SAY “YES” TO KIDS
Matthew 19:13-15
[video excerpt of kids
singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It”]
Kids—aren’t they
wonderful?
A pastor was telling a group
of children the detailed story of how, when he was quite young, he got lost in
the woods. The sun set and it gradually became dark and very scary
for him, he said. He was at
the point of telling the kids he heard an owl off in the distance, when a little
boy who had been listening closely looked up and asked, “Did you ever find
your way out?” “No,” the
pastor said, he never did.
Then there was 6-yr. old
Caleb to whom the pastor was teaching the biblical parable of the lost sheep:
“Why did the shepherd count his sheep each night as they went into the
fold?” the pastor asked. Caleb answered brightly, “So he could go to sleep.”
After the congregation settled down a little, Caleb was asked teasingly
by the pastor, “Whose child are you, anyway?”
Without blinking an eye, Caleb replied, “God’s child.”
No more questions asked.
Children are curious and
inquisitive, full of questions about life and the world around them, a world
that is very easy to misunderstand—especially when you’ve only had so many
years to input data into your brain.
Input data, I did say.
Do you know that psychologists are even now referring to a child’s
brain as a very special kind of computer?
Alison Gopnik, Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl—all Ph.D.
developmental psychologists—describe children like this in their book, “The
Scientist in the Crib—Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn”:
“They
are computers made of neurons, instead of silicon chips, and programmed by
evolution, instead of by guys with pocket protectors. They take input from the world, the flickering chaos of
sensations, and they (and we) somehow turn it into jokes, apologies, tables and
spoons.”
The developmental psychologists see their job as discovering what
program babies run and eventually, how that program is coded in their brains and
how it evolves. Eventually
they might solve the ancient philosophical problems of knowledge in a scientific
way.
An article in this year’s
August issue of “Raising Arizona Kids” tells us a baby’s brain is hard at
work from the moment of birth. Babies
are born with 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) in their brains, according to
pediatrician Robin Blitz of the Children’s Health Center at St. Joe’s in
Phoenix. A newborn has 500 trillion
synapses—the parts of the brain that make it possible for nerve cells to
communicate with one another—and 1,000 trillion of them by age 1 alone.
That’s double in the 1st year!
And although a lot of brain
development happens even before birth, it is the experiences after birth that
strengthen the synapses and determine how the brain is wired.
This information has critical implications for parents—and for us--as
Dr. Blitz and other experts agree that children’s experiences during the first
three years of life will impact them—for better or worse—for a lifetime.
Attention, bonding, and communication, as part of those experiences,
are the critical elements
that activate the whole learning process. For
a newborn, even 62% of their caloric intake is consumed by the brain.
It lowers to 30% for toddlers and not until adulthood is it as low as
16-18%. The brain grows rapidly
while young.
We know that those same
children grow older to suddenly become teenagers, individuals still with
relatively little data input compared to the amount that is out there, but
individuals that are continuing to develop rapidly as they deal with adapting to
a world that has become increasingly high-tech, a technology that society
demands they must master if they are to “succeed.”
Computers and the internet; cars with computers; pagers, phones and
cell-phones; (no two of them that work the same way)…
and much more!
A 14-yr old got really
excited when she got her own phone for her room.
Dad entered the room not long after to find her sobbing in the midst of
all her piles of stuff. “The
telephone just rang,” she cried. “I
heard it, but I couldn’t find it.”
And--there was the girl’s
friend who had just gotten her driving permit who then asked her mother if she
could drive the family to church. “I’m
old enough,” she said. Her
mom thought about it… She looked
at her new car and said, “Yes, you are old enough, dear… but the car
isn’t.”
Then there was the group of
guys at an office who were discussing what they hoped to get out of their new
cars. “Economy,” said one.
“Dependability,” said another. “Styling,”
responded the third. They all
turned to the fourth guy who was standing there with a grim expression on his
face. “What I’d most like to get out of my new car,” he
said,” is my teenage son.”
Seriously, kids do have it
tough out there, beyond these minor frustrations!
