Growing Together in Faith: a Q&A with the authors

Image credit: Tofin Creations on Unsplash

Emma L Parker and Sarah Strand answer our questions about their new book.

Tell us about your new book, Growing Together in Faith. What is it about?

Growing Together in Faith: Thinking Theologically about Ministry with Children and Teenagers is about the importance of all ages coming together where faith is at the heart of the community: it is about how faith organically grows when all ages are present and valued, and about how faith can deepen our fellowship across all ages. It looks at the biblical precedence for this and the theology that underpins our ministry with children and young people, but it also brings together formational and practical issues faced by young people, volunteers, practitioners and church leaders seeking to grow in faith across the contexts of school, church and home. We use our own experience as well as drawing on the voices and experience of children and young people. The book starts by asking ‘why are children and teenagers important?’, and the rest hopes to answer this question from different perspectives.

What inspired you to write this?

There were two things. Firstly, in our roles in theological education and research, as well as parents ourselves, we noticed that there can often be a gap in the theological understanding of why children are important in God’s family. Sometimes this is about confidence but sometimes it’s because we don’t realise the rich and beautiful theology which underpins our ministry and worship with children and teenagers.

The second inspiration for the book was noticing not a gap but a treasure chest in children and teenagers for how they can understand and respond to God, for how they can experience him and encourage the rest of God’s family.

We both felt strongly about these two things and we wanted to write this book to address that gap and to point to the rich blessing that children are to us as together we seek God’s face.

You write about intergenerational rather than multigenerational churches. Can you explain a bit about what that means and how that might look different from what a lot of churches practice?

For us, an intergenerational community reflects something more of the theological vision we hold than the word ‘multigenerational’. Multigenerational suggests that all ages are represented in some way – which is definitely a good thing! The default for multigenerational churches is to deliver age-specific groups (and also have a few times when all ages gather), whereas the default for intergenerational churches is to have all-age gatherings and groups (along with some age-specific ones to support this). For us, intergenerational speaks more about a mutuality and interdependence. We want children and teenagers to be seen as full disciples and full members of the Body of Christ. We also want them to have the opportunity to lead and flourish and for there to be genuine mutuality and growth which happens within and across multiple generations. We recognise that this is an ambitious vision and one that takes time and perhaps a bit of a cultural shift in how the church thinks and operates – but it is definitely a vision worth grasping!

You both have a lot of experience in this area, both in theological education and in parish ministry. What are the key ways you think churches, their leaders and volunteers can feel ill-equipped to support children and young people? What can be done to help them, do you think?

The reality is that lots of churches have very few, if any, children and young people attending or connected with their congregations today. Childhood, and particularly the teenage years, are so different now than they were even a generation ago that people can feel that they don’t understand or know how to connect with children or young people. Sometimes people can feel ill-equipped to know how to help children with additional needs and how to support their parents and carers, who can often feel excluded or misunderstood.

We have found that often our theological understanding of why children and young people are important in the Body of Christ is limited, which means we can struggle to know how to persuade others to adopt the changes needed to nurture faith in young people. Often our churches can have a “bums on seats” perspective which drives our understanding of why we might want children in church, which in turn is driven by fear and preservation rather than by the fact that God longs for children and young people (and their families!) to be part of building up God’s kingdom on earth! It is also really hard to bring about change – and hence we have a whole chapter looking at how to navigate change and how Scripture can help with this.

In terms of what can be done to help, (besides reading our book!), we think the first key thing is to know who else is passionate about this in your context and pray together and explore the fullness that Scripture has to offer us here. Talk to families and see what they would find helpful in being supported in their faith. Listening to and learning from other churches and contexts can be really helpful in discerning how to make changes in your own contexts. And hopefully after a while there will be a shift from a place of fear to one of hope!

There are obviously certain passages in Scripture referring to children which people would want to quote when thinking how to work well with under-18s. Do you think these are sometimes misunderstood/misused/need to be seen in a new light today?

I (Emma) often find people saying to me, ‘I know Jesus said, “let the little children come to me”, but…’ and then they usually dive into reasons why we shouldn’t have children in church! We know this verse exists, but we have put it into a box that says ‘Don’t touch: hazardous and difficult’. Or perhaps we only bring this verse out at certain points in the year – baptisms, harvest, Christingle services – when we specifically ‘do things’ for children... before taking a sigh of relief afterwards and going back ‘to normal’. I really feel we have not yet understood the significance and radical nature of what Jesus is saying in these verses about children, the kingdom of heaven, and how this shapes our discipleship. Writing this book has personally made me think more about these verses and I am left in awe of Jesus’s teaching and they shape how I think about God, about my own family, and about how I lead church.

Sometimes we can read through a 21^st Century lens when it comes to passages about family life particularly – understandable! But we want to broaden our perspectives and understandings. The Bible has some amazing insights, particularly when it comes to household faith and community, which have lots to offer us in offering new or challenging ways to think about parenting and family life today. There aren’t easy answers but we’re hoping that the book will offer some fresh insights and perspectives into how our engagement with Scripture shapes our approaches to ministry with children, teenagers and their families.

Who would you most like to read the book? And did you have anyone in mind while writing it?

Hopefully everyone, but specifically for those who are wanting to either deepen and develop how their community (whether church, home, school) can provide space for children’s faith to be nurtured, or those who are wondering how to start – and why. We hope it will be a particular resource for those training for ministry and we had those that we teach at Cranmer Hall in mind, including Anglican ordinands, Free Church leaders and children’s and youth ministers. However, we think it is also for church leaders, leadership teams, toddler groups, parents, teachers and everyone in between!

If there is one thing/key message that you’d like people to take away from your book, what would it be?

The simple fact that God deeply loves and cares for children – and that this goes beyond our understanding. There is a beautiful picture in Isaiah 11 of the final redemption, when all of creation comes together in peace and we read, ‘and a little child shall lead them’.  In this magnificent, almost unbelievable scene where death has been defeated and all of creation is at peace with each other, right in the middle is a little child, leading this – isn’t that amazing? Jesus points to a child and talks about the Kingdom of heaven! The way God sees children is beyond our comprehension – but it does tell us this: God cares deeply for each child, and they have an important place in God’s plan of salvation. This humbles us; and I hope this sticks with our readers and inspires us all in how we seek to grow in faith together.

Emma Parker is Vicar of St Gabriel's church in Sunderland and Sarah Strand is Dean of Anglican Formation at Cranmer Hall, Durham.

Their book, Growing Together in Faith, out this month, is available to order here, with 20% off all orders placed before the end of October.