When last we spoke we were discussing what we should be doing in response to the survery of children who attend our churches that we carried out as part of the planning for Capital Vision 2020. When we asked children what was good and bad about church two words came up again and again; in the positive column ‘biscuits’ won the day but the most used negative word was ‘boring’. In fact, boring was used more than any other word in the whole survey!

An easy response to this is to think that children need to be protected from the dullness of church and whisked away into their own groups to be entertained and educated in age appropriate ways. However I’m not convinced that’s the answer so in this half of the piece we look at what the opposite to this boredom in church might be. [Read more...]

Easter somehow seems like a good time to face this, and it’s something that most of us who work with children are already aware of but still let’s say it and name our issue; most children who go to our churches think it’s boring. In fact when we carried out a survey looking for the views of children who go to churches in our Diocese boring was the word that was used the most, just for the record biscuits came second and was the most used positive word!

So am I about to write a blog where I advance a theory as to how many biscuits a child must consume to in order to compensate them for how boring church is? Could we imagine that two biscuits would compensate for a botched all-age talk whereas a bucket of chocolate biscuits would be required for continued readings from the book of Lamentations? This of course assumes that any amount of biscuits could compensate us for having to listen to Lamentations. However, the opposite of being bored is not eating biscuits and the problem of bored children won’t go away with if that’s our solution.

So what is the opposite to boring? This week I’m going to suggest some things that it isn’t and next time we’ll look at what it is.

The opposite to boring isn’t entertainment.

One of my great bug-bears in the world of children’s ministry is how the initiatives that are seen as ‘flagship’ programs are trying to solve the boredom problem with entertainment and fun. However, by doing that they are generating a group of young Christians who are passive consumers of church and who are expect everything to fit to their needs.

The opposite of boring isn’t separate services.

Children need to be part of a wider worshiping community where they get to worship and share life with adults. They need to be surrounded by role models who can show them what faith looks like by their actions and to see what it means to be an adult Christian. They need to share in the rituals of this community and find their own sense of belonging to this wider group. Running an entirely separate program may hide children from the boring bits of church but it also teaches them that church is something that is boring and not for them.

The opposite of boring isn’t pace.

Bored children will misbehave and so one solution to this is to ensure that our programs rattle along without a gap for any potential problems to occur, problem solved. Well yes but; where is the space for a child to think, pray, reflect, find God in stillness or just take a break from the busyness of life?

Be honest – which of these has happened at your church?

1. Parents dragging screaming toddlers from the sanctuary.
2. Children told to stop “bothering” the grown-ups when they are asking a question or making a comment about what’s happening.
3. Parents coming to church a bit late and sitting at the back, where their children can’t see anything.
4. Parents and children getting the stink-eye from other worshipers.
5. Children told off for touching things in church.

Even in churches that have Sunday School for much of the service, these can be a problem – before and after Sunday School, during All-Age Eucharists, over the summer break, and so on.

The problem is neatly summed up by Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, who writes, “In many churches, there seems to be an unexamined assumption that worship is for grownups and the children are there only because there’s nowhere else to put them – that they are, basically, accidental and unwelcome guests at an adult event.  People then become annoyed at children for ‘interrupting’ something that is “for ME,” not for all of us.  Parents who are trying to be considerate of others will admonish the child for ‘bothering people’ but not intervene in ways that actually help the child join the worship.”

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Yes, a toddler will occasionally throw a screaming tantrum at the quietest part of the service.  That’s inevitable, and it’s important that churches have a place where children can be taken when this happens.  But there are ways, with parents’ help, to eliminate some of these problems entirely, and minimize the rest.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of solutions – that would take at least an entire book.  But here are some ideas to get you started on helping children and parents worship together.  These ideas enhance children’s ability to engage with the service, which in turn cuts down on disruptive behaviour – most of which is due to simple boredom.

One idea is to have a children’s area in the church.  Our “Pray and Play” area at St. George’s has been a lifesaver.  It is situated within sight of the altar, and contains spiritually imaginative toys that connect both to the Christian story and to Christian worship.  Young children who are starting to fuss sitting still in a pew can come to the Pray and Play area, where they will be free to move and play, but still connected to the experience of worship and to the symbols of the Christian faith.  All you need to get started is a rug or quilt, some baskets, and some toys – a Noah’s Ark, a Nativity set, a shepherd and sheep set, a toy church (Playmobil makes one), and some books.  You can also have a small child-size altar with a wooden cross, an unbreakable goblet and plate, and, if you like, candles or an icon or fake flowers.  You can then add to your Pray and Play area as funds and ideas become available.

You can also help children engage with worship by teaching parents to sit where their children can see, and that it’s okay to whisper to them in church.  Carolyn Carter, who writes the “Worshiping With Children” blog, has some fantastic advice on whispering.

“Whispering is good,” she writes, “because it connects children learning to worship with their adults who know how to worship.  Parents can no more worship “beside” their children than they can eat “beside” their children.  Instead they must worship and eat “with” their children coaching them along the way.  During childhood both are team sports and whispering is how the coaches and players communicate in the sanctuary.”

Carter then goes on to describe different types of whispers, including: calling attention to something that is coming up, connecting to something at home, suggestions about things to listen out for, and so on.  The full blog post makes a great handout to parents, and can be found here.

Many churches provide resources for parents and children in the pews.   SPCK’s book Pray, Sing, Worship is a good guide for literate children, and can be included in a bag with some paper and markers so children can draw.  You could also present children with a page showing pictures of different items in your church, and they can see which ones they can spot from their pew.  You can also have a sheet with different phrases from the liturgy in a square table, and children cross them off when they hear them – like bingo.  Younger children can have toys, like a small shepherd and sheep set, or finger puppets of Mary and Joseph (available from Hope Education).  You can also make Liturgy Boxes for parents to bring into the pews with them, or make flags with pictures that show different things we do in worship (pray, sing, listen, shake hands, etc.) and children can wave them at the appropriate times.

None of this is easy.  Parents are busy and it’s not always easy to get them to adapt to the use of new resources.  Many worshipers are set in their ways and will never see children in anything more than a “seen but not heard” light.  But with time and patience, these ideas can make a difference in doing as Jesus said and letting the children come to him.

As a society, we have dozens of rites of passage, some more noticeable than others.  Leaving school, getting married, becoming a parent, retiring – these are obvious and important ones, and I wrote my last column on how the church could be better at celebrating the rite of passage from childhood to adolescence.

But there are many smaller rites of passage in the lives of children and young people, which we could take the opportunity of celebrating.

By marking children’s rites of passage, we send the message that what’s happening in their lives is important to God, and to the church community.  We treat them as members – not members-in-waiting – of the church family, the Body of Christ.

Here are some milestones in the lives of children, and some ideas for celebrating them.

[Read more...]

I was very challenged by something that I heard the other day when I was at a meeting discussing how we could assess a child’s spiritual development. I thinks it’s suffice to say that there wasn’t much agreement in the room. The main spilt was between those who basically said that spirituality is un-measurable as it’s an internal process of ‘meaning making’ and therefore it would be impossible to externally asses and those who felt that spiritual development was linked to a developing Christian maturity and therefore any spiritual development would be revealed in more ‘Christian behaviour’.

My suspicion is that one of the reasons the conversation got so tricky was that what most of us were saying is that we thought that both of these statements were true and all we were really debating was the finer points of nuance between the two positions! I’ve not made this meeting sound amazing have I? [Read more...]