Direction 31/2(2002)

A Little Child
Shall Lead Them
Sharon Johnson

A t first I thought they were a group of picketers. It turned out to be a

ragtag bunch of children lining the street, waving hastily-made
cardboard signs, a Canadian flag, and a Toronto Maple Leafs flag, shout-
ing, "Go, Leafs, Go!" to everyone passing by. Why weren't they inside,
watching the Stanley Cup playoff game?
Later, as I returned from my errand, the children were still there,
raucously inviting the community to share in their fervor. And they
were! Drivers of motorcycles to mini vans were responding by waving,
joining the cheer, and honking their horns as they whizzed by, spurring
the group on to greater zeal.

A matrix of resources has been developed to equip the

church in regard to baptism and communion.

I was deeply moved to see children inviting the rest of their world
to join them in cheering on their heroes. They took the initiative. They
were optimistic that there would be a positive reception. They led the
community in being more of a real community! And the rest of the too-
busy world slowed down enough to be drawn in.

Sharon Johnson is Executive Director of Christian Education Min-

istries for the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches.
She has a B.A. and B.Ed, from Brock University\ St. Catharines,
Ontario, and an M.A. from Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary,
Fresno, California. Her ministry experience includes eighteen years as
a pastor's wife, three years as children's pastor at Glencairn MB
Church in Kitchener, Ontario, and nine years on the national Christian
Education Ministries Board, the last two as the Director. Sharon is the
Project Manager for the Baptism/Communion Curriculum Project.
Sharon Johnson 169

STATEMENTS OF FAITH ON BAPTISM AND COMMUNION

Ten years ago the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren
Churches began to recognize a changing understanding and practice of
the Lord's Supper. The 1978 Confession of Faith article stated, "Those
who have peace with God, live in peace with their fellowmen, and have
been baptized are invited to partake in the Lord's Supper."1 The 1999
revision reads, "All those who understand its meaning, confess Jesus
Christ in word and life, are accountable to their congregation and are
living in right relationship with God and others are invited to participate
in the Lord's Supper."2 This subtle but significant change launched
debate, discomfort, relief, and a whole slate of new questions about
who was qualified to participate in the Lord's Supper.
Many of these queries were directed to the Board of Christian Edu-
cation (CE) Ministries (Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren
Churches), particularly as it applied to a child's potential involvement
in taking communion. At the board's directive, Lorraine Dick—the
board chair at that time, also a children's pastor and curriculum
writer—began to address this issue. A tool was created to help parents,
pastors, and teachers explain the meaning and importance of commu-
nion to children. Due to discomfort expressed by Canadian Board of
Faith and Life (BFL) members, that project was dropped. Questions
continued to come: from parents, from pastors, from churches. Is it
okay for children to take communion? If so, how do we prepare them?
How can we help our church process a decision/potential change
regarding who can participate? At the same time, questions regarding
baptism and children also began to surface.

BAPTISM AND COMMUNION RESOURCES DEVELOPED

In the spring of 2000, CE Ministries once again resurrected this pro-
ject, this time in partnership with the Canadian BFL. A team of special-
ists,3 with practitioner experience, theological training, and publishing
expertise, gathered to dream about addressing church needs in these
areas. As they met, a common desire to influence church culture was
discovered. How could the celebrations of the Lord's Supper and bap-
tism further stimulate congregations toward passionate discipleship?
Recognizing the significant faith-shaping role of the community, what
resources would equip them to faithfully nurture each other and particu-
larly the spiritual journeys of children?
What evolved was a matrix of resources around baptism and com-
munion:
170 A Little Child Shall Lead Them

1. Baptism, Communion (written by Laura Kalmar, published by Kin-

dred Productions, 2002). Two four-week curriculum électives for all
models of children's ministry, geared to ages six to twelve.
2. Do You Think? Conversation starters to help parents/adults create and
capitalize on teachable moments to talk about significant faith issues,
specifically baptism and the Lord's Supper.
3. A Swim and a Snack? A resource pack bursting with ideas to assist
pastors and worship leaders in planning communion and baptism ser-
vices for all ages.
4. Communion and Children. A BFL pamphlet assisting parents and
church leaders in addressing readiness issues.

The Communion and Children pamphlet, Do You Think? and A

Swim and a Snack? were created as complements to the two curriculum
pieces to help congregations prepare for, and include children in, these
important faith celebrations. If it is decided that a child is ready to take
communion, assistance is provided to help parents meaningfully include
the child in the context of family relationships. While not intended to
actively promote this practice, these works provide teaching materials
for those who desire to move in this direction so that children might cel-
ebrate with integrity. The choice was made to trudge through these
potentially murky theological waters without getting bogged down in
order to benefit the children in our congregations. The teaching and
support materials created were designed to uphold and complement the
Confession of Faith.

