Kids Art Theology

There are a couple of things my friends have learned about me. One, I tend to pick up stuff that I run across (I don’t care that you might have thrown it away) and two, I’m a bit of a packrat. So I hoard and keep stuff (but stop short of uttering things like “my precious”).

Our children’s ministry kids have been focused on art as a part of creative space summer as well as during the main gathering of the Dwelling Place. I have been fascinated with some of the things they have latched onto during a service.
The Sunday after our Easter/Resurrection Sunday service, I had the kids sit out to see what they took from the service. There were a lot of pictures of Christ on a cross. My son, Reese, had a full crucifixion scene, complete with a weeping Mary and laughing "bad guys".
And Maggie, daughter of one of our elders, had quite the ornamental cross.
"This is why we make crosses: because he died on a cross" (though I was mildly disconcerted by Emmy, my niece's, inclusion of savior nipples)

And then she followed it with a picture of Mary (I found it interesting that so many of the kids gravitated to the Mary portion of the Resurrection story). "Jesus got reserected means to me that he went to heaven but is still with us"
During Mo*Con, Alethea Kontis got into the act.
Last Sunday, Maggie came up with quite the profound bit of theology: This is the world in God's hand. And her hand holds His.


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I’m Sending Emerging Kids to Hell

Don’t ask me how I ended up helping with the kids ministry at our church.

Our overall philosophy was that we wanted everyone as much a part of our main gathering as possible, figuring that we all learn from each other, grandparents, parents, and kids. Practically speaking, we ended up having a nursery but that left us with the question “what do we do with our 6 – 12 year olds?”

A guy who was visiting one of our elder meetings talked about a kids class where the kids essentially taught themselves. They speak each other’s language, pay attention more, and even handle keeping order in the class. They lead the songs, lead the prayer, prepare lessons, and prepare activities to flesh out the lesson.

Now, bright though our children may be, I don't think they'll be setting the stories they are learning within the context of the greater story of the Bible or tying everything back to Christ and kingdom work/living. So adults would be needed to help facilitate the discussions. Plus, I know our kids and left to their own devices, this would quickly turn into "Lord of the Flies ... In Jesus' Name" (replete with images of a lone adult tied up in a corner while the kids plotted).

This sounded so good in theory.

Still wanting to keep them in the service as much as possible, we stay in for the music and prayer, but when He Who Would Be Head Pastor begins speaking, we go back to our room. The first day’s class was made up of my two boys, my sister’s two kids, and one of our elders two kids. Maybe I shouldn’t have made the observation that I have license to beat two-thirds of the class. When it came to opening us in prayer, I turned to my eldest son, my name sake, jewel of my crown who comes back with “I don’t know how to pray. You never taught me.”

So after a rocky start (come to find out that some of our kids have some real control issues), we’ve been falling into a nice rhythm, to the point where my kids drag me out of bed to get to church on Sunday mornings. I’ve always wanted the kind of kids ministry where kids can ask any questions they wanted and the teachers would serious wrestle with their questions. So here’s the question of the day for my theologically minded friends (because no one warned me that our kids were so bright):

We’ve spent the last month or so going over the story of the Ten Commandments (we’ve spent three weeks on what “honor your father and mother” means). Anyway, the following discussion breaks out:

Emmi: Well, our baby sister died last year and she’s in heaven. When you’re a kid, God doesn’t hold you responsible for not knowing and obeying the Ten Commandments.

Me: You’re not seriously bringing up the age of accountability issue, right? How old are you?

Ian: Wait a second. If we’re not accountable until we’ve been taught the Ten Commandments and you’ve just taught us the Ten Commandments, if I die today, I could go to hell?

Me: This is your take home lesson? How old are you?

Maggie: I’m telling my mom you just taught us into hell.

Luckily, I have a co-conspirator in this (the elder/mother of the other two kids). I most certainly almost made He Who Would Be Head Pastor pull his sermon over to come back and talk to the kids. How would you answer this question?

(I actually did come up with something, after I let the kids wrestle with answering the question themselves--"That's a good question. We're going to go over it some more next week. Try not to die before then."--then being frightened at how smart they are. We discussed how best to live rather than living to stay out of hell. Each week is a reminder that we start asking very real and very important questions early on and that it’s good to have folks who not only listen and take you seriously, but wrestle with the questions alongside you. I STILL need that.)

There’s probably a book idea in here somewhere.


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Passing the Baton

My sons will probably be Colts fans. They will be raised Colts fans, probably a good chunk of it being to please me and spend time with me. We’ll cheer together and mourn their losses together. However, one day, they will have to figure out whether or not they like the Colts for themselves or even like football, period.

Or, my children will be sci-fi geeks. We watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Farscape together. They are taught from an early age that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best of the Star Trek franchises. In a few years they will be going to the sci-fi tent revivals known as conventions.

