In the life of a healthy Church, the spiritual formation of children is Indispensable, Integrated and Invitational. It is indispensable because the future of the church is our children, without them there is no future church. It is integrated, meaning it works holistically, integrating body, mind and spirit. And it is invitational. It invites our children into a life-long loving relationship with God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. About 15 years ago the British murder mystery writer P.D. James stepped outside of her usual genre to write a science fiction novel called, The Children of Men. A couple of years ago the book was made into a movie which I did not see, but I did read the book. It’s a very interesting and perhaps somewhat timely plot in which it suddenly occurs across the whole world that women no longer become pregnant, the human species is
suddenly infertile, en masse, and no one knows why. The book opens twenty-five years after the last person was born, and humanity is now rapidly aging and dying out, creating tremendous social and political problems, not to mention widespread despair. It’s a timely topic, especially in Europe, but also in many parts of the world where birth rates have dropped precipitously low. These days there is a lot of talk and speculation and projection among economists, sociologists and demographers about the dire effect that low birth rates in about 70 % of the nations of the world will have on the future of the world.
suddenly infertile, en masse, and no one knows why. The book opens twenty-five years after the last person was born, and humanity is now rapidly aging and dying out, creating tremendous social and political problems, not to mention widespread despair. It’s a timely topic, especially in Europe, but also in many parts of the world where birth rates have dropped precipitously low. These days there is a lot of talk and speculation and projection among economists, sociologists and demographers about the dire effect that low birth rates in about 70 % of the nations of the world will have on the future of the world.
Whether or not there truly is a global demographic crisis, the point that we can take from the recent concern about decreasing reproductive levels and family size, and even from P.D. James’ book, is that “children are the future”. Without children there is no future. This is as much true for the Church as it is for any community or nation. The future of the Church is the next generation. Our children are not just nice to have around in the Church because they add vitality and cuteness. They are indispensable. Our children ARE the future of the Church.
It is of utmost importance here at All Saints’ that we are raising the next generation to be followers of Jesus, to be leaders and active participants in the Church, not simply for the sake of the institutional Church or of this particular local parish, but for the sake of the continuing healthy life, work and witness of the Body of Christ in the world. So when we talk about the spiritual formation of our children we are talking about something that is not an optional ministry, or even a second tier ministry. The spiritual formation of our children is absolutely indispensable for the healthy growth and functioning of the Body of Christ. It is central to our mission as a church.
Secondly, the Christian spiritual formation of children is integrated as it reaches out to the whole child—body, mind and spirit. At All Saints I believe we are very blessed to have the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program for our younger children which truly is an integrated approach to spiritual formation that teaches and reaches children in body, mind and spirit. The presupposition of the Catechesis program is that God is already at work in them as whole beings. The Holy Spirit is drawing them to himself and our job is to facilitate the work that the Holy Spirit has already begun.
Can you think back to your own childhood to when you had your first experience of God, your first sense of the presence of God? This week I mentioned to one of my daughters that I was preparing this sermon on the spiritual formation of children. She reminded me of an experience she had when she was five, and right after it happened she had come to me and told me about it. She said that she had been in her room jumping on the bed when she felt that Jesus and the angels were all around her, just filling up the space and just there with her in that delight of jumping on the bed. She came to me a little bit worried because she thought that maybe they were trying to tell her something and she didn’t know what it was and she wondered if I knew. She remembers that I said something like God wanted to tell her that he was present with her and he loved her. I was relieved to hear that I hadn’t said something like, what were you doing jumping on the bed, you’re not supposed to do that!
Anyway, the truth is that God is already present with our children. Our job is to affirm that and to help them come to know God’s love in Jesus in body, mind and spirit, even when they’re jumping on the bed! In the church we can affirm God’s presence in physical ways through hugs and through feeding them nutritious food and through singing and dancing and playing with them. We can value their physical presence by their participation in the life of the church in appropriate and significant ways, as they have helped our worship at times through song, liturgical dance, and acolyting. We can also be thinking about other ways that our children can be visible and involved in the life of our church.
