People, Look East!

We had a wonderful Christmas Pageant on Sunday, with our largest congregation in a long time - 163, including the cast.

I'd particularly like to thank Father Michael, Father Robert, Andrew Wells and the choir, Liz Webster (for use of her sewing machine), Alison and Ben Watson (for sandwiches at rehearsals), Emma Chorley, Megan Bonetti, and all the parents, as well as Gretchen Wolff Pritchard and Malcolm Houston for behind-the-scenes support.

We received dozens of positive comments about the pageant, and I felt it was a very rich and moving experience, with real spiritual power.

The cast was as follows:

Eve: Sydney Broxson
Adam: Richard Emanuel
Mary: Cordelia James
Joseph: Hector Worsley
Ox: Stan Pikovsky
Donkeys: Tom Lloyd, Thomas Chorley
Angel of the Lord: Margaret Houston
Jesus: Joseph Boundy

Angels: Tilly James, Boo O'Neill, Margot Worsley, Serena Janssens, Henry Thornton
Shepherds: Ted O'Neill (lead shepherd), Monty Brown, Ridley Brown, Hillary Brown, May Lyster, Flora Lyster, Becky Barrow, Robert Chorley, Benjamin Broxson, Emma Chorley, Alice Lloyd.

Sheep: Matilda Worsley, Naomi Boundy, Edward Chorley, George Lyster

Readers: Cordelia James, Stan Pikovsky, Margot Worsley, Benjamin Broxson, Sydney Broxson

Soloists: Tom Lloyd, Stan Pikovsky, Ted O'Neill, Matilda Worsley, Tilly James, Serena Janssens

Organist: Andrew Wells

Celebrant: The Rev. Robert Thompson

Deacon: The Rev. Michael Fuller

We have a few photos of the pageant to share with you - unfortunately, the camera's batteries were dying during the service, so there are only a very few, and the zoom function, which takes lots of power, wasn't able to be used.

"Go, tell it on the mountain / That Jesus Christ is born!"

Swapping over the real baby for the doll, once the baby had had enough.

"This have I done for my true love!"

The cast in place, ready to begin.  That's Adam and Eve behind the altar.

What children need.

Sorry this blog has been dead lately – I’ve been in Christmas Pageant Admin Hell, otherwise known as “sorting out the cast list and making sure everyone has a costume.”

Anyway, I’ve been to a few seminars over the last few weeks and read a few letters from the Diocese, and it’s gotten me thinking, which has led to the following list:

What do children need to grow in faith?

Feel free to add your own ideas.  This list is in no particular order.

1.       To feel that they belong, are known, and are welcomed.

2.       Storytelling that is active and engaging.

3.       Repetition.  Both in story and song and in traditions.  When a child can enter into a festival again and again, year after year, and come to know it in all its layers through the repetition of hallowed traditions, that is a powerful tool for learning about the faith and for experiencing God’s presence.

4.       Challenging texts that they may not understand completely, but which they know and can come to understand.

5.       Christianity proclaimed joyfully and unblushingly as good news – but with its historic (and current) sins and prejudices acknowledged when the children become old enough to know about them and demand accountability.

6.       Creativity in responding to stories.

7.       A chance to be recognised in the church community not just as recipients of ministry but as leaders who can minister to others.

8.       A sense of ownership of the church space – to be allowed to move around it, discover it, touch it, and be present in it, often outside of Sunday mornings.  I once said you never feel you really belong to a church until you find yourself setting up chairs for something – then you know you’ve arrived and become part of the community.  For children, that sense of ownership can be found in rehearsals in the church space, special events like Messy Church on a weekend when the church is theirs and theirs alone, participating in a choir concert in the church, and so on.

9.       Deliberate silliness, when liturgically appropriate.  Skits on Shrove Tuesday, patronal festival picnics, getting the vicar to dress up in something silly at a Twelfth Night Party, and so on.  Not used to trivialise solemn joy, but to elevate the silly seasons.

10.   Allegories.  With a few caveats – the allegories must not beat them over the head with their meaning, and they must stand on their own as stories, not just as alternative vehicles for the Christian story.  A few examples (mostly stolen from my mother) – The Red Balloon, The Selfish Giant, The Flower of Life, Pilgrim’s Progress, the Narnia chronicles.

11.   Time off, within the church community, to foster friendships with other children.  This ties in with number one.  Breaks in Christmas pageant rehearsals are important – they give children a chance to bond with one another and create real friendships at church.  This builds community.

12.   To be taken seriously.

13.   To be listened to.

Storytelling

This cartoon, I think almost accidentally, gets exactly to the heart of how to make faith a living thing for children - stimulate their imaginations.  I've been reading Gerard Jones' Killing Monsters: why children need fantasy, superheroes, and make-believe violence, and the author stresses over and over that children use stories to work through issues of power and aggression and to have mastery over these concepts.  By identifying with Superman, a powerless child feels powerful and confident - by working through feelings of anger, rage, or hatred in make-believe, a child learns that they control these feelings, rather than are controlled by them.

The story of Moses is the story of the weak and powerless triumphing over both more powerful people and the powerful forces of nature.  Moses is enslaved and afraid when God first speaks to him - "how on Earth is Pharaoh going to listen to ME?"  If we are doing our job, children will identify with him.  They will feel his fear in the face of Pharaoh.  They will fear his hope against hope when Pharaoh gives in.  They will feel his panic at the shore of the Red Sea - all these people in your charge, and Pharaoh's Army behind you!  All these lives for you to save!  It is at this moment that Moses, with God's help, tears off his Clark Kent persona and becomes Superman - if we are doing our job, this moment is as thrilling as any in a comic book or a TV show, any in a fairy tale or Disney movie.  The third-act reveal, the deus ex machina, is a cliche for a reason - it works.  Just when everything seems lost, a hidden power is unleashed and the hero is triumphant.

