Commonly you can go to churches and they will put children and young people who attend into one of two categories: ‘our church children’ and ‘those unchurched young people’ (I have added the negative slant purposely). We use these phrases often without thinking and often without knowing what we are actually saying. How we might be drawing wrong conclusions of how we interact with both sets of groups.
Let’s look at the first group, ‘our church children’ (and young people). What we mean by this, is most commonly the children and young people of adults who attend our church. This will of course presume they come to the services more often than not and the parents are established within the congregation, giving financially and are to be considered model Christians. If the parents fit this mould, then their children can be considered to be church children. If they don’t, then the child is to be considered as unchurched or outside of the congregation. There will be of course exceptions to this as some congregations adopt a child into being a church child, when they have been attending for a number of years and are very much part of the furniture, because they have made a commitment and may have even been baptised or confirmed. So what’s wrong with that? You might say that showing them that they belong to the wider church family is a good thing and needs to be applauded. Indeed, if children need affirmation that they are regarded as part of a group, that will encourage them and will help them to be nurtured and discipled into their own faith. All good, unless that is, we use the phrase unchurched or non church children (and young people). We suddenly assume something about their parents and their own personal walk with God. Let’s use an example.
Mark has been attending church with his parents and his older brother and sister for as long as he has known. He’s 15 years old. His father and mother host a home group. His sister plays the clarinet in the music group. His older brother has started to drive and goes off with his friends to a large monthly worship event. Everyone speaks quite highly of his family, being a great asset to the congregation, doing so much. People within the congregation assume he has a faith, but he doesn’t believe like the rest of his family. To be respectful to his family, he goes along with it all. His plan is to slip out of the back door as slowly as possible without alerting people’s attention to it. He hates the label of being a church young person, just because of what his parents believe. Have we delegated responsibility of this young person’s faith to them just because of who his parents are or what his siblings do? Have we assumed that it is purely the responsibility of parents to raise their child to make a decision to follow Christ?
To look at this differently, if a child who comes into our field of responsibility was treated as an individual without being labelled or any assumptions made about them, might we work harder to encourage them, to assist them in their doubts and allow them to explore as they wish. This can work in the reverse way also, that children and young people can think because they are church children, they are exempt from all responsibility to be a Christian, they have inherited their faith and that will sustain them. This leaves them free to make choices that are unwise and opposite to the way God designed life to be.
Our second group are those unchurched children (and young people). Here we, in the church are on overdrive in assuming anything and everything. The parents are divorced, there are no morals in the home, discipline is a problem, they are on benefits, the child has been involved in petty theft, they carry spray cans and they don’t know how to behave or respect other people’s property (I over emphasis for effect). Normally this group will not be attending Sunday services regularly. This group fall into our ‘outreach’ work, after school clubs, youth groups, holiday clubs, camps, messy church and anything else where you might not consider to get your ‘meat’. (I will be looking further at Sunday or midweek attendance in a later article). We have a group that have little or no background of God, the Bible or our traditions. We work hard with this group saying that maybe one day, in years to come, something we said might resonate and they will come to faith. We expect that at best we install good morals into their lives, hoping that they will be good citizens, who stop to help old ladies across the road. Even if one does make a profession of faith, it is not quite the same as one of ‘our own’ making a profession, believing that they will soon fall back into their old ways, having pressure from their home and social environment. The problem we have with labelling a child or young person as ‘unchurched’, is that we have negativity breathing down upon us and far too many assumptions running around our head, to actually do something positive or proactive. Again, if we leave this label behind as we did with ‘our church child’, we will see them in a totally different light.
Losing the labels, you have a child or young person whom you now have contact with, they are an individual who is the apple of God’s eye, whom He formed and created and knew before they were even conceived. That God has a plan for them and you have a privilege to be part of their journey. Your ministry and gifting is to help, encourage and assist them in their own personal faith exploration. We call this discipleship. By losing the labels that we put upon children’s heads, I believe, gives them the respect, affirmation and nourishment that they need.
jonathankear 