snippets from a book: nurturing through ritual

Back in 2009, right after graduating, I presented a paper with my professor and two classmates at the Children's Spirituality Conference: Christian Perspectives.They turned some of those presentations, including ours, into chapters for this book.

The book is called Understanding Children's Spirituality: Theology, Research, and Practice. If you are interested in all of that, read the book. Otherwise, let me just share with you a few things from our chapter. Today I'll tell you about how parents can use everyday and special "rituals" to nurture their child's faith.

Some rituals are already established-- a morning or bedtime routine, or certain traditions during the holidays. The familiarity in the routine provide a sense of  safety for children, but as parents, you might want to capitalize on that even more. For example, in making the most of a current routine, or establishing a new ritual, you might:

• Include prayer to your morning or bedtime routine--or if you already pray, focus on a specific posture of prayer such as opening your hands before God or kneeling before Him.
• Light a candle when you read scripture together as a family.
• Sing a certain song, or pray a certain prayer before your meals
• Establish a family mantra that you can repeat as a greeting or good-bye.
• Talk about why you make a big deal out of certain holiday celebrations (and why you make a special effort to get to church on some of those holidays).

We also noted that "as ordinary and mundane as it seems, going to church as a family is mentioned repeatedly by teens and adults who have maintained their Christian faith, as a family ritual that critically informed and shaped their spiritual journeys."

Why think about all this? "So that religion is not confined to a place of worship or a day of the week." It is a way of life. And it is a way of life that constantly reminds you Who you believe in and follow.

snippets from a book part 1: nurturing wonder

Something pretty cool happened a couple of weeks ago.

Back in 2009, right after graduating, I presented a paper with my professor and two classmates at the Children's Spirituality Conference: Christian Perspectives.They turned some of those presentations, including ours, into chapters for this book.

The book is called Understanding Children's Spirituality: Theology, Research, and Practice. If you are interested in all of that, read the book. Otherwise, let me just share with you a few things from our chapter. Today I'll tell you about how (I believe) nurturing a child's sense of wonder is good for his faith.

We spent a lot of time attempting to define the big term for the conference "Children's Spirituality." (What is that, anyway?)  My definition went something like this: "Children's spirituality is the ability children have to sense and explore a relationship with God, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and with oneself, others, and the world, as nurtured by a sense of wonder and an identity within the believing community."

The self-others-world-God thing is what we agreed on as spirituality...
the triune God stuff was what we agreed on as making it Christian spirituality...

The sense of wonder was my distinguisher for children's spirituality.

We didn't say much about that in our paper, but for me, a child's sense of wonder (and amazement) is a beautiful thing. I think God uses that to speak to their hearts early on. I know I'd like to recapture a child-like sense of wonder, where the everyday little miracles in life never cease to amaze me and my God is as big as he says he is.

Parents, marvel with your children at God's amazing creation-- from the solar system to the circulatory system. Learn from their sincere faith and encourage their questions. Read the Bible together and listen as if you are hearing it for the first time; see what your kids might pick up on that you overlook. Pray together, reminding each other that you are speaking to the living, loving, all-powerful God-- what do you think he looks like as he listens to you? What do you think he's thinking/feeling as you pray.

Of course, we want to provide our kids with a good theological framework for thinking about and knowing God. Sometimes a kid's ideas about God may be totally outside that framework. But what I love about kids is that they do have the thoughts and they do ask the questions, whereas adults often think we know what we know and we know there are some things we can't know and so we set our thoughts and questions aside and just keep on living. My encouragement to you is to let your kids pause and wonder about God and be amazed by him. Pause with them; see what you learn.

Easter Pictures, Anyone?

I did have one unhurried moment on Easter Sunday, and with it I took this picture. After this I set my camera down and had my hands full of other things. But parents are really talented and can hold bulletins, and babies, AND cameras in their hands all at the same time. So if you would like, we would LOVE for you to share your Easter pictures with us.

Maybe you have video too? You can share that as well.

Especially if you are willing to share pictures and videos that we could use on the church website (because there is a new one launching soon!), the church facebook page, and/or this here blog, don't hesitate to send them along.

Email them to Jill or to communications (@nationalpres.org).