Empowering Young Disciples
What if the children in our churches are not a distraction but an invitation to reconsider how we worship and live the life of faith together? Jesus’ teachings on children make it clear that for the Christian community, pushing children to the side is simply not an option. Though this can look different depending on the context, we can confidently say that a foundational principle among God’s people is that children should be treated with dignity and respect, honored as whole persons, and enfolded into the holistic life of faith. What would happen if parents, pastors, and ministry leaders attended to the ways children’s faith develops, welcomed the discomfort that comes from trying to live the life of faith together, and joined us in our favorite activity, reimagining church where a child’s faith flourishes?
Children’s Faith Development
Children’s spiritual development and expression are uniquely different from adults. The stages of young faith are heavily experiential and community-based. It’s crucial, then, that young children have the opportunity to observe, copy, and experiment as a part of a worshipping community. Children also must be in relationships with other Christians at different stages of faith that can give them a vision of what their faith could be. Much research has been done about how children make meaning of the world around them, and it turns out that these practices coincide with the stages of faith development. Too often, our work with children is relatively narrow, reduced to learning about God, but does not invite children to encounter God in their real lives.
Recognizing how a child’s faith develops can help parents and ministry leaders create environments that foster the flourishing of a child’s faith. It is a very real way to obey Jesus’ command not to hinder children.
A Loving and Supportive Environment
Whether in the church or the home, environments that foster faith prioritize connection, transformation, and engagement. While these values will take different forms in the church and the home, they provide a stable foundation for a child’s faith to thrive.
Connected
Children are generous with their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Providing opportunities for children to engage in open, honest conversations about faith is vital to the flourishing of their faith. These kinds of environments also welcome children’s questions and teach them that their questions about faith are welcome in church or at home. This will be important as they move through the stages of faith development.
Transformed
Parents and caregivers model faith through their lives with and before their children. Children catch a vision for transformation and hear stories of transformation from other believers, which gives them an idea of the diverse beauty of God’s kingdom.
Engaged
Incorporating rituals helps faith become a habit and allows faith to become a vital part of daily life. Parents and ministry leaders can incorporate small rituals that help kids enact their faith.
Here are some rituals you could try
- Weekly gratitude practice: Select a consistent time to share a short list of things you are grateful for with one another. This can be accompanied by a special meal or a fun treat or activity like a family walk.
- Sharing highs and lows: Reflect together on the best and worst parts of the day.
- Celebrating milestones like birthdays, lost teeth, school beginnings and endings, etc.
- Confessing and forgiving sin.
Empowering Children to Explore Their Spirituality
Children are shaped more by how we practice and talk about our faith than by what we explicitly teach them. Fostering environments, as described here, honor how faith develops in children and provide fertile ground for growing faith.
Parents and ministry leaders can
- Support children as they question, directing them to God and encouraging them to bring their wonder and worries to Jesus.
- Encourage children to explore the ways their faith intersects with their real lives. Where do they feel the need for God’s presence or help? What gifts can they use to worship and serve? When and how do they enjoy being with God? Who do they know that makes them want to be closer to God?
- Remember that children are encountering God. Rather than encouraging them to conform to our ideas of what a Christian looks like, encourage them and pray that they will be transformed into the image of Jesus.
The most convincing and essential reason to honor the unique spiritual journeys of children is that Jesus expects us to. Rather than being junior members of the Body of Christ, children are whole people God wants to know. We’ll explore how this view of children transforms our worship in the coming weeks and months.