. Then I would ask each of them to take a moment to share what they had brought back and quickly riff on the christian symbolism that can be drawn from what they bring. So if a kid brings back a dried leaf, we talked about Jesus' parable of being connected to a vine and being disconnected. Then I asked them what things give them life, what relationships nurture them, etc. When someone brought back a pine cone we talked about seeds and the metaphors that were used there. The goal here was to encourage exploration and curiosity, noticing things around them in nature, and to start to let some of these rich metaphors and images come to life in real things they can see and touch.

3) Sing, Dance, Move, Play: After my time with Interplay I wish I had done a lot more of this, but some of my lesson time was intentionally spent outdoors, playing games that involved working with partners, running around, jumping and moving. My goal was to break down some of the distance between adults and children by both being fellow players together, to give them time to get the physical energy out so sitting down to talk could come, and to find joy and fun together. Because its often during the games that bonding starts to happen.

4) Wander around the sanctuary and talk about the things you see. I would do a variant of the I spy game, where each kid got to look around the sanctuary, find something they thought was cool and then we would all walk over and I would talk about the symbolic meaning and the uses of the object in the church's life. Again I wanted to help them understand what was going on, but also to foster a spirit of noticing and curiosity, and to authenticate each child's noticings by having the entire group walk over to what they saw.

So as I move from general to particular let me finish with a quick narrative story, that for me is a touchstone I go back to when I consider what this might be like.

A few years ago I accepted a ride to a confrence with a family of missionaries back on furlough. My best friend who was going with me had bailed at the last minute and I had only started driving three months earlier so I was scared of driving from Houston to Santa Fe New Mexico alone. I had met the Jones family two days earlier as we worked together to setup the Doxology Art exhibit:

http://futuristguy.wordpress.com/category/culturology-case-studies/doxol...

They were going to the conference as well and Andrew (the dad) invited me to ride there with them (being his wife, their five children aged 15-4 and a friend of theirs) in their 15 passanger van. It was a tipping point in my life. It was also pretty scary. Even though I knew funds had been tight when they planned this trip, Andrew refused to accept any money to help with gas or anything else. He said it was important that this be a gift. I felt more isolated by this, unable to provide a meaningful rationale for my being there, in a really intimate space. I rode shotgun, at the front of the bus, for the first chunk of the trip. At the second rest stop one of Andrew's children (who was about 7 at the time) grabbed my hand and asked me if I would take her to the restroom (I think it was loo actually). So I walked her there and then waited for her to come back and we walked back to the van. As we got ready to load back up she looked up, smiled, and said: would you sit back here and play with us. So I did, we played some card games and spent some time. Then she promptly fell asleep in my lap. Looking back I am struck by how much that simple act of invitation, welcome, need, and embrace meant to me. My fears about being a leach, about imposing on a private space, the insecurity seemed gone. I was able to enjoy the rest of the trip together with the whole family. That long week, really was a turning point for me in how I approached my life.

In my mind that is the image of a spiritually mature seven year old. It is something I hope I helped to foster in some of the kids I worked with, and it forms the basis for some of my observations here.

http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2006/10/family_update.html

That is picture of the family from 2006 a year after I spent a few days with them. You can guess which one is the child I described.