Someone asked this today: ” At what age do you believe children should be participants in the morning worship service? Our church is exploring options for extended session and are thinking through the theology on this as well as researching what other churches are doing.

I feel that there needs to be some kind of transition period where children are taught about worship experientially . . . . Thoughts?”

My response: Good question, and an important one. Here are some comments for pondering:

I think you’re starting at the right place, asking, “What’s our theology about this?” You should also consider developmental issues along with your theology of children, church, and worship.

Depending on the size of the church and the culture of the church, five-year-olds can handle “adult” worship. (MOST ethnic congregations do NOT take their children—of whatever age—out of the “adult” (read: community) worship experience. Are anglo children too stupid to do the same?).

First graders (around 6 or 7 years old) are emerging “readers”. They can handle the adult worship service, especially if the church accomodates them, and if parents take responsibility for teaching and modeling worship. (Some kindergarteners are emerging readers if they go to a good school system. But regardless, five-year-olds’ greatest need is “socialization” into the larger world. What better place for that than communal worship?).

Most churches take transition and rites-of-passage events (if they have any) from outside sources, like the school system. There are some pragmatic advantages to this, but often no theological ones. So, one option is to help your children make the transition into adult (community) worship halfway through their first grade year. This seems natural in many ways: their reading skills have developed by then, and the school’s “Spring break” can be re-claimed as the church’s “Easter break”. Older children (I HOPE OLDER!) are making a transition during that time through catechism and baptisms, why not a transition for the younger children? Wouldn’t it be neat for a family to mark the nodal events provided by these rites in their family? The older child getting baptized (the issue of the age for that is a topic for another discussion) and a passage into “community worship” for the younger one?

I like your emphasis on learning this “experientially.” As you know, “you learn to do what you do and not something else.” In this case, that thought suggest that while there may be some vaule in providing “pretend worship” for children, they will never REALLY learn to worship untill they participate fully in the community corporate worship experience. (That’s the reason I think attenpts to provide adolescents with “their own” worship service apart from the corporate worship is misguided. “What’s the theology behind that?”).

10-year-olds make excellent acolytes and can participate in being “worship leaders” in meaningful and significant ways—-with intentional and informed training.

I think there’s a handout on the CD I shared with the GRACE group, the “Teaching Handouts” CD, that contains teaching points to introducing young children to adult worship.

Any thoughts from other GRACE members?

I continue to be convinced at the importance of style and design, including the aesthetic, for communication, but especially for education. And I�m distressed at how little we, as Christian educators pay attention to it. The significance of style and design to learning is an area few of use studied in our formal educational training. So, unless we have a propensity toward the artistic or taken an art history or design course, it�s unlikely we�ll bring those into our ways of teaching or designing curriculum.

I think design and style is an important resource for communicating everything from the mundane sublime to the divine. Here’s one mundane example: today my wife is spending a staff retreat day off-campus from her work (one of those team-building visioning things). I�d been the retreat facility where her meetings will be so warned her about the experience I had there recently in trying to get into the place. I got to the center and the door was locked. So I’m looking around and finally spot a BIG white intercom box with a button on it. So, I press the button. All I hear is a phone ring somewhere, but nothing else.

I push the button again. Same thing. I look around.

I look down and notice a small printed paper sign (a note, really) with LOTS of words taped to the door jamb BELOW the big intercom box. It’s trying to EXPLAIN to me a procedure for how to get in the building (it�s about four paragraphs long in tiny letters). Too many small words on a little piece of paper translates in my brain as “push the button to get in.”

So, I push the button on the intercom again. A phone rings, I’m still standing outside not getting it.

So, now, I’m frustrated and look again at the note and READ all the words. I note that it says to ring the doorbell first before using the intercom. ONLY THEN do I notice that right BELOW the white piece of paper with lots-of-words-on-it is a small black button (practically invisible against the dark doorjamb). I assume that the little black button must be the doorbell.

So, on my third attempt to get in the door I ring the doorbell and sure enough, someone comes out from the kitchen and opens the door.

SOLUTION: a small sign, BELOW the doorbell button, with a red arrow pointing to the doorbell button that reads, “PRESS HERE FIRST”.

MORAL: Paying attention to design and style is important. Assume nothing. KISS. What is obvious to you is not obvious to others. Provide people with the information they need where they need to find it.

My friend in the doctoral program wrote and said….

< <...I have been thinking about [a world view] for a while. I know that in the past, for a long time, my world view was based on my Evangelical upbringing. I am aware when that stopped working for me but since I have struggled with finding something to replace it with. How does one go about building a world view? I know for myself I have some criteria that I use to discern in some areas but is lacking in judging ideas. Talk to me some more about this....>>

My response to him was, “I suspect in a way we all have a world view, though often we are unaware of it. Most worldviews tend to be parochial and naive–and yet seem to serve most people well. But then, as Thoreau said, most people live lives of quiet desperation, and as Socrates hinted, most people live unexamined lives.

Our world view is unlikely to change unless there is a cause. Often that cause is an educational process (a good educational process–some educational processes are intended to merely reinforce belief or to supress critical thinking); or an experience that shakes our uncritical and previously unquestioned assumptions. I suspect that the educational experience most people get is not designed to challenge their world view (classical education is dead, some claim), and most of us avoid any experience that challenges our comfort zone or beliefs.

