Growing Faith Through Imitation

Playing church

When my kids were young, we began attending an Anglican church. Robed clergy, the repeated liturgy, and weekly communion made the switch from our previous church incredibly noticeable. Worship services were suddenly busy. There was a lot to do. Within a few weeks of attending the Anglican church, I noticed that my kids had started playing church at home. One day at breakfast, my four-year-old walked around the table with her toast and offered it to everyone present, “the body of Christ, bread of heaven,” she said to each person in turn. Months later, I heard my four-year-old talking in the next room and realized she had memorized the communion liturgy and was trying to lead her two younger sisters through the entire thing.

We see kids do things like this all the time. Whether they are cooking breakfast in their play kitchen, playing doctor to a host of stuffed animals, or wearing a superhero costume and saving the world, children are keen observers and excellent mimics. Even now, I see my preteen daughter has begun to engage in conversations in a way that looks eerily familiar. But if we don’t know what we’re looking at, we may be tempted to dismiss it as merely “cute” when it is, in fact, an essential part of learning and, in many cases, a genuine, significant-for-their-age expression of faith.

A life worth imitating

Are there opportunities in your church for children to watch other adults participate in worship and copy them? Take this question a step further–are there opportunities for the people at your church to interact with and observe people of different generations and life stages as they worship and live the Christian life? Witnessing the lives of brothers and sisters at various stages of their faith development gives us a vision of what our future faith could be, encourages us to trust God, and helps us remember God’s faithfulness.

Dr. Larson, our Executive Director, will sometimes tell the story of realizing, as a children’s ministry leader, that she would be preparing children for communion who had not actually seen adults receive communion. If children do not experience the rituals and traditions of our faith communities, why would they want to participate in them?

Creating space for imitation

Fortunately, there are many simple adjustments that can be made to provide the opportunity for kids to learn through observation and copying.

• Provide opportunities for children to observe the worshiping life of the congregation. Consider including children for special services or trying staggered dismissal, where children participate in part of the worship service.
• Explicitly show & teach children about the rituals and traditions of your congregation, allowing them to observe, ask questions, and “play” in response.
• Provide opportunities for children to engage in dramatic play: i.e., a play church or costumes for Bible story reenactments.
• Encourage parents to become “pew whisperers” and narrate a worship service for their child.
• Include children in leading worship through readings, prayer, and songs.
• Include children in worship planning.

As a children’s ministry leader, you may not have much control over where children are during a worship service or other parts of your community’s life together, but you do have influence when it comes to the importance of observation and copying in a child’s practice of meaning-making.