Recently, I was sitting on the couch in my living room with my seven-year-old, helping him wade through his little to-do list, like every evening. I will admit that I can do a poor job hiding the fact that I have barely enough patience to knock out my adult task list, let alone nudge/guide/drag my kids through their own; but there I was, faking positivity and half-zoned out as we barreled through his evening work. We were wrapping up the last one, running through this memory verse:
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the Law? How do you read it?' And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.'”
Luke 10: 25-28
He did a decent job with it, needing a few prompts along the way. I was seeing the finish line looming where I could release my squirmy son from the couch and maybe get a few minutes to scroll my phone before I started dinner. So close. Almost done…
“Is that true?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Is that true? Will people not die if they believe in Jesus?”
In characteristic Miles-fashion, this pivot from goofing off to considering the weight of his mortality was made as seamlessly as if he had just asked what’s for dinner. And in characteristic me-fashion, I was struggling to keep up with him.
What followed felt like a very messy review of the promise of salvation, the weight of death, and the gift of eternal life. It ended with his sobering confession of being confused about it all before a distraction stole his attention and he jumped off the couch laughing to go mess with his baby brother. He was gone.
I sat there, staring after him, still a bit stunned. I ran the conversation over and over in my head and wondered what I should have said. I feel this way a lot around children, to be honest. Their goofiness and preoccupation with the moment can deceive me so quickly into thinking that they are not engaging with matters of the eternal. But when I get glimpses into the inner workings of their souls, I’m in awe. They are much less likely to compartmentalize their faith like you and I are prone to do, jumping back and forth between the “sacred” and the “secular.” The spiritual world is not something so easily boxed up for kids.
Over the past few years of ministry, I’ve heard a common refrain from adults in our congregation who are new to the practices of our church, either Anglicanism or Christianity altogether, that they feel a reluctance to fully engage in what Redeemer is up to that season. They want to spend some time observing before they try out a new practice or attend a new kind of service. Perhaps more honestly worded, they want to gain more information before they run the risk of not being good at something new. What naturally flows downstream of this hesitation is that they wait to bring kids into a spiritual practice until they are able to articulate their decision well.
The problem is that spirituality is not a quantifiable skill. Rather, it’s a practice in partnership with the Holy Spirit where we submit our growth—and measure of success—to the Lord. Spirituality is not something we have to instill in children, it’s already there! In Matthew 18:2-4, Jesus calls us to be like little children to enter into the kingdom of heaven and to humble ourselves like a child in order to be great in his kingdom. Not only do we not have to be experts to lead children, but we have something to learn from them on the journey. There is value for everyone when the kids come, too.
As our parish is on the cusp of entering the season of Lent and Easter together, I want to urge both the volunteers in children’s ministry and my fellow parents at Redeemer to not only lean into the practices of the church seasons, but to let the kids come along with you. It’s okay if they aren’t being “serious enough” or you are afraid to use words or concepts they don’t know. This is a journey we are all on together, so take them along too. At your Shrove Tuesday feast, talk to them about fasting and confession, then try it out together the next day. Sit with them in an Ash Wednesday service and don’t shy away from questions about death. Pray with them to teach them how to give their questions to God, the trivial and the weighty alike. When Holy Week comes around, bring them to look at the Stations of the Cross artwork with you, to wash one another’s feet on Maundy Thursday, and to reverence the cross on Good Friday. Let them sit in the sober darkness of that week with you and don't try to hustle them through the discomfort too quickly. It will be tempting to soften this story for little ears, to play down the violence of the cross and the grief of the tomb; but I encourage you to speak words of life straight from Scripture and answer any questions with honesty and humility as you’re able. The pure joy of the resurrection is most vivid in the context of the horror that proceeded it, and I speak from first-hand experience that children are not only able to bear the weight of the full story, by the power of God, but crave it desperately. Then, when Easter finally arrives, teach them to rejoice! Show them that even when life isn’t easy or we aren’t in the mood for it right now, we rejoice anyway because this is something so much bigger than us. We rejoice as an act of defiance, even, in our broken world. We rejoice together because what Jesus did and is doing is so, so much bigger than us and our lives are more significant when they disappear into that Story.
I have seasons with my own sons when they ask questions about death, life, and God for which I have no answer. We have combed the Scriptures together and don’t find any easy answers, so we have to pray together and allow the mysteries to sit. We are still sitting together in those mysteries and probably will be until we are all together in His kingdom one day. We are all stumbling to the cross with our messy lives in hand this year, asking Him to carry our burdens and to give our struggles meaning.
Let the kids come, too.
Casey Cisco
Director of Redeemer Kids
