Mea culpa.

I'm sorry this blog has been inactive for so long - it's been an emotional few weeks at St. George's, with some unexpected funerals, on top of being shortstaffed.  So my brain hasn't really been in gear.  I'll update again in the next few days.

However, we're now on Twitter - so if you're there, come check us out at @StGeorgeCampden .

And I have a lovely photo to share with you.  While I personally am in favour of children receiving communion from baptism, St. George's isn't ready for that yet - we welcome children to Holy Communion either at Confirmation or at a younger age with due preparation.  This means many of our children receive a blessing at the altar.  Here is Father Michael blessing four-year-old Edward:

St. John Chrysostom

Today is the feast day of St. John Chrysostom.  His Easter Sermon was included in the Easter Vigil when I was growing up, and I have successfully used it in various Holy Week/Easter celebrations with children.

Last year, we had lots of kids absent for Easter itself (away on holiday) and so we had an Easter celebration on our first day of Sunday School after Easter.  We started at the bottom of the stairwell going up to our Sunday School room, where I told the story of Creation.  We then moved up the stairwell to the landing, where I told the story of the Red Sea.  The other teacher and I held a piece of blue cloth across the stairs and the children pushed their way through it.  We then sat at the top of the stairs, where I told the story of the Dry Bones (using the feltboard) and how God sent prophets and kings and teachers to help the people follow God's laws, and how he finally sent Jesus to live among us, and to share our life.  I told them how Jesus preached good news to the poor, how he made miracles happen and how he cured people who were sick.  I talked about how Jesus' enemies were afraid of him, that they were afraid he was going to take away their power.  I talked about how they arrested him, told lies about him, and put him to death on the cross.

And then I read part of the sermon that follows.  The "Christ is risen! / He is risen indeed!" bit at the end was done responsively, back and forth between me and the children - and at the end of the sermon, I pressed "Play" on the CD player and the Hallelujah Chorus started playing as I flung open the door to the Sunday School room ... which was covered in flowers, lit candles, our "Alleluia!" banner from Easter Sunday, and had a table groaning with cake and sweets in the centre of it.

We feasted and partied for about 15 minutes and then decorated candles for the children who were getting confirmed two weeks later.  It was a wonderful session.  You could do it on Holy Saturday as a children's service around sunset, or expand the drama bit (look to the readings from the Easter Vigil for inspiration) and surround it with artistic activities and worship and singing together to make a two or three-hour Saturday afternoon programme.

Here's the sermon.  Italics indicate what I cut.  These kids were between 6 and 9.  Older kids could probably handle the whole thing.

Whoever is devout and a lover of God, come, enjoy this beautiful and radiant Feast of Feasts!

Whoever is a good and faithful servant, rejoice, and enter into the joy of your Lord.

Whoever is weary of fasting, receive now your recompense.

All who have labored from the first hour, let them today receive their just reward. Those who have come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let them keep the feast. Those who have arrived at the sixth hour, let them have no misgivings; for they shall suffer no loss. Those who have delayed until the ninth hour, let them draw near without hesitation. Those who have arrived even at the eleventh hour, let them not fear on account of their delay.

For the Lord is gracious, and receives the last even as the first; he gives rest to the one who comes at the eleventh hour, just as to the one who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; to the one he is just, and to the other he is merciful. He both honors the work, and praises the intention.

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our LORD, and whether first or last receive your reward. O rich and poor, one with another dance for joy! O you zealous and you negligent, celebrate the Day! You that have fasted, and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today! The table is rich-laden, feast royally, all of you! The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the Feast of Faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Let none lament their poverty, for the Universal Kingdom has been revealed.

Let none mourn their transgressions, for Pardon has dawned from the Tomb!

Let no one fear Death, for the Saviour’s death has set us free!

He that was taken by Death has annihilated it! He descended into Hell, and took Hell captive! Hell was embittered when it tasted his flesh, and, anticipating this, Isaiah proclaimed, "Hell was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."

It was embittered, for it was abolished! 

It was embittered, for it was mocked!

It was embittered, for it was purged!

It was embittered, for it was despoiled!

It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It laid hold of a mortal body, and found that it had seized God!

It laid hold of earth, but confronted heaven!

It seized what it saw, but crumbled before what it had not seen!

O Death, where is they sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and Hell is overthrown!

Christ is risen and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the tombs!” 

For Christ being raised from the dead has become the first-fruits of them that slept. To him be glory and dominion through all the ages of ages! 

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Christ is risen!!!

He is risen indeed!!!

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!!!!!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!!

