Last Friday Jenn and I attended a seminar at Bethel on the theology of children.  It sparked a lot of interesting ideas about self reflection about Sunday school, the church, and our general attitude about children.

During the question and answer session attendees were bringing up the point that education, spiritual and scientific has been feminized since the 19th century.  People (women) seemed very interested in reclaiming the male source of education, especially in the spiritual.  One man brought up the point that for most men, they were the ones getting in trouble in “sunday school,” so when they are adults the subconsciously want to maximize the distance between them and anything related to “sunday school.”  I personally found sunday school as another academic class where memorized verses were graded tests and candy bars were good report cards.
Some points were brought up about how the problem of sunday school and spiritual education is that sunday school only ends up being a miniscule fraction of the week, while children are educated the other 99% of the time at home through actions of their family and parents.  The point being made is that the sunday school time can only do so much if it is not reinforced at home by the parents, in practice, action and discussion.

Another point that was brought up or was sparked inside my head, is the that why are so surprised when children pinpoint the issue or ask the best questions, or conclude the most simple but articulate truths.  We naturally think that our adult intellect and our non-ignorant informed minds are superior to the pure, inquisitive rationale of a child.  We think that we know more, and we think that we know how to use what we know better than people who are younger than us.  So when our little 5 year old cousin comes and asks a question that inspires us, or concludes something that cuts to the heart of the issue, we are surprised.  But really, we shouldn’t be.  We are all made in the image of God, and that is the source of anything good that comes of any of us.

Jenn asked me if I could see myself as a youth pastor, and I immediately thought, no, because I do not see myself as having the natural high energy level of jumping up and down all the time and doing crazy things to entertain the youth of today…but then I caught myself and started thinking that…maybe…is it that we have created a youth culture that requires a “high-energy” pastor and not the youth that inherently require a “high-energy” pastor?  I don’t know, but its probably part of it.

On a side note, according to a study in 2007, every 72 seconds someone in the US develops Alzheimer’s Disease.  Whatever the source of this disease, it seems as rates are increasing.  We often come contact with beligerent older people who think they understand everything, even when their rationale has been affected by time, whether it is disease or just age.  They are used to understanding it all, knowing everything, and used to being “right” after sorting through all the information.  Now they can not remember, store, process all the information, but still make a “right” decision in perspective of their rational capability, but its inaccurate due to a limited information subset.  My response to this is as young people, don’t ever assume you have all the information, don’t always assume you are always right, because when we are older, we won’t have all the information, we wont always be right, and we need to still be open to new ideas and new conclusions of people around us who might have more information.  I guess thats what maturity is, the ability to realize that you may not be right, regardless of how much of the big picture you think you understand.