Sermon for Sunday October 8th - First reflections
“The Faith of a Child”
Sunday is “Children’s Sabbath” and the sermon will wrap around what it is our church is doing for and with children. Appropriate to the occasion we are participating in 4 baptisms. We will look at what baptism means and why we do it and we will think some about the development of our faith and what was going on in the text when Jesus said, “Suffer the little children and forbid them not for to such belongs the Kingdom of God.”
Jerome Berryman has become one of the experts on “interactive learning” and Christian Education for children. He tells us, “When a person has an experience of God there is a desire both to re-experience it and to tell it to others. But how do we communicate the experience with the invisible? We compose a story, and through that story we relive the experience as well as communicate it to others. Some people have concluded that children do not experience existential questions. This is more than an error in fact. Undervaluing this existential experience of children can be very destructive for their spiritual growth. The faith of a child must be respected.”
There is the story of Sunday school teacher who asked the children before she dismissed them to go to church, “And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?” Annie replied, “Because people are sleeping.”
In our church, when it comes to Christian Education for children, we are not sleeping. We have built an environment for learning the faith and for sharing the faith in exciting ways.
Do you remember something that you learned in
Church School that has stayed with you? How has your faith evolved?
If you have thoughts, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. I look forward to your ideas.
- Charles
