14-In a World at War
XIV. Ministering to Children
CHILDREN WERE DEAR TO THE HEART OF JESUS. IT is worth noting that at the time they “brought young children to him, that he should touch them,” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all say that the disciples rebuked them. They thought that Jesus was too busy and could not be bothered with children.
Jesus was the first to make clear that any ministry that is too busy to remember the children is just too busy. Mark says that “he was much displeased” with the disciples, and then called the children to him and took them up in his arms and blessed them, and furthermore used them for a text about receiving the Kingdom. The church today is not unmindful of its childrenits obligation to them or its need of them. Our responsibility is recognized in the increasingly efficient organization of our Sunday schools with their study periods and supplementary activities. We are trying to train them in Bible truth and Christian living. The church is seeking to work in closer relationship with the home, for it is there that the child must learn the first and 1 This chapter appeared in part in Union Seminary Review and is reprinted by permission. most important steps in the Christian pathway, as, before them in their tender years, father and mother live and teach and acknowledge the religion of the God who made the home and blesses it. The church is wise that recognizes and stresses the home and parents as the most vital factors in the child’s religious training, and seeks to serve, support, and supplement the home in the religious growth of the children. But there is one element of the child’s religious life that the home cannot develop, and which our present church-school methods are not fully adapted to produce, and that is the element of worship. The worship idea is absolutely essential in our religious life. Christian worship is fundamental to Christian character. Like character, then, it must have its beginnings in youth. Much is lacking in the cultivation of worship in our modern church. Except for the words of Jesus himself, the Psalms are the loftiest expression of religious feelings that we know. They reveal a consciousness of God, a sense of adoration toward God and dependence upon him which is instinctively recognized as we find ourselves turning to the Psalms, alike for comfort and courage, for strength and praise, in the hours of our spiritual need. Probably more people read them than any other part of God’s Word. And the Psalms are an expression of worship and praise. Our people need more of the conception that God delights in our worship of him. They too often feel that the church, is the place where they are to get something from God. It is therefore no regular custom for them to go up to the house of the Lord on the Sabbath Day, as it was for Jesus. If they feel no need, the service of the church is neglected. This is the weakness of Protestantism. We have not been trained to worship.
Certainly we are lax in the training of our children to worship in our present church services. Our church schools at present entertain them and instruct them, and in adult life turn them over to the church. The Commission on Worship of the Religious Education Association adopted as part of their conclusions regarding the grading of worship that “the nature of worship is essentially the same in the child as in the adult.” And “the extent to which the individual worshipper participates in a service of worship depends upon the degree to which the service as a whole and in detail is adapted to his needs, interests, and capacities.” It is obvious that if our children have no purposeful training in worship, adapted to their needs, the church can have no lasting hold upon them. The lack here is not the fault of the church school. It is not equipped for this training. There is not the atmosphere of worship in the church school. There cannot be, even in the departmental worship periods. The church school fulfills that part in the religious training of a child which the church service cannot do. But does the church recognize and fulfill that part of his training which is its particular task, and that the church school is not equipped to do?
It is not enough for the child to attend the church school. The church service is necessary for his fuller religious development. Somehow the church and church school must work together here. There are some churches that have made radical departures in method to meet this need.
One such method is the graded church or unified service. Here worship and study or teaching are linked together usually for a two-hour period on Sunday morning. The adults meet for worship for a period of an hour and a quarter, and then turn to a teaching and study period of three quarters of an hour. Under this plan the children from junior to young people ’s age have their study and teaching period while the adults are in their worship service, and then have their worship period while the adults are at study. The children of primary age meanwhile have their worship,- study, and storytelling, and the beginners and nursery children their story and song and handiwork for the full two-hour period. Thus for two hours the whole family is brought into the church, and all engage in both worship and study, but separately.
Another variation of the plan to train the children more adequately than can be done in the present program of the church school is to form a junior church. Here the church school carries on as now constituted, but there is a separate service and organization for the children which functions separately during the church worship hour. There is a pastor for the junior congregation. And this is important as it is a real congregation, not a separate meeting to be conducted by many leaders as a storytelling hour. There is a pastor, a congregational organization; there are elders, deacons, choir, committees on finance, ushers.
There are projects for youth action as a congregation. Sherwood Grates, in his book The Junior Church Manual, suggests no less than sixty-eight projects of activity for a junior congregation. Full membership in this junior congregation means full membership in the church. The service of the junior congregation is a full service on the youth level.
Both graded church and junior church have worked successfully in some churches.
It is not necessary, however, to make such changes to effectively reach our children in this matter of worship participation. It is not imperative that our present church service be greatly altered. Certainly many churches would be hindered by reason of personnel, inadequate equipment, or the unwillingness of the congregation to make such a departure as the junior church or graded church. What any church can do, and what every minister can do, is to make the attempt to draw children into the regular church service by preaching to them short children’s sermons.
