For Christian education and nurture leaders.
Nurturing the nurturers
By Elsie Rempel
Today is the final class of the Sunday school year. As Hannah begins a worship time with her class of nine-year-olds, she reminds them that this is the last time they’ll be together before they go on to other classes and teachers. Suddenly Jeremy, one of her macho boys blurts out, “Oh no, I’m gonna miss this!” To Hannah’s surprise, Jeremy is referring to the prayer times they have shared together.
Hannah is one Sunday school teacher who proves that faith is caught as well as taught. Lately, she has increased the class time spent in worship—offering her nine-year-olds time for songs, silences, and spoken words that help them listen to God, confess their wrongs, and pray for others. Nourished by the presence of God in her own life, she has these children use all of their senses as they speak and write their own prayers and praises.
After class, Hannah tells Jeremy’s mother, Bev, about Jeremy’s exuberant outburst. Bev asks about the worship times. As Hannah shares, the mother’s eyes fill with tears. They embrace, and Bev leaves with some hope that she and her son can sustain and enjoy such worship in their own home.
Longing to cultivate faith
This story is true, though names and minor details have been altered. However,
for many teachers, parents, pastors, and Sunday school superintendents, such
sharing and mentoring around the worship life of children is mostly a dream.
We believe in the importance of sharing our faith with children, we believe
in the importance of worship in the home, and we believe children are important
participants in congregational worship. But we struggle to put these beliefs
into action. The story of Hannah contains several clues about how we can
move toward that dream.
First, Hannah and Bev were both convinced of the value of spending time with God. We adults can only share effectively from the well of our own experience. Because Hannah nurtured her own devotional life with God, she could connect with her children’s simple, intuitive spirituality. Jeremy and the others were not only taught the faith—they caught Hannah’s faith. In Hannah’s class, teaching about God included discovering and experiencing God together.
Jeremy and the others were not only taught the faith—they caught Hannah’s faith. In Hannah’s class, teaching about God included discovering and experiencing God together.
Second, Jeremy had been brought to Sunday school regularly enough to become part of a small and intimate Christian community. Admittedly, such regularity is a difficult feat for more and more teachers and parents. What happens to the strength of a small faith-nurture group like this when family weekends, soccer, gymnastics, drama, and other schedules collide with the meeting time? What happens when children of divorced parents are away with their non-custodial parent every other weekend?
Third, Hannah and Bev found a time and place for this nurturing encounter. The opportunity for Hannah to mentor a parent as a faith nurturer happened in an informal exchange after the Sunday school hour. Those exchanges before and after class, in the lobby or in the hallway, can provide strong encouragement for those who nurture children’s faith at church and at home.
But do we need to leave such encounters to chance? How can we be more intentional about nurturing the nurturers of faith? Is there someone in your congregation whose job it is to attend to the task of equipping parents, teachers, and others to lead children in prayer and worship? Does someone help them lead worship in a way that leads even the macho boys to say, “Oh no, I’m gonna miss this!”?
Marking the milestones
Some congregations are finding ways to strengthen their families as centers
of faith nurture. One way is by marking the milestones in their children’s
lives, using them as opportunities to bless and resource both the child and
the parents on their faith journey.
At Hillcrest Mennonite Church, in New Hamburg, Ontario, 12-year-old children receive a Bible from the congregation. The Christian nurture leaders encourage parents, friends, and mentors to underline and initial their own favorite passages before the child receives it. By setting the stage for conversation about the Bible, this circle of people thus helps the child, like Jesus, to grow in wisdom (Luke 2:40). At Hillcrest, 12-year-olds and their parents also create personalized ‘stepping stones’ that reflect the children’s personality and gifts. Each stone is added to the church’s prayer garden.
This set of rituals is only one of several “milestones” in the lives of Hillcrest’s children that are celebrated through the coordinated efforts of Sunday school, library, clubs, youth group, Mennonite Women, and the pastors. To learn about others, see their manual, “Milestones Ministry: Planting Seeds of Faith” on the Mennonite Church Canada website under Resources (see www.mennonitechurch.ca).
How can your congregation equip parents and Sunday school teachers in their faith nurturing activities? You might begin by getting them all together for training and conversation. Drake Mennonite Church in Saskatchewan held an intergenerational Sunday night prayer service last January. After a presentation for children and adults, they split into four focused prayer groups. One group was for children, but parents were allowed to observe as their children were led through an interactive prayer exercise. By observing the methods of a trained children’s worship leader and their children’s enthusiastic response, they added to their own repertoire of skills.
How are faith nurturers being supported in your congregation? What would
you like to see happen? If this is a new area for you, consider organizing
a gathering of parents, teachers, and other nurturers to ask what they need
to become more competent in passing on faith.
Competition for our hearts and minds is stiff. Society bombards us with secular,
consumer-oriented ads, with the trickery of malls that lure us into deeper
piles of needless acquisitions and debt. Society constantly tries to lure all
of us into an acceptance of lonely individualism and fear-based militarism.
If our faith nurturers are equipped so that they can naturally and confidently worship with children, then our homes and congregations will be places from which God’s blessings are shared with a hurting world. Imagine what could happen when our children’s friends come over for supper or a sleepover and find families who reflect that they are Christ’s—in the way they relate to each other and by the way they worship and pray together. Imagine the experiences of Hannah, Bev and Jeremy becoming commonplace in our homes and congregations.
Elsie Rempel is Director of Christian Education and Nurture for Mennonite Church Canada.