"Although children profit greatly from participation in worship and other congregational events, relationships grow over time in smaller face-to-face groups. . . time for conversation is a wise investment..." [CM p. 146] They talk about relationships being like the nervous system of the body. They also have neat ideas for involving adults in children's activities even if the adults have no desire to teach.
But my mind took a turn to think more about taking time... time to notice, time to listen, time to interact, time to think, time for quiet, time to just let things happen ...
"Too often our view of the church gets in the way of building community and meaningful relationships. We get so busy running the 'corporation' and managing programs that children, relationships, and community get lost." Linda Cannell wrote "If Churches Were Parks." I don't know the rules about printing the whole thing here. Someone else posted it. If you Google it, you can find it with source and author noted.
The park image is great for taking away the walls. Seeing beyond the business and busyness of church is an important is part of that. Post-moderns in particular seem to be searching not just for community but for the still quiet place of the ancient cathedral. The park and the sanctuary of a mammoth cathedral may seem like opposites. In some ways they are. In other ways, they aren't.
The lives of children who go off to a systematic daycare 6 weeks after they're born, and on to pre-school, kindergarten, 20 years of school, then on to the world of work lead very regimented lives. Schedules are necessary. Order is imposed.
I read an article in the local newspaper when my kids were young. The author was so grateful that, as a child, she had unstructured alone time. It wasn't just a time to rest and retreat from the world. It was also the time she used to create and imagine and think her own thoughts.
Creative people need that. Children need that. Children need relationships but they also need time alone. Can children be alone and still be supervised? Can we provide still, quiet times and places without walls?
The authors ask some great questions. These are extra!
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Funny, I was walking and praying and thinking about time earlier today.
ReplyDeleteI was part of a conversation recently where some friends were wishing for more deep teaching on a Sunday morning. They were wishing for us to use more bible words in our sermons because people need to learn these terms. They wanted Paul's theology of grace versus the law spelled out every Sunday. It felt like they wanted it all to be there NOW, the first time people walked through the pub door. (We meet in a pub.)
I agreed with what they wanted, but the time-scale seemed to be a western one instead of a God one.
Most of us aren't going to die tomorrow, and we need lots of sacred space and time in our lives for all this (and much more) to happen. Mostly it's going to happen not during the big Sunday meeting, but in small gatherings and one-on-one and alone with God.
Yes, Margie! Let's not be in a rush to pack everything into our time. Let's unpack. Adults need it. Kids need it.