Harvest Festival

Many churches have All-Age Eucharists at their Harvest Festivals.  We'll be trying the following idea at ours:

Before the service, pieces of paper shaped like seeds, along with pens and markers, will be placed in all the pews.  At the end of the intercessions (which will be written and read by the children), the congregation will be given time to write or draw a prayer of their own on their seed-shaped piece of paper.  During the Offertory, the seed prayers will be collected and brought to the front.  They will be blessed, and the President will pray that these seeds of ours will "grow and bear fruit."

I'm not sure exactly where they'll go - whether they'll be planted in the church garden, and decay, and provide nutrition for the soil and the living things - or whether they'll be added somehow to the displays of wheat and fruit that adorn the Harvest altar, or some third option I haven't thought of yet.  If you have any ideas for this part, let me know!

Creation.

We start the new programme year with the Creation story, and every year it makes me anxious.

The media is constantly full of stories of Creationists and New Atheists butting heads with each other, and the whole thing makes me nervous.  Are kids going to think we're a Creationist church?  Are the parents?  If I hedge the telling of the story with enough qualifications, will they understand the concept of myth and metaphor?  If I hedge the telling of the story with too many qualifications, will I destroy their ability to work out the concepts of myth and metaphor for themselves?  If I present it as fact and they later find out about evolution, will they throw out EVERYTHING they learned in church?  If I present it as myth, will they assume that EVERYTHING in the Bible is "just a story"?

It's enough to drive me crazy.

But strangely, the children don't seem to have a problem with it.  Their delight in the repetition - "And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning ...", their joy at seeing the world created bit by bit, brought out of nothingness by the exuberant creative spirit of God, is untouched by all the grown-up nonsense that surrounds them.  They know that God made the world, and they know, from school, that animals have developed adaptations to their habitats, and they don't yet see a conflict between those two ideas.

I wish all adults could be so sensible.

I've settled for telling the story, pretty much straight, using the Genesis text almost verbatim, but I do throw the question, "I wonder if God is still making the world" into our post-story discussion.  Just in case any of the kids are anxious about it too.

But that's not the direction they took with the question yesterday.  Instead they used that question to adamantly insist that God was involved not only with the initial act of creation however many billions of years ago, but also in the individual creation of each individual person now.  One child was envisioning God putting people together in space and shooting them down to earth to be born.

I also asked them why God made the world.  Maybe he was lonely, they suggested.  Maybe he was bored.  One child, who had been fidgeting and seeking attention through most of the lesson said, "maybe he wanted people to share the Holy Spirit with."

Maybe he did.

Disney Princesses.

Having just read Peggy Orenstein's wonderful book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, I've been thinking of the central role played by princesses in little girls' imaginations.

Now, I have no problems with princesses qua princesses.  Stories like Cinderella and Snow White provide a rich variety of imagery symbolic of the transition from childhood to adulthood.  I have a problem with extreme gender stereotypes masquerading as science, I have a problem with aggressive marketing to children, I have a problem with girls not being allowed to be anything BUT a princess, and I have a problem with Disney's blandification of classic fairy tales (see: The Little Mermaid - in the original, she loses the prince but gains a soul. Try finding THAT in the anorexic Ariel we're all familiar with).  But these are all for another time.

What's occurred to me is that you can find a few princesses in the Bible.  And we should make sure we stock little girls' imaginations with THESE characters as well as with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.  Don't do it at the expense of the non-princess women - Sarah, Rachel, Leah, Rebecca, Miriam, Hannah, Deborah, Ruth, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, etc. - but there's no harm in throwing your little girls a crown or two among all the shawls and headscarves.

A couple words of warning:
1. Don't try to make ALL women princesses, by going all precious and saying, "but all girls are special princesses to God!"
2. Don't Google "Bible princesses," if you value your sanity, your eyeballs, or your faith in humanity.  Just don't.

Here are a few suggestions:

Do you teach the story of Moses in the bulrushes to your preschoolers?  Do you make a point out of mentioning Pharaoh's Daughter?  She was a princess - who, out of compassion, disobeyed her father's cruel edict and saved a life, treating the reviled foreigner's child as though it were her own.  That's not bad for a princess story.  When we acted this story out as part of our first summer programme, the girls loved making crowns and jewellery for Pharaoh's daughter to wear onstage - and loved acting out the scene where Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter conspire to save Moses's life.

What about Queen Esther?  The humble girl from nowhere marries Prince Charming, but the story is anything but happy ever after.  Instead, there are death threats, banquets, back-room scheming, a queen's bravery, and a happy ending.  Jenny Koralek's re-telling, with Grizelda Holderness' beautiful illustrations, is an excellent version of this story.


If you're brave enough to tell the story of the Coming Kingdom as part of your pre-school curriculum (we do), highlight the wedding imagery.  We, the people of God, are the princess, the beloved Bride of Christ, and the Kingdom of God is a marriage feast where we get to cast off our scullery maid clothes and put on beautiful white gowns, and which is the beginning of our happily ever after.