It is true that this does not cover the expressional side of the child’s relationship to his church as the junior church seeks to do, but this may be and should be covered in church school and youth organizations within the church program. Preaching a sermon to children as a part of the worship service is so much more than the average minister is doing for children that we are urging at least this much as a part of every minister’s task.
There are many and important reasons for preaching to children. It may be done with great profit to the adults of one’s congregation. They are all children, only older grown. There is too much preaching about things we ministers, as ministers, read and study, and too little about things with which the average man is concerned. And the things the average man is concerned about in religion should, f urthermore, be treated in terms which he can understand. A greater simplicity in both matter and form is needed. Dwight L. Moody used to say, “Bring the truth down where the lambs may get a bite. ’ ’ And he did not mean that the lambs were necessarily young in years. Too much of our preaching is over the heads of our people intellectually and practically. The appreciation of the adults for the children’s sermon clearly indicates that it serves them in a helpful Way. Every minister who preaches children’s sermons at all well has heard his adult members say that the children’s message was on their level, and that if any of the service is to be omitted it should not be the children’s sermon. The adult in the congregation might resent being addressed directly on the child level, but I have found every evidence that he does delight to hear the children’s sermons, and is greatly helped by them.
Preaching to children may well be done also by the minister for the sake of one’s self. Our best.preaching is always concrete and not abstract.
It is impossible to preach abstractly to children.
Instinctively the concrete method is adopted.
Preaching to children is therefore good training for our entire sermon method. It is especially conducive to simplicity of style and structure. It also makes for definiteness. There is no time to ramble in a short children’s sermon. Many ministers do not write their sermons in full. But every speaker should do some careful writing. It is almost imperative that a children’s sermon be first carefully written, because it must, for one thing, be brief. The practice of preaching to children will therefore provide a much-needed exercise to the man who does little writing. It will make his sermons to the adults more concrete, simple, and definite. He will gain much by way of improvement in all his sermon methods. Children’s sermons make also for originality. They lead one out of the beaten paths in search for materials and methods of treatment which will react favorably on all one’s other work. A minister needs just this practice for better sermons to adults. Not the least of the benefits to one’s self will be found in the firmer hold one will have upon the gratitude and affection of parents who realize that the minister is doing something for their children. In thus drawing the minister and parents closer together, it is a great help in his ministry to them.
If it be true that the home is the primary factor in the religious development of the child, the children ’s sermon can be very helpful in supplementing what some parents are trying to do. The children’s sermon may be a help in the method of home teaching. Realizing what the minister is attempting to do, and impressed with the fact that he knows something about instruction for children, parents may be led to turn more readily to the minister for help in material and methods for home instruction. If this is one of the effects produced, the children’s sermon is indeed worth while. And many of our homes could do more in the religious training of their children if, instead of being told merely that it is their responsibility, they knew that we sought to share in their task and give them some point from which they could go farther. This means that the children’s sermon will not be considered an end in itself, but an aid in the efforts of the home. The essential reason for children’s sermons is, of course, the children themselves. And he who has conscientiously given himself to the task of preaching to children will have ample response from them as to its meaning and value in their lives. Recognizing them as a part of the service brings them into relationship with adults in the entire service, and this is in accord with a sound psychological principle that in the development of children in any area of life they should on occasion share in some of the activities of adults.
There are difficulties, it is true, in preaching to children; but these are more apparent than real.
Most of us think that it needs a special type of ability. But it is doubtful whether any minister who can preach the right kind of a sermon to adults can lack the ability to preach to children. When we say that we are not adapted to preach to children, there is entirely too much implied with reference to our ability to preach to adults.
It may be questioned, if we cannot preach to children, whether we can preach adequately to adults either. We may think that we can, but it would be interesting to find out what the adults think about it. At any rate, there are no difficulties which cannot be overcome by practice/Most ministers assume that they have improved in preaching since their seminary days. We remember how hard it was to preach then. Some of the difficulties, at least, have been removed through constant sermonizing. We have learned to preach by preaching. So we will learn to preach children’s sermons. If we had the audacity, at the beginning of our ministry, to believe that we could someday learn to preach, and if we dare to assume that now we have learned the art, we may well question our success if we are not willing frankly to face the new task of learning to preach to children.
There is also the difficulty of time. There is the lack of time in the service itself. This may be met, however, by taking five or six minutes from the regular sermon. From most sermons that may profitably be done. There is the time of preparation. But we can find time for anything we think is of enough importance; and this is important to the child, the home, the church, the adult members, and our own selves.
