Children

Family Ministry Reconsidered

The buzz word today is “family” ministry. Incorporating the word into the common language of the church has become routine and ordinary.  One can’t talk about ministry without talking about family ministry. The word can be found in magazines, curriculum, college classrooms, and even in ministry titles. I can remember about twelve or so years ago changing my title from Children’s Pastor to Pastor to Families with Children.  I wanted to be on the cutting edge of this new emphasis that recognized ministry to the whole family is much more glamorous than ministry to just children.  I believe my heart was in the right place and my intentions were to try to meet the needs of the entire family while still focusing on the children I had been called to serve.  I suppose it was a good start, but my understanding of what it meant to minister to the family was certainly lacking.  I think the same may be true today when many hear the phrase “family” ministry.

Child Faith: Experiencing God and Spiritual Growth with your Children by Donald and Brenda Ratcliff

Facilitating Faith in Children: A book review of Donald and Brenda Ratcliff, Child Faith: Experiencing God and Spiritual Growth with your Children (Cascade Books: Eugene, OR, 2010).

How do we help our children develop a genuine faith in Christ? This is a question that is asked by most every Christian parent, along with most every pastor and Sunday school worker, since the beginnings of the church. Although this question has been asked many times, there remain no easy answers. It is in an attempt to help parents grow and nurture the faith of their children that Donald and Brenda Ratcliff have written Child Faith, the book which is the subject of this review.

As I begin this review, let me first state that I am by no measure an expert on child development. My expertise lies in other areas. What I am, is daddy to a two and a half year old little boy named Eli. My wife and I adopted Eli from South Korea when he was 14 months old, and that is when we seriously started to ask the question which started this review. It was a few months later that Leon Blanchette, the moderator for this forum on Epworth Pulpit, asked me to read and write a review of this text (for those of you doing the math, you will notice that I have taken my time reading Child Faith, which has more to do with chasing a toddler, who never runs out of energy, then it does with the quality of the book)

Too Young to Go to War, Old Enough to Suffer

Do you know a seven-year-old?  What makes her giggle?  What toy tops his Christmas list this year?  Most youngsters engage life with tons of energy, curiosity and delight.  An increasing number, unfortunately, are drained of childhood optimism and vigor.  The culprit?  War!  I'm not talking about the plight of children in Afghanistan or Iraq forced to take up weapons.  American and Canadian children, those in our own backyards, playing soccer and hockey afterschool, and memorizing multiplication tables are the ones suffering from war.   They are children of soldiers.  Writing on November 11, 2010, Remembrance Day (Veterans Day), Jamie Hall of the Edmonton Journal warns that "children of soldiers are among the biggest casualties" 1 of war.

How serious is it? Stacy Bannerman, author of When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind, reports the attempted suicide of a seven-year-old second-grader while his father was deployed to Iraq yet again.2   Suicide?  A seven-year-old?  A rare occurrence to be sure but the precipitating anguish and anxiety are all too common among youngsters in military families.  Data released in May 2010, indicates a significant increase in the number of children of active duty parents using mental health services.  In just five years (2003 - 2008), outpatient mental health visits made by children doubled from one million to two million.3   During the same period, the "total days of inpatient psychiatric care for children of active duty personnel 14 and under increased from 35,000 to 55,000."4 Kids ages 4 to 17 whose parent has deployed seek mental health services at a rate three and a half times  higher than their civilian counterparts.5  Sound serious enough?

Kids in the Dark

I teach a children's ministry class at Olivet where students are required to do interviews with children. This is always an interesting project because we know from developmental theorists that children's verbal skills and vocabulary do not develop as quickly as their ability to understand and experience life. As part of the interview process, my students have children draw pictures of what they think God looks like and their understanding of the word, "church" (we have found that art is a great way for children to express themselves). One set of questions that the students ask include "Does God ever talk to you? Do you ever hear God speak? What does his voice sound like?" While one might expect kids to say they do not hear God talk, the truth is that many respond in the affirmative.

I realize there are a multitude of potential explanations for their responses, but one recurring comment has intrigued me. Many of the children of various ages have said that they hear God talk to them at night when they are in bed.  For five years I have collected student interviews of children of all ages and those who say God talks to them all say it is at night in bed. This has caused me to ask, why?  What is unique about bedtime?  Is there something special about being in bed?  Is there significance to the darkness of night? 