Let your kids enjoy the chase scenes, the special effects, the more Hollywood-esque aspects of the Bible.  That's what makes it thrilling.  That's what makes kids identify with it.  That's what makes it meaningful to them.

In this cartoon, the pastor looks unimpressed.  He should be jumping for joy - he's gotten through to that kid, and that kid has claimed the stories of the faith as his own.  That's a victory!  It's what we're here for!

Introducing children to the concept of Biblical literalism.

I'm putting together a timeline for the staircase, showing the stories we've done so far this year.  This is to help kids who don't attend every Sunday to keep up with what's happening, and to reinforce the teaching point that this is all ONE story, with its own arc and its own climax, not just a collection of anecdotes.

But I can't in good conscience pretend that Adam and Eve is of the same historical veracity as Moses.  I'm not a Biblical scholar - I don't know exactly what historical/archaeological evidence there is for the Exodus, but I know it's a hell of a lot more than there is for the idea of the Garden of Eden and the Fall.  And from the perspective of textual analysis, Adam and Eve reads like a myth, while the Exodus reads like a history.   For the younger kids, this isn't a stumbling block - they approach it all as a story that's more true than truth, and it all gets sorted out later on.  But for the 10- and 11-year-olds, who might be starting to think "hey, wait a minute ..." about some of this stuff,  based on what they might learn at school about evolution, or hear in the news about ranting Fundamentalists, or hear from their classmates, I want to be prepared for their questions.  And I don't want the timeline to look like it's exactly the same as a timeline they might see in History class.

So I've made a poster to put at the end of the timeline (there are pictures in the real one):

Is the whole Bible true?

That depends.  Parts of the Bible probably didn’t happen exactly as it says – for example, we know too much about evolution now to believe that Adam and Eve were real people.  But somewhere, there were two people who were the first “real” humans – the first people to become aware of God.  And the story of Adam and Eve can help us understand things about God, and about why the world is the way it is.

But the Bible isn’t all stories.  There are also parts of it that are laws – rules for the societies people lived in at the time it was written.  Some of these laws are very different from the laws we have now, and many Christians don’t follow these old laws.  For example, there’s a rule in the Bible that we shouldn’t wear clothes made of more than one kind of material!  I bet all of us have done that!

Jesus told us that God’s law was to love each other, and to love God.  Many Christians believe that following this law is more important than paying attention to thousand-year-old rules about things like what clothes to wear and what food to eat.

Good news!

We had a record TWENTY-EIGHT children in Sunday School today!  And our cake sale/tea party yesterday and today raised OVER 400 POUNDS for Christian Aid.

So this week's stars of the week are Steve Eggett, Jenny Davenport and Megan Bonetti, who did a lot of work putting together the various fundraising activities.

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life." - 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Deserts and sinners - this week's newsletter meditation.

The Sunday School today explored the story of Abraham and Sarah, and made quilt pieces showing the desert, to put alongside our “garden” pieces from the Adam and Eve story.  In all our lives, there are “garden” times – rich, productive, comforting – and there are “desert” times – alienating, difficult, lonely.  Yet for some people, including Jesus, the desert is where you go to be closest to God –in the barren landscape, where distractions are stripped away.

The Creche heard the story of Jacob and Esau, and Jacob’s dream of a ladder of angels.  Jacob is a deeply flawed person, yet God chooses him.  The Old Testament heroes are often weak, foolish, or even cruel.  But God still has plans for them.  If God can work through them, then there is no reason our own flaws can prevent him from working through us.

Sermon bingo!

Keeping children occupied during the sermon is always difficult.  In our "Let Us Pray" leaflet, we have a space available for children to draw a picture from today's lessons during the sermon, but this isn't always enough.  Some children aren't as artistically inclined as others, some days the Gospel may be more abstract than others, and sometimes the sermon just goes on too long for one simple picture to fill it up.

So yesterday a parishioner mentioned to me that she'd seen a letter in the Telegraph suggesting an alphabet game during the sermon - children listen out for an "A" word, then a "B" word, and so on, and write them down as they hear them.

I've changed this idea somewhat and added it to our "Let Us Pray" leaflet - now there's a gamecard for "Sermon Bingo" underneath the explanation of the Gospel reading.

The concept is simple - there are sixteen squares, in a 4 x 4 grid.  Each of them has a keyword on it.  Children listen out for those words and cross them off as they hear them.  If a child gets four in a row - horizontally, vertically or diagonally - they come see me after the service and I give them a prize (a sticker, a cheap toy, a sweet - I have these on hand as part of our resource cupboard).

The sixteen words and phrases I've chosen are listed below, but you can choose your own, and, if you're feeling REALLY ambitious, change them with the seasons.

This way, children can actively listen to the sermon, and pick up on key spiritual vocabulary at the same time.

GOD’S LOVE	PROMISE	PRAISE	IN OUR OWN LIVES
DIED FOR US	APOSTLE	TEACHING	BAPTISM
HELP	PRAYER	EASTER	CHRISTMAS
NEW TESTAMENT	OLD TESTAMENT	GOSPEL	PSALM