MOTIVATING FACTORS FOR THE PROJECT

Several factors drove this exciting, monumental task:
1. Mainline curricula write to the lowest common denominator in order
to market their product as broadly as possible. Baptism and commu-
nion practices and theology divide denominations, so these subjects
are not significantly addressed.
2. The Jubilee curriculum does a limited but exemplary job of teaching
children about these ordinances. Its use, however, is rapidly dimin-
ishing in our churches.4
3. A survey of other curricula revealed educational approaches that fail
to accomplish their goals.5
4. An Anabaptist distinctive is the significance we place on the celebra-
tion of baptism and the Lord's Supper by believers in a covenant
community. Who better to make a meaningful contribution to the rest
of the evangelical world?
Sharon Johnson 171

5. A compelling motivation was to join the movement that is looking to

meaningfully involve all generations as the celebrating community.6

GUIDING VALUES
The following philosophical and theological values guided the cre-
ative team's efforts.

Children Are Naturally Able to Experience God7

As Asbury scholar Catherine Stonehouse explains,

When we give children opportunity to meet God, we are not

attempting to force something unnatural on them. Children
are born with the potential for spiritual experience, and God
is the one who stimulates the activation of that potential. We
have the privilege of becoming partners with God by assist-
ing children in finding what they long for—experience with
God.8

God is the one currently at work, transforming a child's life. The

leader, then, serves as a travel guide, sharing the journey and cooperat-
ing with what the Holy Spirit is already accomplishing (Phil. 2:13; Eph.
3:20).

The Importance of Sacred Stories

Christian faith is expressed by and communicated through sacred
stories.9 Rather than using the story as a jumping-off point, the entire
session is centered around the spiritual reality communicated through
the story. Citing James Fowler's Stages of Faith,10 Catherine Stone-
house asserts,

Stories are at the heart of faith development for children;

stories capture and communicate theology for them. When
adults try to explain God to children in abstract characteris-
tics, even using simple, everyday language, the teaching
does not carry meaning for them. But children can know
God from stories and can experience God in stories.11

Each of the lessons is based on scriptural narratives of baptisms and

occasions where the Lord's Supper was shared.
In Baptism and Communion, leaders and children alike are encour-
aged to share their faith stories as a means of unwrapping God's reality
172 A Little Child Shall Lead Them

to each other. As John Westerhoff declares, "Children are not only of

worth in and of themselves, but they also have something to contribute
to the faith of mature adults."12 Children will readily perceive and blos-
som where there is an atmosphere of receptivity to God speaking
through them.

Individuals Differ in Their Learning Styles

The curriculum invites children to explore and discover truth in a
variety of ways that account for different learning styles. Howard Gard-
ner's theory of "multiple intelligences" has been influential in this
regard.13

Foundational Concepts
Concepts essential to both baptism and communion are explored so
that children can grasp the inherent gospel drama. In order to help chil-
dren understand the significance of communion, concepts such as
remembering, anticipation, celebration, thankfulness, and God's unseen
presence are taught. Baptism helps children discover that this celebra-
tion is about making a choice, symbolizing new life, following Jesus'
example, and publicly witnessing through "show and tell."

Celebration with Understanding

While not preparing children to explicitly take part in these ordi-
nances, the materials help children to actively celebrate with under-
standing in their congregation. Children do not need to be experiencing
baptism themselves or partaking in communion in order to participate
in these acts of faith. In a baptismal service, a few are baptized while
the rest of the congregation joins in the celebration.

The Lord's Supper is a dramatic presentation of the gospel.

Children respond to drama more than anything else. The
celebrative tone, the eating and drinking, the words spoken
spark the imagination.14

Family and the Faith Community

The significance of both the family and the faith community in
shaping faith is recognized and enabled. Walter Brueggemann suggests
that adults need to be a "saturation witness" to their children. They need
to be involved in an ongoing and constant conversation in the home that
all of life is to be devoted to trust in God alone.15 Eleanor Snyder adds,
Sharon Johnson 173

Corporate worship provides a second important setting for

such saturation witness. Children and adults are to become
immersed in the celebration of God's invitation to an inti-
mate relationship with a community that includes all genera-
tions and ensures that the Christian story is rehearsed and
passed on.16

CONCLUSION
Author Pam Erwin laments that we lose kids during their teenage
years because they have no natural connectedness to the church family.
Mark DeVries calls the church an "orphaning agency," stating that there
are two institutions left in our society that could bring age groups
together: television and the church.17 Sociologist Margaret Mead
instructs us that it takes three generations of connectedness for a culture
to survive.18 Such words are wake-up calls for the church. Yet, Stone-
house adjures,

