"...Many of the congregational practices with children that we experienced, including those discussed above, take into account children's developmental proclivities toward impulsivity and physicality." (p.262)
"In other cases, these practices take children's impulsivity and physicality into account by allowing children to choose how they will participate in the community's activities from a variety of acceptable modes of participation...all within the range of what that community deems an acceptable norm for children's participation." (p. 262)
"One mark of a congregation's capacity to welcome and nurture the spirituality of children may be its creativity in constructing positive communal practices that make room for a variety of levels and types of engagement rather than prescribing a fixed type - such as listening with full cognitive comprehension to the sermon - as necessary for legitimate participation." (p. 262-3)
"...[T]hese congregations [the 3 congregations studied] do not limit the resources allocated to children's ministries to a single area, such as the purchase of Sunday school materials, but instead resource children's ministries throughout the life of the congregation. Nor are their resources monetary. In several instances, more tangible financial resources followed rather than preceded personal and communal commitments of time, skills, and energy..." (p. 263)
How do you take into account a child's impulsivity and physicality?
How do you engage your congregational creativity to welcome and include children?
How are you investing the congregational resources that you have in your children?
Does investing in children take away from other vital ministries in the church? Can they be done in a way that will bless and enrich the other ministries of the church so they're not competing?
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