Last Saturday (the day before Easter) I took my 3 year old and 5 year old sons to another church's Easter egg hunt. It was just a short walk from our home, so I thought, "what the heck." I figured it would be fun for them, and maybe I would get some ideas for next year. Man alive, what a production! I had to register the kids and we were herded into the sanctuary. While in the sanctuary and cute, but way too long, skit took place. The skit covered the illustration of the empty egg as a symbol for the empty tomb (this is important…I promise). The skit was followed by a very brief gospel presentation. Finally, we were released to our designated area to hunt for eggs.
I discussed the event with my wife later that day. I had picked up a lot of ideas about how to have an effective Easter egg hunt, but I really thought that the skit was too much for my kids. I believed that my kids didn't get anything out of it. Boy was I wrong! Easter morning, in church, our senior pastor called the children forward for the children's message. He used; you guessed it, the empty egg analogy. My oldest son, as if scripted, blurted out "that's too remind us about the empty tomb. Jesus has risen!" That little bugger had retained everything from the skit! I was both proud and disappointed at the same time.
I tell this story to illustrate the point that we often under estimate children. As they get older this can stifle their faith development. For example, many children can begin to think abstractly at the age of ten. Does the content of our Sunday school and children's church lessons take that into consideration? Why is the material we use to teach ten year olds the same as six year olds? Why do we think that we do not need to being teaching the children of our church until they are four?
Of even greater concern, is the insistence that middle school and high school students have the same "black and white," narrow faith that they did as young children. This fear of exploration and growth is exactly the thing that causes a young person to reject their faith when something tragic happened. We have insisted that they put God in such a small box, and if their reality no longer fits in the box than God doesn't work for them. We have done this to them! Does a child have to become an atheist if they explore the possibility of evolution, or the idea that the world is not literally 7,000 years old? I believe that the answer to that question is no. I understand that it's scary non the less.
If the ultimate goal is for young people to become life-long followers of Christ, then they must develop a "Christian Worldview" and an understanding of who God is that is big enough for the trials they will face in the "real world." Stiffling a young person's "faithing," as Steve Argue calls it, is causing the very thing that we are so afraid of. In trying to "protect" children's faith we are actually destroying it. Andrew Root believes that one of the greatest disservices that the church does to young people is to teach them that faith means unreservedly accepting everything as opposed to finding belief amongst our doubts. I am convinced that he is right.
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