Worship as Children

            For my Children's Ministry class we were asked to complete several readings, then reflect on the view of children in today's society and today's church.  Here's my reflection paper:

          As Bakke describes in chapter three of When Children Became People, the church fathers heavily debated Jesus’ precise meaning when advising his followers to be as children.  The context in which the church emerged was brutal toward children, on the whole. While the church fathers were milder in comparison they had limited understanding of child development and a rigid understanding of sin, both of which influenced their understanding of Jesus’ encouragement to be as children.  In general these men hypothesized that Jesus was referring to infants as worthy of emulation due to infants' lack of sexual (or any other type of) desire and lack of pretense (both of which resulted from a lack of reason).  When the child developed the capacity for reason, the child developed the capacity for sin.  Although children were viewed as more likely to sin, they were perceived as still moldable into adults of good character by religious and other instruction and held the parents responsible for assuring this education occurred.

           In both my last congregation and the one in which I currently serve, children are given a great deal of authority over their own lives.  The majority of parents don’t force their children to attend RE, and even those that mandate RE for children usually allow the child to decide for him or herself by age 13 or so. This would indicate an underlying agreement with the church fathers that even children as young as seven are capable of reason.  However, it extends this belief further, implying that children are fully capable of determining which experiences are or are not beneficial for their present lives and future development.  This radical egalitarianism seems part and parcel of being a Unitarian Universalists. 

             Reflecting on the successful RE experiences I have witnessed or facilitated, they have in common an emphasis on the experiential and a minimization of the rational.  Children seem to engage more with an experience, such as the ritual of worship, singing, liturgical drama, or nature excursions.  They come into these experiences with a sense of curiosity and emerge with a sense of reverence.  These, it seems, are the forms of worship children view as worthy of their time, as life enhancing and soul enriching.

             I would agree with the church fathers that children require religious instruction, and can’t help but wonder whether the families that allow their children not to attend religious education are doing them a disservice.  We would all agree that children don’t have the cognitive capacity to make decisions in many areas of their lives, and I believe church is one of those areas.  At the same time, as I reflect on my experiences of successful RE in light of the readings, what strikes me is the ideas that children are “not only to be formed but to be imitated.”  Maybe the point isn’t to allow children to decide whether or not to come to church, nor is the point to force them to attend, but possibly the point is to create worship services that children would want to attend by making them more lively and experiential.

           That said, there is another reality with which to contend: children and their secular activities are now the focal point of modern family life.  Soccer supersedes not only family dinners, but participation in religious life as well.  In The Gift of Faith, by Jean Nieuwejaar, this problem is discussed as ubiquitous in America, affecting people of all religions. 

           She tells a story of a Rabbi who asks his congregation how many of them want their children to grow up to be professional athletes and few hands go up.  He then asks how many people want their children to grow up to be people of moral character and everyone raises their hands.  He asks why then the parents bring their children to soccer practice instead of synagogue.  

           Our culture has become so obsessed with children’s sports that children who don’t play feel (and get) left out.  But when adults set “fitting in” as the priority, we’re saying that fitting in is of utmost importance, and that somehow soccer alone will provide sufficient moral instruction and a guiding light during life’s challenging times.  I’m not suggesting children stop playing sports; I value athleticism greatly.  I’m suggesting that we pause for reflection and deep conversation about where athleticism fits in with the rest of our priorities.

           In a religiously plural society there are no easy answers about when to schedule sports, because every religion has its own Sabbaths, holidays, and observances.  But maybe we can put more pressure on sports leagues to accommodate religious practices, and less on churches to accommodate sports practice.    Even if we create the lively, engaging types of worship experiences that children would want to attend, they will sometimes need adults to remind them of the importance of spiritual practice, and the priority such practices play in maintaining wholeness in this crazy world.