There are just so many things we know and hear on the news, so many
demands and expectations… we don’t have to go into them all here, because
you’ve heard it all too much. It
used to be that many of us when we were kids were somewhat sheltered from a full
world view. We just didn’t have a
lot of information readily available to us.
But things are different now.
Now, adolescence is
not so much a period as an exclamation point.
Middle school alone can seem like an obstacle course.
And, as Ann Landers once noted, “It isn’t what a teenager knows that
worries his parents. It’s how he found out.”
The world is now a scary
place even beyond the woods. If our
homes aren’t safe—and many homes aren’t—it’s even more unsafe in the
larger world, not only in the neighborhood, but across town, on the other side
of the country—and on the other side of the world.
And it’s a world that just seems so frighteningly close to us, with the
state of modern technology. Not
just seems; it is close.
Even some so-called “family
TV shows” are bringing us a world view that is questionable.
Reality TV went heavy metal when MTV featured a documentary program on
rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his family last spring.
Now the Osbourne family has signed on for another season, and masses of
viewers, with kids of all ages, are tuning in to follow the Osbourne family’s
bizarre and often vulgar behavior. Viewers
enter the household through a door that has a devil’s head towering above.
Obscene language is never lacking among the family members, and the
teenagers in the Osbourne house display blatant disrespect for their parents.
Yet the show brings in top ratings, and daughter Kelly has become a new
pop icon for young girls.
With all that data being
inputted into their brains, what’s a child to do?
And what choices do parents have
for their children, in combating this extremely negative sensory input?
Look at Harry Potter, another
icon for our time. And people have
looked at fictional Harry in various ways.
With Halloween coming up, we might ask is Harry Potter “Trick or
Treat?” Some parents and some
churches are extremely critical, believing Harry leads children too deeply into
the areas of witchcraft, sorcery and the like.
After reading Harry, kids were asked what they wanted to learn more
about, and many answered “spells, charms, and curses” or “the difference
between witches and hags.” It’s
clear the author is taking kids to school with him, and, depending on the age
and the child, kids will be handling this new information in different ways.
But whatever we think about
Harry, his popularity tells us that children by nature are searching
spiritually. Harry
Potter reveals that kids have a deep yearning for a relationship with a
supernatural God, and that they will explore ways to meet this inner need.
It’s kind of like they have a God-hole that needs to be filled. Are we in the church surprised?
This openness of children to
a greater spirituality and to a closer relationship with God can be seen
firsthand through the children of this church, as the kids in our church family
reveal how they see God…
[video excerpt where kids respond to the question]
We can see the openness of the kids in our church family as
they share the questions they have for God…
[video excerpt where kids share their questions]
How are we to respond to
these children? How can we lead them in the direction of greater faith
development, nurturing a faith that enables and prepares them for the difficult
world that lies ahead? The
child development specialists tell us that too little stimulation means fewer
synapses will be formed in these young brains and that abuse and neglect will
cause the wrong synapses to be formed.
Yet brain imaging techniques reveal that certain areas of the brain are
activated when a person is paying attention.
And we now know that “Children learn how to pay attention by watching
others pay attention,” according to Jill Stamm, psychologist/educator at ASU.
Further, bonding can’t happen without consistency; the brain is a
pattern-seeking organ and consistency is critical for healthy infant brain
development. Babies form healthy
attachments when care givers and routines are consistent and predictable.
Communication is crucial
because there is a direct relationship between brain development and the number
of words spoken by parents and care givers in a positive tone to a child during
his first few years of life. Talking
to your baby is essential for healthy development. Reading to children is essential, as is providing sensory
stimulation, according to other authorities.
The senses are a child’s first way of learning, if we can picture
neurons branching out like trees to conduct impulses. Stimulation makes the branches grow toward one another.
Putting this all together in
lay terms lets us know that the best environment for a child includes plenty of
love, support and quality time, while it also provides diverse and enriching
experiences. Knowing all
this, what are the implications for families and for the church?
Let’s turn to the children
again, to examine where we are in providing the best environment for our kids.
As a starting point, let’s see what
our church family kids have to say about their church…
[video of kids comments about this church]
And now what do the kids share they have learned as part of
our church family? [video as kids share what
they’ve learned]
With all of this knowledge
and insight, we only need to look more closely
at today’s scripture to examine where we are and where we are to be
headed as a church family, for our children.