There’s nothing wrong with an evangelical worldview, per se. But I admit that often I find expressions of that stance narrow and too rigid. Most of them that I read tend toward the propositional and apologetic. I suspect that religious worldviews often are closely tied into one’s faith development (see Fowler’s Stages of Faith) and to one’s cultural context.

One way to think about the concept of worldview is from an epistemological standpoint. Meaning, it is a way we answer fundamental questions about what is Truth, what is true, and how do we know? World views also give us perspective–but an informed world view has the capacity to address its own egocentrism and address its own prejudices. A world view also informs our onotology: what is the purpose of life, and our axiology: what is right? what is moral?

I just had a conversation yesterday with my college son, whose academic college education in the sciences and technology leaves much to be desired by way of exposure to the classics. He parroted the notions of the current anthropological concept of “cultural equivalence”, which says (sort of) that in terms of cultures, one is no better than the other, they are “just different.” As an exercise I took debate with him on that popular notion, saying that some cultures indeed ARE better than others. I did that being aware that he probably is being inculcated with a relativist worldview in his college experience. Like most persons his age, he is able to tell you WHAT he (thinks) he belives, but not WHY.

A world view helps us know WHY we believe what we do.

A friend of mine has just completed his first semester of a Ph.D. program. He shared feelings of insecurity and self-doubt as he observed his stuggles with seminar discussions and after getting back his first seminar paper. He asked, “Is this a normal feeling? Am I really that behind educationally and need to catch up some how?”

This was my response:

Sounds pretty normal to me, R____. You are engaging in an enterprise that is challenging you. Therefore, it’s not surprising that you are becoming aware of the lacuna in your knowledge and experience. But that awareness is the first step.

Whenever be begin an enterprise like the one you’re engaged in, we all enter as “novice.” Some are more “novice” than others, but you’re all at the same level–believe me. Your job, if you chose to accept it, is to to the hard, disciplined work to move from novice to expert. When you get to the expert stage, they’ll give you a diploma that says so.

I’m going to take a risk here and predict that by the middle of your second year you’ll be able to discern that all those peers who now seem to know so much about what they talk about are really just full of hot air. They likely “know” stuff, but don’t know what it means, what to think about it, how to integrat it, how to use it, how to discern what’s important from what is not important, and whatever they know is merely something that somebody ELSE has said. In other words, they may “know” some stuff, but they’re not “educated” yet. That’s what your goal is: to cultivate understanding, not merely to know stuff.

Yes, what you describe is one aspect of it. It is a form of apprenticeship in the academic dimensions of the field. Later, depending on the context, you’ll continue the apprenticeship in other pragmatic dimensions of your field and if you’re lucky, you’ll also experience some mentoring (NOTE: apprenticeship and mentoring are not the same thing).

In that context, here’s a truth that often is lost on the young: in order to be educated, you need to not only be familiar with Tradition (capital T, the tradition of your field), but also develop an appreciation for it and give it its rightful recognition. This is true even of iconoclasts and visionaries. You cannot be educated and ignorant of the past at the same time. You cannot be educated fueled by your own hubris. Therefore, education means study.

Other aspects of acquiring “education” includes developing a framework for conceptualizing. Some call this a “world view” some call is a “philosophy.” This is what gives you the ability for discernment–how to distinguish a good idea from a bad, or a worthy idea from one you can dismiss. Observing and emulating people who are in your field is also a part of the “education” process (modeling). Who are the best people in your field? How do they live? Communicate? What are they engaged in? What circles do they travel? How to they go about their work? Who were THEIR mentors and models?

Hang in there, this is just the beginning of this leg of the journey.

Thanks, Jon, for setting up this blog for our group. I hope it will be a rich resource for discussion and resources for our group and for others.

Today provided an intersection about two issues that have come up in readings and conversations in the past several months. The first issue is one we tossed around in our last GRACE group meeting, and that is about Christian education staff in congregations. Specifically, the apparent shrinking number of staff persons in congregations whose primary responsibility is that of “resident educator.” We mentioned some possible reasons for that, including the practice of congregations in “growing their own” program leaders from within the congregation.

I’m not sure whether or not there actually is a shrinking number of congregational educators in the professional field of “Christian education,” or if there indeed is a trend here. Does anyone have a source of data for this?

The second intersecting issue is about conversations related to the viability of the “classic M.Div. degree” as a significant factor for the professional preparation of congregational clergy, pastors, and staff. This issue impacts not only the kinds of staff congregations will have, but also may hold some implications for the viability of classical theological education.

Any thoughts on either or both of these issues from the group members?

Due to unforeseen problems with the PhP code, we cannot create a link in the css to provide you a means to become a member. However, if you click here you should be able to create an account.

If you are unable to do so through the above link, please email: jon@jmesser.net to request an account. Please provide your name, username you would like and the email address you would like to use.

Thank you for your help with this matter!

This blog was created to allow Christian educators to discuss, debate and argue about the foundations of being a Christian educator in religious life today. This blog has multiple authors who will weigh-in on an issue of their choosing. Your comments are encouraged and welcomed.

For more information about the GRACE group, please visit www.grace-ed.org!