Children Come.... Third?

Children cannot defend themselves.  At church, that is the purpose of the children's pastor.  Most boards are not made up of parents with young children.  If any money is allotted to the children it is usually half as much as is allotted to adults.  Some parents never step foot inside the church.  Only the Director of Children's Ministries fully understands what is going on with the children of the church.  Thus, without the children's pastor, young people have no defender.  If no one else is going to put the kids first, it has to be the children's pastor.  The problem is, this is not what the Bible teaches. 

The Egocentric Leader

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).  I’ve always thought of this verse as a quaint and colloquial depiction of how peaceful life would be during the end times.  Complete enemies would sleep in the same place and adults and children alike live in such harmony that a little kid could lead everyone on earth.  Additionally, I had always thought that children could take on this leadership role because children trust God more and have better faith.  After all, Jesus says his followers ought to have faith like a little child and Christians are to learn this from them.  Who better to set an example of leadership than a small kid?  Well, have you ever seen a child actually lead?

Playing Their Way into the Kingdom

In my university-level child development class, I start every semester the same way. I read the first few verses of Matthew 18. In this passage, Christ tells His disciples that they must become like children to enter His Kingdom. Then I pose the following questions: What is it about children that gives them such easy access to God’s Kingdom? What can we learn from children about salvation? The answers often focus on children’s innocence or their unquestioning obedience to parents and teachers. (Then I think, “Goodness, these college students haven’t spent much time with children, have they?”). Rarely do my students mention how a child’s capacity to get caught up in the here and now, to not worry about the past or future, to enjoy a process and refrain from judgment, and to not be bound by “one right answer” might play a role in inheriting eternal life. And yet these characteristics demonstrate intimacy with God: living in His eternal now, not passing judgment, and setting aside our expectations and being open to the surprising ways He may work in our lives.

Where Disciple-Making Begins (part II)

 Go . . . make disciples. - Mathew 28:19

 A DISCIPLE IS . . .

Let's start with a definition easy enough for a child to understand:  A disciple is someone who follows Jesus, loves Jesus, learns from Jesus, and obeys Jesus in all of life.  Discipleship is a relationship with Jesus that's based on love, guided by His commandments, and nurtured in a community of faith.  Discipleship is both a decision about life and the life itself.

For parents, this definition is a reminder of their accountability to Jesus as the real parental authority in a child's life.  Parents need more than their best ideas to raise disciples.  They need to know that Jesus leads them as they parent His children.  It means everything sends them back to God and His Word-sibling rivalry, leisure boundaries, scheduling priorities, discipline-it's all about discipling.

Where Disciple-Making Begins (part I)

Go . . . make disciples. - Mathew 28:19

They walked in, anonymously mixing with the Temple crowd.  What was so special about one more couple bringing their baby for the commanded visit?  Mary and Joseph were probably just as nervous as you were your first time out in public with a newborn.  Still learning about the cries and the needs of the baby who had changed every routine of their lives, they were no doubt more focused on the baby than anything else.

They had been taught about the importance of this visit.  They had witnessed other parents making their first family trip to God's house.  Now it was their turn.  Pride tumbled with wonder.  Joy wrestled with fear.  They were to raise this child for God.  The only way to begin was with obedience.

Celebrating Holy Days (revisited)

The Christmas season is a wonderful time of the year, filled with music, goodwill, lots of presents, and if you are lucky, lots of snow.  It is also a time that the church celebrates the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Experience has shown that in many Nazarene churches we do a sufficient job of celebrating the Christmas event.  We have Christmas parties which include the telling of the story of Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, we have special worship services and musicals that focus on the real meaning of Christmas, and we may even show generosity to our community by working in the food pantry or visiting the local nursing home.  In the midst of all these good activities have we missed the opportunity to celebrate Christmas and the holy season so that they impact our children in ways that change their relationship with God?

The church has always celebrated "holy days."  These are days that the church recognizes as "set apart" and provide the opportunity for special observances and celebrations.  Holy days, or holy seasons, give occasion to help children understand the master story of God from beginning to end and allows for the building of traditions as these days are celebrated from one year to the next.  A listing of the holy days and seasons can be found in the Revised Common Lectionary.  An overview of Advent and Christmas will be the focus of this article