In the scripture in Matthew 19 that Cason/AnnaRose read, the children
were brought to Jesus, that he might lay his hands on them, and pray for them.
We can assume it is the parents who, for the most part, brought their
children to Jesus in these verses, those parents who loved their children
deeply. We can believe these
parents did this because they were so convinced that it was absolutely the best
thing they could do. Jesus’
reputation had gone before him, it had spread throughout the land.
The children’s parents had seen what Jesus’ hands could do, so they
wanted him to place his hands upon their children and to pray for them.
They knew of his closeness to the Father.
They knew those hands could touch disease and pain away, they could bring
sight to the blind, and peace to the stressed out mind.
The parents wanted hands like that to touch their children.
Can we do as Jesus did?
Can we be His hands?
The disciples tried to hold the
children back, thinking they were protecting Jesus from overdoing or some such
thing, but Jesus would not have it! He
was determined to hold the children, to bless them, to give them the total love
that He could give, and he would not let anything or anyone keep Him from them.
Jesus said “Yes” to kids!
In these 3 simple verses, we have
this tremendous affirmation for children from Jesus. His whole life and all his teachings, were centered on what
was happening at this serendipitous moment with the children.
Everything for which he stood was evident—and it’s an important
message for us today.
How amazing is it that the biblical
truth of how children thrive and grow, as revealed through Jesus’ relationship
with them, is so totally consistent with what behavioral authorities now know as
the way to have children achieve their fullest potential?
That tremendous gift of love that our Savior, Jesus Christ, has for all
of us is as readily available to children as it is to each of us.
And we then must love, because he first loved us.
It is the role of each of us in this church, and in every church around
the world, to offer Christ freely to each child of God—whatever their age, but
especially to the child. As we
offer Christ, we bring that tremendous love that he has for each of us to our
children, that they may be wholly a part of the kingdom of God on this earth.
And, while we do it in the
classroom, and in this sanctuary, it is critical that each of us offers it in
every aspect of our church and community life.
As Christ is in our hearts, we must offer our Christ-filled love to the
children, teaching, modeling, learning, caring and listening—all of us—that
our God might use us to create the greatest God-encounter possible.
As we are the church in the world, we all must give children our
attention, bonding, and communicating, doing all of those things that are best
for kids as they learn and we teach, model and lead, as he would have us, once
again remembering that we, too, cannot help but learn and grow ourselves in the
process—for they, in turn, will give us gifts.
In this world, Jesus needs every one of us to be his disciples, children
and adults. We all learn from each
other. We adults must become those
agents of God’s grace in the lives of our children, passing on the faith that
they, too, may have the joy and reassurance of God’s loving salvation as
revealed through Jesus Christ. Our God is an awesome God!
So why is saying “yes” to kids
a message to the world? I’m
reminded of the story of a ship that capsized just before dark, near a small
village on the coast of England. The
men in the village ran for their rowboats, trying to rescue as many as possible
of those on board the ship, before they sank into the icy water.
As the last rowboat pulled in just before dark, John Holden, a pastor in
the village, asked the crew, “Did you get them all?”
A reply came from the boat, “I think there is one more, but we could
not find him.” Well, John decided to go search himself.
His mother, fearing for his life, tried to stop him.
“Don’t go, John! It’s
getting dark. The water is too rough.
It is too dangerous. “
John Holden answered.
“I must go, mother. Someone
is still out there. I must try to
find him.” Off he rowed into the
inky darkness. He was gone to what
seemed like an eternity to his mother. Suddenly
his boat was spotted, coming to shore further down the beach. “Did you find that lost man?” they called out.
“Did you get him?” Holden called back, “I found him. He’s all right. And
tell my mother that it is my brother.”
God’s love knows no boundaries.
Help us fill the God-holes in all of God’s children.
As we say “Yes” to kids—may we know that we are saying “yes” to
our God! Amen.
[video excerpt of children singing “Jesus Loves Me”; the congregation
sings along with the children]
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