It is also very important that the church helps to form their minds in Christ through instruction in the faith. In Ephesians 6 St. Paul talks about putting on the armor of God so that we can withstand the attacks of Satan against us. The armor of God is knowing what you believe and why, and knowing the scriptures backwards and forwards. It is having a strong mind that can reason and argue for the faith. Is the church helping our children develop strong minds in Christ?
Back in 1947 Dorothy Sayers, by coincidence another British mystery writer, and a Christian and close friend of C.S. Lewis, wrote an essay called “The Lost Tools of Learning.” It’s a very powerful essay that I strongly encourage you to get a hold of and read if you are at all concerned about the education of children. And even, by the way, our own education and strength of mind. In it she says,
“We let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished.”
Those are pretty scary words, but how much more true are they today than they were 60 years ago when they were written, as our society becomes more and more defined by secular and even anti-Christian values. What does it say about our culture that 60% of internet usage is for pornography? The minds of our children need to be trained in the faith so that they will not become “a prey to words [and we might add images] in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.” I myself am old fashioned enough to believe that we need not only to teach children Bible stories, but they need to be memorizing passages of scripture, and know the books of the Bible. They need to be steeped in knowledge of the Bible and be absorbing sound doctrine. One way to strengthen children’s minds is to read good books to them. The summer reading program for our All Saints children is not just a way to entertain the kids during the sermon. It is important to read good books to them that will strengthen them in heart, mind and spirit rather than so much of the drivel that is in print for children that squanders their brain power in a trivialized and simplistic understanding of the world.
As an aside, a resource many Christian parents have found very helpful is a book called Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. The book gives lots of wonderful suggestions and lists of books to read with your children as a family. Reading aloud with kids is not just to help kids become good readers, but it makes the stories a shared experience within the family and within the church. So the summer reading program is really important and I encourage you to sign up to read with the kids at least one Sunday this summer. You will be blessed by the children and they will be blessed by you.
We also need to be attentive to children in their spirits, teaching them how to pray and how to listen to God. We need to be affirming their interactions with God, and be attentive to those precious spiritual moments like when my daughter was jumping on the bed with Jesus and the angels. The Catechists in the atrium can tell you wonderful stories of the children’s simple but profound experiences of God through the catechesis program. These are precious spiritual openings when the church and parents have the job of being attentive to when they occur and affirming them in the child.
When we talk about the spiritual formation of children it is difficult to make the separation between home and church, they are both important and interconnected. Psychologists tell us that as parents we are “god” figures for our children. It’s true that for many of us our relationship with our parents has had a strong influence in how we relate to God. So it’s important that we as parents think about what children are learning about God from our behavior. It’s good to check in with ourselves from time to time about how well are we listening to our children? Are we giving them focused attention and time? What are we modeling for our children in our own church involvement, interactions with others.
But of course none of us are perfect. We are and will continue to be imperfect parents. We will make mistakes. We will sometimes miss the precious spiritual moment in our children and tell them not to jump on the bed. It is not necessary to be perfect parents. But the wonderful grace and modeling that we can do for our children is when we can admit our mistakes to our kids, maybe even years later, and ask for forgiveness. Do you ask for forgiveness from your children when you really goof up? Do you admit when you are wrong? I’ve had to do it a lot, especially with my older children who sometimes when we are together will remember and remind me of hurtful things that I said or did to them. To be able to say to them, “You are right; I’m so sorry about that. Please forgive me,” is the path to healing for both of us. The best thing you can do for your children is to work on your own emotional and spiritual healing and growth. Not only will you be better able to parent them with something more approximating unconditional love, but you will be setting a wonderful example for them that they don’t need to be ashamed of having hurts and weaknesses that need loving attention and healing.
Christian spiritual formation for children is indispensable, integrated and, finally, invitational. All that we have said about Christian spiritual formation for children is for the purpose of introducing them to Jesus and inviting them into a life-long relationship of love with God through him. We read in 2 Corinthians this morning, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” This is the goal and purpose of our ministry to children here at All Saints, as it is our goal for every person in the church, that we are made new creatures in Christ through our relationship with him.
So, let us remember as we minister to our children here at All Saints that their spiritual formation is indispensable because the future of the church is our children, without them there is no future church. It is integrated, meaning it works holistically, integrating body, mind and spirit. And it is invitational. It invites our children into a life-long loving relationship with God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.