I am not speaking of deciding to include the children with

no consideration of their presence. Jesus says, Let the chil-
dren come to me. Do not stop them with boredom. Wel-
come them in Jesus' name. Make adjustments that will serve
them, knowing that adults benefit from what helps children
learn. And do not look down on their faith; it is real, beauti-
fully simple, and alive.19

Rather than asking overwhelmed church leaders to jump on yet

another bandwagon, the resources we have created can be easily inte-
grated into the ministry they are already doing, with great effect! Inten-
tionally inserting a four-week elective into the curriculum already used
by a children's ministry program enables them to address a significant
area of faith development from an Anabaptist perspective. Giving Com-
munion and Children pamphlets to parents and hosting a discovery ses-
sion equips parents to assist their children in determining if or when
they will take communion, along with empowering them to participate
as a family.
Using the worship resources to insert a story, a song, a litany into a
baptism or communion service that will welcome children opens the
door to meaningful involvement for the entire faith community. Instead
of focusing on connecting individuals, look for ways to connect family
members with each other, families with families, and the whole faith
family, regardless of generation, ethnicity, or denominational heritage.
174 A Little Child Shall Lead Them

Who knows? Our children may lead us into a deeper commitment

and experience as we become the people of God! -$£

The materials described in this article may be ordered on line at the fol-
lowing site: http://new.mbconf.ca/cem/resources/index.en.html. Or, call
Kindred Productions at 800 545-7322.

NOTES

1. Board of Christian Literature, General Conference of Mennonite

Brethren Churches, Confession of Faith (Winnipeg, MB, and Hills-
boro, KS: Kindred, 1976), 18. Emphasis added.
2. Board of Faith and Life, Confession of Faith: Commentary and
Pastoral Application (Winnipeg, MB, and Hillsboro, KS: Kindred,
2000), 97.
3. The team consisted of Lorraine Dick, David Esau, Darlaine
Jantzen, Sharon Johnson, Laura Kalmar, Wanda Nickel, Bob Rem-
pel, Nikki Siemens, John Vooys, and Gabrielle Wiebe.
4. Six Anabaptist denominations cooperated to originally develop and
publish Jubilee (1994): Brethren in Christ Church, Church of the
Brethren, Friends United Meeting, General Conference Mennonite
Church, Mennonite Brethren Church, and Mennonite Church. The
planned rewrite and update of Jubilee unfortunately has not taken
place according to schedule, resulting in a disheartening loss of
customers and influence. Those familiar with Jubilee curriculum
will see a similarity of guiding philosophies in the materials we are
producing.
5. Children learn through experience, through exploration, through
their senses, through story, and through relationships with role
models and peers. By comparison, the "didactic" approach assumes
that children learn by transferring information from a teacher's
head to the student's head, that propositional truth is what they
need to learn. All the curricula we surveyed, published or not, did
not meet our educational/theological criteria for reaching children
in a postmodern era.
6. Catherine Stonehouse, Ivy Beckwith, John Westerhoff III, Beth
Posterski, Larry Richards, Pam Erwin, Ben Freudenberg, Jerome
Berryman, Reggie Joiner, and Julie Wilson are leaders who are cre-
ating a movement in which all ages participate in shared
worship/learning experiences. See Ben Freudenberg's The Family
Sharon Johnson 175

Friendly Church (Loveland, CO: Group, 1998) for one full-scale

sample of where this movement could take a church.
7. Robert Coles, The Spiritual Life of Children (Boston, MD:
Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 168-69; Sophia Cavalletti, The Religious
Potential of the Child: The Description of an Experience with Chil-
dren from Ages Three to Six (New York, NY: Paulist, 1983), 31-32.
8. Catherine Stonehouse, Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 181.
9. David Wiebe, "Children and Communion in the Mennonite
Brethren Church" (Senior Seminar Paper, Mennonite Brethren Bib-
lical Seminary, March 1989), 22.
10. James Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row,
1981).
11. Stonehouse, 161.
12. John Westerhoff III, Bringing Up Children in the Christian Faith
(Minneapolis, MN: Winston, 1980), 19.
13. Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice
(New York: Basic, 1993). Gardner, professor of education at Har-
vard Graduate School of Education, defines eight intelligences:
Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic,
Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist.
14. Wiebe, 24.
15. Walter Brueggemann, Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living
in a Three-Storied Universe (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1993), 103.
16. Eleanor Snyder, "How Can Children Worship?" The Messenger, 28
February 2001,4.
17. Pamela J. Erwin, "Family Ministry Seminar," Emmanuel Bible
College, May 2002; idem, The Family-Powered Church (Loveland,
CO: Group, 2000).
18. Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment (Garden City, NY: Dou-
bleday/Anchor, 1978), 14.
19. Stonehouse, 40-41.
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