Derrick, I wish that every non-parent, seminarian and church leader were so thoughtful about how to address, understand and just plain deal with our church’s youth as you articulated. I am shocked and dismayed by how little time we take as church bodies to truly develop a theology around our children. Too often, Sunday morning adult worship trumps all – pastors are too busy putting together sermons, liturgy, putting out fires etc. to deal with creating a theologically equivalent children’s ministry. To be sure, most pastors never set foot in Sunday School because, of course, they are central to the adult worship that is simultaneously occurring.
As parents, we are so in need of our own worship time that we put our trust and faith in the – God bless them – volunteer Sunday School teachers who are typically (but not always) kind-hearted souls who do their best. When my partner and I sat in on a Sunday School session the first time we visited a church, one of the parents approached us at coffee hour and asked us how it was because while she’d been sending her kids there for several years, she’d never actually gone and observed. She thought it such a novel idea. I don’t think she cared less than we did what her kids were learning, but I’m not sure it occurred to her that she could and should be involved.
Well intentioned or not, our amazingly committed teachers are not frequently trained and, in my experience, often operate autonomously. Sometimes this means that what is being preached up in the sanctuary is undermined or inconsistent with what’s happening in the church basement. Disturbingly, many (most?) churches don’t have well developed policies for dealing with children and creating “safe spaces” for them. There may be a newly derived interest in sexual abuse policies because of the slow unveiling of the horrific misconduct in the Catholic Church, but these policies are often simply on-the-books for show.
How many mainline congregations in fact take the time to establish an entire system of safety – both theological and practical — for the practices of their churches and for the care of their youth? When my two kids (who have lesbian moms) and the son of a gay couple received their first Bibles from their church school leader on one special Sunday, they were told by a Sunday School leader that they should go home and read it with “your mother and father.” Understand this: the only kids getting Bibles that Sunday were children of the only out queer families in the church. A theologically cogent system designed for the safety and inclusion of its children would have never led to three kids hearing the dismissal of their families realities in front of the entire congregation.
I didn’t expect this post to get so long, but I’m not done yet. (And I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna need many more posts on this topic.)
Here’s another big problem: I’ve been at seminary for 4 years now and up until the January SU190 1&2 courses, Children in the Church (non-required 1 point supplemental courses offered during intersession) with Laurel Koepf (who is amazing and I highly recommend any course she offers) , I have had yet to hear about or deal with anything related to children. In other words, it is quite possible to graduate from this prestigious (and mostly wonderful) seminary without ever having a course related to children. That is absolutely shocking. It means we are untrained to minister to what is it, roughly half of our congregation? That’s unconscionable.
This is surely something have neglected to address while going through seminary. For someone like me, I didn’t want to be cornered into youth ministry as it feels most young people going into ministry are. So I go along making conscious choices to distance myself from youth ministry as much as possible, even courses that deal with the topic. I tell myself I prefer the “big” questions. But, you know, I’m only kidding myself and missing out at the same time. If I do ultimately decide to take up this call, I’ll be graced with working with children but may not know how to appreciate that opportunity if I’ve not prepared for it. Thanks, Gillian.
Thanks for taking up this topic, both to Gillian and Derrick. I want to add another concern that comes to mind for me. With more and more inter-religious marriages, shouldn’t we also be addressing religious pluralism in our youth groups? What happens to the kids whose parents aren’t both Christian? I think a lot of people in such situations opt out of faith communities completely because they are worried their children won’t be accepted (and/or told that the other parent’s religious tradition is “wrong”). That’s why I like Derrick’s metaphor of the quilt – it also expands to admit other interpretations of the nature of the divine, that blanket of acceptance that surrounds us.
Although this post was done almost a year ago, I have spent much time considering many different ways to address this very issue. Much of my life’s work has been centered around children and their needs, whether emotional, educational, physical, mental, or spiritual. In addressing these various needs and interest areas, I have found that our society tends to address children more as a byproduct of a larger whole than as an integral part of EVERYTHING. It is quite distressing that we are being trained to serve in church and community, often without ever addressing the presence of the ones who will be trusted to continue the legacy of what we have begun. It is more distressing that this miseducation is often a choice. I call it a miseducation because in our elimination of this training, we are still teaching implicitly. We are teaching (quite effectively I might add) that the youth in the church are not the very heart of God and that their needs are simply secondary to the focus of the adults who surround them. How ironic when a child was who Jesus called upon when asked by his disciples who the greatest was in the kingdom of heaven. Until we get to the place where the youth in ministry are intertwined with all of the workings of the church at large, we cannot be fully connected to the plan of God that reveals to us the kingdom of heaven. If we’re not being taught, we must ask questions and expand the conversation in our classrooms to embrace ministry that is holistically sound. Quilts are, many times, crafted to personal preference. I love Derrick’s use of the quilt imagery…I believe we need to add some more patches.