Saturday, August 16, 1997

Children are the church

By LAUREN R. STANLEY

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - "Children," a wise man said recently, "are NOT the future of the church. They ARE the church."

The wise man was preaching to the choir, as it were, to the parents of children who had just spent a week at an Episcopal summer camp in the mountains of western Virginia. He was saying, as forcefully as he knew how, that the church cannot afford to make children wait until they are adults before they are included in the church.

The time to include children is now, he said. Not 10 years from now, when the little ones are all grown up, but NOW.

It was not a new message to me or to most of the parents present at the camp. But somehow, it was the clearest articulation of a message many of us need to hear in the church today.

The children ARE the church.

It was such a powerful message that it seemed to pop up in front of me everywhere I turned in recent weeks, for everywhere I turned, I found the children and youth of the church.

Out in South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, I remembered the message as I worked with a dozen teen-agers rehabilitating houses and building a garage and a playground for the Sioux children.

I remembered it again at Vacation Bible School, that ubiquitous rite of summer so common in Protestant churches, whenever the 100 or so children in attendance erupted in joyful singing or yelled out, "We are beloved children of God!"

And it came to me again as members of the youth group, high school students who were gathered at Rehobeth Beach, Del., for a week of community building in the Christian tradition, spoke about their faith.

Every time I have encountered a child in recent weeks, every time a child has smiled at me at the altar rail during communion, or sung a song at Vacation Bible School, or talked about personal prayer and faith at the beach, I have heard this wise man's words ringing in my ears:

The children ARE the church.

In the New Testament, when children flocked to be near Jesus, the disciples became exasperated, probably because children then, as now, were high-energy creatures who took a lot of energy out of adults. When the disciples reached their limits and demanded that Jesus send the children away, he refused. "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 19:14)

Jesus knew, as did my friend the wise man, that children come to God in innocent and refreshingly honest ways. Children, thank God, do not carry the baggage that we adults carry. The youngest among us do not worry about guilt, or whether they are worthy of being loved by God. They simply love God and expect to be loved in return.

It's only when adults get in the way of a child's faith - when adults teach children that they aren't full members of the church and won't be until they have grown up - that the child loses the innocence and becomes reticent about approaching Jesus.

Yet children are the ones who most often most clearly see Jesus, who most honestly understand what it means to have an uncluttered faith. And with that clear, honest vision, children often have the answers that we, the grown-ups, need to hear, again and again.

As an ordained minister, one of my greatest privileges is to serve communion during the Eucharistic service. And one of my greatest joys is to serve the children, who come to the altar wide-eyed and anxious to receive the Eucharist. More often than not, it is the children who come forward in joy, smiling and laughing, reaching out their small hands to take that which they know is theirs. They KNOW something special is happening, and they know they want it.

And sometimes, if you ask them why they love to come to the altar, they even can provide the answer that so many of us have forgotten, now that we have grown up.

After communion at church recently, a friend of mine asked her 8-year-old daughter, "Why do you think so many people come to church on Sunday mornings and go forward to receive communion?" Without hesitation, her daughter responded: "Because it's a long time between breakfast and lunch."

At first glance, the answer seems ... well, child-like. But that's exactly what we need to hear. Because it IS a long time between breakfast and lunch. We DO go forward to receive the bread and wine for nourishment, because we NEED to be nourished by the body of Christ. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "For to such (as these children) belongs the kingdom of heaven." No games, no guilt, just an honest need to be nourished.

Sometimes, as adults, we forget that simple, basic theology. Sometimes, we need a child to remind us, as grown-ups, what church is all about.

When I hear answers likes that, when I see children smiling in church or singing a hymn with great abandon, or listen to teen-agers speak clearly about their faith, then I know exactly how wise both Jesus and that man at summer camp are.

Children indeed ARE the church. Heaven forbid we ever should forget that.

(The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley, a former assistant news editor for the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, is a deacon at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke, Va. Readers may write to Stanley care of Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, 790 National Press Building, Washington, D.C., 20045.)