The Christian life and faith involves in other people's lives.
We pray for the needs of others, we give of our time and
resources to help each other and to help strangers, and we share
the message God has given us in Scripture.
Sharing is not just for adults. It is good for young
people and even small children to learn how to share their faith
in God. Not everyone will be an eloquent speaker.
Not every child will be able to read well. But we all need
the opportunity to say what is in our hearts. For some of
us that may be done with many words. For others, we may
have only a few words, but they will count just as much, and
maybe even more. Still others of us will share our faith
by actions alone.
Allow children to talk about how God is impacting their lives.
Let them pray with their own words, and about the concerns of
their own hearts. This does not mean that we never teach
them what we should be concerned about, or what we should be
careful to pray about. but God hears the cry of the
sincere heart, and children need to know this.
Real Christian faith is not fully contained by ritual or
expressed by rite. Children will always respond to reality
and to genuine expressions of faith. They also respond
well to other children who share the Word, who share
experiences, and who share the things they have been learning.
|