There are many things which claim a minister ’s time. He always has the feeling of being pushed and crowded by work which he knows ought to be done, but for which he can find no time. Some things are a great tax on his nervous energy, his courage, and his faith. But preaching to children will not add to the burden. It will bring a man nearer to children and his own youth; and nothing is a greater antidote for tired nerves, lagging courage, or halting faith. It was when the disciples thought that the Master was too busy to be bothered with children that Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” May it not be a suggestion too that he found strength for himself in ministering to them?
Various methods are followed as to when the children’s sermon is to be given, and the extent of the children’s participation in the service.
Usually the children’s sermon is given after the worship period, so that the children may have a complete service of worship, including hymns, scripture, prayer, and their own sermon. Whether they shall leave the service then, during the singing of a hymn, or remain for the regular sermon, is a question for each minister to decide. There is also the question of how to seat the children, either in a group before the pulpit, or with their parents in the family pew. Dismissing the children breaks into the service, creates a problem usually as to where they shall go until the service is finished, and even gives an opportunity for some older children to leave who count themselves young enough to be a part of the children’s service only when it thus affords them a chance to slip away and avoid the full service. Seating the children with their parents, instead of in a group, leaves them where they ought to be in the family pew. A children’s sermon need not be preached every Sunday. If done once a month, on a Sunday designated as Children’s Sermon Sunday, it is a challenge for parents who do not bring their children regularly to do so on this children’s Sunday.
After long experience we have found it best serves the purposes we have in mind in preaching children’s sermons to give the children’s message just before the offering, having them sit in the pew with their parents for the entire service without giving them an opportunity to leave. And the children’s sermon is made an occasion of the service on the first Sunday of the month only, except for special times such as Christmas, New Year, and Children’s Day services.
Personally if I have any positive “ don’t” about children’s sermons it is relative to using what are termed “object sermons.” It is difficult to see what an electric-light bulb can add to a sermon on “Letting One’s Light Shine,” or an anchor in speaking about ’ ’ The Anchor of the Soul, ’ ’ or incense in speaking about prayer; or what crayon drawings or cut-out figures can serve to do other than focus attention more on the object than the truth illustrated. For the preacher the use of object sermons tends to emphasize mere cleverness in the choice of them, and for the children quite ignores the fact that the child’s thought is essentially inductive, and that the things which will be most helpful to him in his thinking are not symbols or object sermons, but stories and conversations about his own conduct and social relations, which will help him to see religion as a definite experience. Some preachers to children may have thought they were teaching religion when they juggled red and black ink in; test tubes to show the redemptive power of the blood of Christ, when the only result was that the child was either more, or was less, intrigued than the Sunday before when a magnet was used to illustrate the drawing power of Christ. When it is remembered that the purpose of preaching children’s sermons is not entertainment, but a teaching of Christian truth and a sharing on the children’s part in the worship of God, it will be evident that the children’s sermon should be a real sermon. It will therefore have a biblical text and a religious theme. And when once one launches out to preach to children, one will find no lack of texts and themes, or limits in varieties of treatment.
Almost anything can be grist in the mill of children’s sermons provided we are trying to make real bread for the nourishing of growing souls. We need not be afraid of great texts and great themes. It is good often to be challenged by the endeavor to keep great texts and great themes in so simple and understandable a framework as Jesus did. We have less impulse to be profound in the children’s sermon. We would benefit more than the children, though they are reason enough for not neglecting to preach to them on sin, temptation, forgiveness, prayer, the cross, the love, the mercy, and the justice of God.
Many a sermon preached to adults may later be taken as a subject for a children’s sermon. This will often answer the question, “What shall I preach about to the children?” but it may also often give the adults, for the first time, some idea of what the original sermon was about.
Listening to things that children say, observing what they do, noting the questions they ask, will all add to one’s store of themes. Sayings and doings, and questions of children, come to us in increasing numbers as we try to preach, to children.
They come not.only from our own increased awareness of them, but from parents and friends who will tell about them.
Books of children’s sermons may be helpful or not according to how they are used. Scanning a number of good books of children’s sermons and good ones are all too few is helpful to increase one’s sense of the exceedingly wide and fertile field one has from which to preach. The books may be a guide and a stimulus to one’s own resourcefulness as to both subject and method. But nothing can be more stultifying to any personal growth in the art of interpreting the wonder and glory of religious truth to growing minds than to preach the children’s sermons of others.
It will make the task of preaching far harder in the end, for we are not then learning how to do it ourselves. There is certain to be something of a freshness and reality lacking which will be felt even by the children. A good book of children’s sermons ought to serve us as Jesus used the parable of the good Samaritan. When Jesus had given the questioner a fitting example of what a neighbor was, he told the man to be a neighbor on his own, and go and do likewise.
Preaching to children is not the only answer to our ministering in behalf of the children, but it is one of them. And I cannot see why any minister should not try to do it.