I haven't posted anything over the last week because this topic is quite a big one for me and it recently cropped up again for me but I wasn't sure how to go about writing my thoughts on the matter.
I say it cropped up again because children and church has been a continuous theme throughout my life in one way or another. I became a Christian when I was four. I say that because that was when I made a decision myself although my parents had always taken me to church from when I was born. Since then I feel like I have always had to fight for a child's rights in church. Initially it was my own. People didn't believe me when I said I became a Christian when I was four. They thought that I didn't understand what I was saying and a number of times this simple statement of mine was questioned to the point of one sunday school leader calling me a lier. Fot me it really was simple. The Bible said this is how it is and this is what I must do so that is what I wanted to do. When I wanted to get baptised this was also questioned as once again the adults around me found it hard to believe that I knew what I was talking about. I never understood what the problem was, it wasn't me making it so complicated. Had I waited until I was a teenager before I made any commitment, I wouldn't have. It still is that simple. I know that, and so it makes me really angry when children are not taken seriously in church. I now live a life where I am unable to seperate my faith from who I am. This week someone asked me if my faith helped me through something and I had to say that I didn't know because me and my faith are the same thing. I have listened to many testimonies over the years and many people talk in sermons too about remembering what you were like before you were a Christian. I can't do that and it always makes me feel like my testimony is not as good as someone elses because I can't make a direct comparison.
Well now I am in a position where I remember being a child in church and now I have children in church and sadly not much has changed. I am constantly being asked to make a choice between bringing my children and not bringing them. Not openly necessarily, but in the background there are always the people who would rather have children in church who always sit still and quiet. I believe that even now my faith is childlike and therefore I do see some things as being more simple than other people make them.
Today in creche I was teaching my children about God loving them and welcoming them and also about how Jesus said they should come to him. We are ALL children of God and the Bible talks about God wanting us to have a childlike faith. Therefore in my eyes it is the children who should be teaching the adults, not taken away and hidden. During worship and also in some sermons there seems to be a regular theme about having a childlike faith and wanting to be closer to God, free in Christ and yet rather than looking at the children in church for the example to follow, the children's faith is squashed and moulded into a replica of the adult's faith. Cold, complicated and unreal. My son is free. He is totally free. In church he is as free as he is in the park. I watch my son and for me, he is showing me how I should be in church. Forget chairs and waving arms about with feet set in concrete, we should all be running and laughing and jumping and spinning in circles. We should be collapsing on the floor from exhaustion, giggling into hysterics. So rather than trying to tame the untamable, we should all be untamable.
Many people have images in their head of people sitting round Jesus' feet listening to the wise things he was saying, but think about it: Do you really think that in reality children were sitting listening intently to what Jesus said? If you do I think you're incredibly naive. I imagine Jesus sitting surrounded by adults trying to listen above the noise of the children running around playing games and climbing in and out of Jesus' lap, fighting each other and being shhed, not because they should be shut up but because back in the day there were no mics.
If children don't feel welcome when they come to church, they won't come when they get a choice about coming. I shouldn't need to fight all the time for my children to be taught or for their right to be children. I shouldn't need to teach creche or sunday school but I do. Because I am now in the second church in two years where until I've forced people into doing something, nothing is done. I would love it if my children grew up, unable to seperate their faith from themselves but I know it isn't going to happen if I wait to teach them. They need to be taught now and they need to be welcomed into church, the same as everyone else. They have just as much right as anyone else to be there, possibly more.
I say it cropped up again because children and church has been a continuous theme throughout my life in one way or another. I became a Christian when I was four. I say that because that was when I made a decision myself although my parents had always taken me to church from when I was born. Since then I feel like I have always had to fight for a child's rights in church. Initially it was my own. People didn't believe me when I said I became a Christian when I was four. They thought that I didn't understand what I was saying and a number of times this simple statement of mine was questioned to the point of one sunday school leader calling me a lier. Fot me it really was simple. The Bible said this is how it is and this is what I must do so that is what I wanted to do. When I wanted to get baptised this was also questioned as once again the adults around me found it hard to believe that I knew what I was talking about. I never understood what the problem was, it wasn't me making it so complicated. Had I waited until I was a teenager before I made any commitment, I wouldn't have. It still is that simple. I know that, and so it makes me really angry when children are not taken seriously in church. I now live a life where I am unable to seperate my faith from who I am. This week someone asked me if my faith helped me through something and I had to say that I didn't know because me and my faith are the same thing. I have listened to many testimonies over the years and many people talk in sermons too about remembering what you were like before you were a Christian. I can't do that and it always makes me feel like my testimony is not as good as someone elses because I can't make a direct comparison.
Well now I am in a position where I remember being a child in church and now I have children in church and sadly not much has changed. I am constantly being asked to make a choice between bringing my children and not bringing them. Not openly necessarily, but in the background there are always the people who would rather have children in church who always sit still and quiet. I believe that even now my faith is childlike and therefore I do see some things as being more simple than other people make them.
Today in creche I was teaching my children about God loving them and welcoming them and also about how Jesus said they should come to him. We are ALL children of God and the Bible talks about God wanting us to have a childlike faith. Therefore in my eyes it is the children who should be teaching the adults, not taken away and hidden. During worship and also in some sermons there seems to be a regular theme about having a childlike faith and wanting to be closer to God, free in Christ and yet rather than looking at the children in church for the example to follow, the children's faith is squashed and moulded into a replica of the adult's faith. Cold, complicated and unreal. My son is free. He is totally free. In church he is as free as he is in the park. I watch my son and for me, he is showing me how I should be in church. Forget chairs and waving arms about with feet set in concrete, we should all be running and laughing and jumping and spinning in circles. We should be collapsing on the floor from exhaustion, giggling into hysterics. So rather than trying to tame the untamable, we should all be untamable.
Many people have images in their head of people sitting round Jesus' feet listening to the wise things he was saying, but think about it: Do you really think that in reality children were sitting listening intently to what Jesus said? If you do I think you're incredibly naive. I imagine Jesus sitting surrounded by adults trying to listen above the noise of the children running around playing games and climbing in and out of Jesus' lap, fighting each other and being shhed, not because they should be shut up but because back in the day there were no mics.
If children don't feel welcome when they come to church, they won't come when they get a choice about coming. I shouldn't need to fight all the time for my children to be taught or for their right to be children. I shouldn't need to teach creche or sunday school but I do. Because I am now in the second church in two years where until I've forced people into doing something, nothing is done. I would love it if my children grew up, unable to seperate their faith from themselves but I know it isn't going to happen if I wait to teach them. They need to be taught now and they need to be welcomed into church, the same as everyone else. They have just as much right as anyone else to be there, possibly more.
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