Families and Children

St. Mark’s Children’s Spirituality Center

What is going on down there in room 13 anyway?

The Christian Education Committee is at it again…thinking and providing for the children of St. Mark’s.

There are two basic approaches to Christian education for children -- informational and formational. With the informational approach we teach children about God in hopes that they will develop a relationship with God. In the formational approach we nurture the relationship that children have with God, preparing them to take in the information from the Bible and the traditions of the church. Both approaches are important in a child's life.

Children are spiritual beings who come to us as gifts from God. They have an innate connection with God through their vulnerability and openness, their acceptance of mystery, and their natural propensity for awe. They readily recognize God's presence all around them. In our zeal to teach children about the Bible and the doctrines of the church, we have sometimes neglected nurturing their innate spiritual capacities.
The Christian Education Committee has recognized this need to help our children learn and experience spiritual practices that will lead them into a deeper awareness of God's presence in their lives. As a result, we have decided to create a “Children’s Spirituality Center.”

Six core beliefs about children and their spirituality have guided our decision to create this Center and to be intentional about the formational education of our children:

1. Children have an innate connection to God. All children come from God, and God's Spirit is breathed into them at birth. As human beings, they are created in the image of God to be in relationship with God. As they live, learn, love, and experience, they seek meaning in their lives and in the wider world; they seek to develop fully into the beings God created them to be. We affirm that God is the source of our being, our meaning, and our loving.

2. Children have a natural openness to mystery. Because their imaginations are rich and fertile, they do not have to know all the answers. They are comfortable living in the "in-between." Our culture puts an inordinate emphasis on reasoning and knowing "the Truth"; having the right answers is powerful and is rewarded. Yet right answers often lead to our own control and not to faith in God. We want to encourage the space and place for not knowing, for living into mystery, which is the foundation for reliance on God and faith.

3. Children have an amazing capacity for awe. This capacity for awe is connected to their openness to mystery, their zest for reaching their potential, and their rich imaginations. Awe leads to a life of prayer. Awe inclines us to be present in and to the mystery of God.

4. Children are receivers. They have no difficulty expressing their needs and accepting their dependency. They can easily surrender their self-sufficiencies and allow themselves to be served. Prayer is opening ourselves to receive God's nourishment of restoring, healing, loving, and changing us. Receptivity is vital to prayer, and children are natural receivers.

5. Children love what is real. Often their favorite stories were the real ones about what their family members did when they were children. Their favorite toys were real kitchen utensils, hammers, and garden spades-not the plastic ones from the toy store. Spiritual practices are real, authentic, and lifelong because God is real and our lives are real. Children know this.

6. Children are wonderfully humble. What you see in them is what you get! They haven't yet put on the masks of cultural niceties and rationalizations. Our society encourages mask-wearing, with expectations to conform and with concerns for being good, often fueled by our desires for success. Some of this is necessary. Yet children need to know and accept themselves, to know that God loves them just as they are. Humility is nurtured through this self-acceptance, understanding, and affirmation. *

The Children’s Spirituality Center will focus on the spiritual formation of our children. It will be in a designated room (13) that will be used primarily on Sunday mornings after the children leave the worship service to continue worshipping in the classroom. There will be time for them to connect as a community and hear the day’s scripture focus. They will then be invited to go to reflective station(s) and engage in personal reflective activity. These stations include gazing, reflecting on world events, contemplating at a sand table, making art, journaling, and reading. They will be encouraged to work in silence, focusing on prayer, listening to God, and listening to themselves. Engagement in reflection stations provides the opportunity for “inner formation.” When this time of reflection ends they will gather once again to share their thoughts or work and be led in a closing blessing.

If you are interested in being part of the creation of this Center please contact Kathy Porter for more information of what is needed.

*Six points adapted from Wynn McGregor in The Way of the Child: Helping Children Experience God