Saintly Sinners and Sinning Saints

Youth begin their time in God's Discovery Zone at Peace
Lutheran Church by reading from their favorite books.

Sometimes it blows people's minds that I'm a Sunday school teacher.

To bring their eyebrows out of their hairlines and back to their foreheads where they belong, I assure them I don't cuss in front of my class and am far more patient with them than I am with reporters on deadline.

Occasionally I will share that I just so happen to have a degree in religion, but only if I feel I can physically lift them off of the floor.

I teach at Peace Lutheran Church in Bowling Green, Ohio, where my mother happens to be pastor. (I am not a P.K. She was a farm wife, truck driver, homeless advocate, agency director, and seminary student through my formative years.) We are an ELCA congregation, and we take Lutheran theology pretty seriously, including Luther's emphasis on teaching the Word in understandable and accessible ways.

We take children pretty liberally.

Our communion table is open, which means there are no requirements and no restrictions on anyone desiring to share the Lord's Supper. As soon as a babe can chew solid food, and as soon as her parent decides, my mother will pop a piece of bread into her mouth.

She does offer communion instruction, and "first communion" days are held in celebration, but sometimes that kid has been partaking of the Eucharist for years. Other times that kid has received blessings -- "May Jesus bless and keep you forever," as my mom says, or "You are the apple of God's eye," as fellow congregant and supply preacher Pastor Meg says -- and it really is his first communion. We leave it up to the parents' discretion and children's desire.

Peace kids get to do a lot in church. They take turns holding the baskets for the empty communion glasses, they bring up the youth offering (in a brightly colored plastic tray shaped like a fish), they plan on building a prayer labyrinth, they sometimes walk with the pastor in the recessional and get to shout out the sending with her: "Go in peace, remember the poor," to which the congregation responds, "Thanks be to God."

Today, on Palm Sunday, they will pass out the fronds -- and likely chase each other with them later on the playground. But they get to do that too.

Youth build relationship with many different people at
Peace, including Miss Sheri during song practice.

During worship, some kids sit in the chairs with their families or friends, while some kids sprawl on the floor with their coloring pages. We keep binders of text-themed pictures and activities with a baggie of crayons on a shelf in the back of the sanctuary for them. Again, it's up to the parents' discretion and the children's desire (or level of cooperation).

They come and go out of the sacred space, toddling off to the nursery, hitting the potties, decimating the snack table. They sift through our noisemaker baskets for their favorite shaker or bells until they find just the right one to jangle along with the hymns. They cuddle with someone in the glider or rocking chair that are nestled in with the regular seats in our sanctuary.

They are there.

It's the surest way to teach a kid to hate church and to give up on it completely in adulthood by emotionally duct-taping them to a pew or throwing up barrier after barrier to whoever that is the pastor keeps talking about loving them so dearly.

We do have some boundaries. Gluttony at the snack table is met with a reminder that food is to be shared with everyone. The teaching areas are either open spaces or have doors with big windows, for safety and transparency. When kids are chasing each other with something more threatening than palm fronds -- like the javelin-ish stick Robbie found last week that probably served as a driveway marker at some point -- we stop them.

As for teaching, you're not going to find me drilling them on memory texts. You won't ever hear me tell them they are going to hell if they don't act right.

You will hear me ask them to sit still and be quiet if I am trying to give directions, and I admonish them constantly about closing up the glue bottles. Speaking of raised eyebrows, that's usually all it takes from me to redirect any wild behavior that threatens to knock 92-year-old Miss Norma off her feet as she dutifully washes dishes in the kitchen.

Hopefully you will see me sharing the Word in interesting and age-appropriate ways. Our crafts should be fun and meaningful. The kids should have some idea that God loves them, Jesus will always be there for them, and they have been called to take care of each other and the world around them.

We don't even call it "Sunday school" -- it's God's Discovery Zone and God's Explorers. We engage with the sacred stories and share our ideas, youth and adult leaders alike. We wonder, we laugh, we doubt, we dance.

Children's ministry at Peace is grounded in the goal of relationship building. If the kids are in relationship with people who have a relationship with Jesus -- the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, Miss Norma, another youth -- the kids are connected to Jesus.

They have the rest of their lives to "learn" about what that means. Almost a century old, Miss Norma is still discovering new connections in her relationship with Jesus and with those whom Jesus loves. That's why I don't let the kids run so fast they'll knock her over; I want them to be in relationship with her. It's not just because they're "in church" and that's not what kids are supposed to do "in church."

Frankly, Miss Norma is the dearest soul who has ever walked the planet, and she'd likely extend relationship to a kid even from the floor.

I don't get on the floor with the kids very often anymore. I'm too pregnant and they're too little to help me up.