One of the hardest things for parents to do is train their children how to critically think, to think for yourselves. Without the “indoctrination” or what amounts to spiritual coercion. To allow them to think through their faith, their beliefs, and keep stretching themselves - in other words, to allow them to keep asking questions.

It’s the parents’ job to pass on family, cultural, and even spiritual values. To instill our values through our actions rather than our words, even though we ought to be explaining our values to them. Passing on the faith, raising kids with faith, is a tricky proposition. Here’s our dilemma: in order for children’s faith to become their own, they need to connect to it on their terms in their time. What we’ve seen happen entirely too often is well-intentioned coercion as we manipulate kids to make “decisions for Christ”. Our spiritual journey is not about brainwashing our children or otherwise make them go to church in order to ensure their spiritual growth. My experience is more to the contrary: few things turn folks off of church and religion like forcing them to do it. Thus explaining the college/on their own backlash against church and religion we so often see.

Ours is a household of faith and our children will be “raised as Christians”. We, as parents, believe, we pray, we share our faith and our traditions. At our parents’ dedication, where we affirm in front of our church community our intentions on how we plan on raising our children, this was said:

By dedicating Reese/Malcolm, we are publicly affirming our desire as parents to submit (our son) to God’s protection and guidance. We are saying that we want God’s perfect will to be established in the raising of (our son). As parents, we are an instrument that God has chosen to be His tool to express to God and the congregation that our desire is to raise (our son) as God would desire. All we possess belongs to the Lord, this includes our children.

Also we received a baton symbolizing our faith that contains a letter, from our respective pastors at the time, which talked about our faith. On their 18th birthdays, they get to open the batons. Whether or not they have made our faith their own by then, who knows, that is up to them. I can only do what I know I am responsible for. Our children are going to grow to be who they are; we’re not in charge of what they’re going to be like. We create the ethos, the values, and the support structure for our children, guiding them while at the same time discovering them.


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Friday Night Date Place – No Kids?

Last week’s Friday Night Date Place on meeting the kids got me thinking about the reverse scenario. The situation I’m talking about is the single person who finds themselves creeping up in age and the prospect of finding a partner and having a child of their own seems to be fading with each successive birthday. They hear their friends, hear the words of their families, and hear the (however unintended) message of the church and come to the conclusion that they are not fulfilled unless they are married with children. What have we been telling these folks and what should we be telling them?

There are several reasons why most folks are single:
1. Choice – some folks choose to be single.
2. Time of life – there are times when folks are more focused on getting through school, climbing in their careers, or are simply pursuing other interests such that it is not the right time to “settle down.”
3. Socially inept/clueless - I’m not going to lie, some folks haven’t quite figured out how to make connections with others (though, frankly, some of those people still end up married, they’ve just found someone to put up with them)
4. Just hasn’t happened. Try as hard and desire it as much as they want, marriage, much less kids, simply hasn’t happened for them.

Now, is the right message we are to be sending them that they have somehow fallen out of God’s will by remaining single?

There are two mindsets at work here: 1) we act like marriage is a trade up when it’s a trade over, a lateral move of equal value; and 2) we, as a church, have placed family on an altar as if sustaining the family is the be all of Christian living. All of this means we will have to examine what it means to be fully human.

We’re called to join in God’s mission, whether doing it on our own (as singles) or as a team (if married). I know, no one buys the whole “Jesus and Paul were single” argument (though, Paul might have been married at one point). Focus on the Family of God needs to be lived out more deeply instead of worshiping the idea of family. (If I was the cynical type, I’d note that the emphasis on families might have something to do with the fact that families, giving units, are where the money is.)

So we as a culture have set marriage and kids as the be all of existence, setting folks up to believe that it’s our destiny as humans. Somehow you’re not fulfilling your role as human being if you’re not reaching those goals (it doesn’t matter how much you would like it to happen, but it hasn’t ). You know what? Some folks may need to be reminded to cling to their faith that God loves them and is for them (God’s will is not out of whack. If all you do is work and go home, God isn’t going to materialize a partner for you. Your choices and decisions matter, so be for Him in all that you do, after that, it’s on you).

I’m not going to lie, I like seeing myself in my children. Now that I have them, they are my primary ministry. I still have responsibilities to do kingdom work and if I’m being honest with myself, marriage and kids pulls me from that. Time is one of the trade-offs when I went from being single to being married. We need to cling to the true purpose and mission of life: to be fully human is to be fully loving and be in community. When Romans 14-15 talks about living out the Christian life, it’s not about making babies. The bigger point is that we’re co-creators with Him, joined in a mission or reconciliation. We’re all called to be fully human, but that’s an edict that isn’t solely fulfilled by being married and having kids. For many, there is an emptiness and longing for something that hasn’t happened. We don’t know how to speak to that void (and most times, we’d be better off not saying anything). We do them a great disservice by treating (and telling) them as if they are less than human otherwise.


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