9: Faith and conversion
“Can the children I work with be ‘saved’? Are they too young? How will I know?”
The article below by Francis Bridger gives a helpful summary and insights into these questions. If this inspires you to take the subject further, Scripture Union has a wide range of books on this subject including: Children and the gospel by Ron Buckland; Children finding Faith by Francis Bridger; and Bringing children to faith by Penny Frank.
[All books are available by Mail Order while stocks last.]
Francis Bridger answers:
Sally is a busy and bubbly three year-old. Alan is a six year-old who loves stories. At nine, Tara enjoys doing ‘stuff’ with the rest of her gang. Leon is thirteen and works hard at being cool and accepted by his mates.
These four youngsters can be found in most churches. Maybe you recognise one or more of them. But what kind of faith do they have in common? And in what sense can they be said to have any faith at all? These questions go to the heart of our work with children.
We can start by deciding what we mean by faith. It’s surprising how many Christians have never thought about this. They assume faith is a matter of believing the right doctrines. And who can blame them? Whenever we say one of the classic Christian creeds, we equate faith with intellectual belief.
But this runs the risk of making faith dependent upon intellect, of understanding certain truths without which faith is impossible.
Where does this leave Sally & co? Their intellectual capacities are far from developed. Tara and Leon will be in a better position to meet the intellectual test than Sally or Alan but even they will not be ready to meet the intellectual test than Sally or Alan but even they will not be ready to make an adult confession of faith. Maybe they haven’t yet got real faith.
As long as we think of faith as predominately a matter of intellectual belief, we shall end up in a quagmire, which excludes some children and confuses our task. We need to go back and ask ourselves whether such a notion of faith is adequate or whether we should not instead accept Thomas Groome’s (the American educationalist) definition of faith as: believing, trusting and doing. If Groome is right, faith does include an intellectual component but is considerably more. It involves a personal relationship (trust) and an active outcome (doing). We can see that Sally, Alan, Tara and Leon might well have a ‘real’ faith but will reflect differing aspects of the believing-trusting-doing model according to their age, temperament and circumstances.
A further, easily overlooked, feature of faith is that it develops. There is no such thing as static faith. Indeed, the New Testament uses growth metaphors to express this: 'Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.' (1 Peter 2:2).
Consequently, those of us who work with children are concerned with enabling them first to enter into a living relationship with Jesus and then to mature. This is a major task. Fortunately, we are now helped by modern research into the ways in which children develop that offers a number of fresh insights containing profoundly practical implications:
Insight number 1: All of us have some kind of faith from the earliest months of life. The infant in her mother's arms shows faith, not by believing or doing but simply by trusting. As she grows older, she will acquire beliefs and learn to put them into action. But for some time yet, her faith will consist of pure trust. By the time she becomes Sally the three-year-old, she will have built a foundation on which to rest the believing and doing aspects of faith.
Insight number 2: The development of faith is closely connected to the natural processes of human growth and development. Faith is inextricably interwoven with these so we should look for faith characteristics appropriate for children at different stages in their development. This will take account of emotional as well as intellectual maturing.
Insight number 3: just as it is possible to chart an individual's human growth and development so the same is true for faith. The human sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology) have shown that we all go through a number of clearly defined stages as we grow up. Each stage has its own characteristics and builds upon the previous ones. So, in turn, Sally the busy bouncy child will become Sally who loves stories, Sally who enjoys being with her friends, Sally who wants to be ‘in’ with her mates. Commonsense tells us this but modern research confirms it by showing more precisely the characteristics associated with each stage. Once we understand these we will be in a better position to help children at different ages and stages.
Insight number 4: The characteristics of each faith stage can be discerned by looking at the human science model. We have already begun to see this by noting that the trust element will be the dominant characteristic of infant faith. But as we move on to successive stages, we can see something of what faith means in each one. This will enable us to relate much more sensitively to where our children actually are on their faith journey rather than where we as adults want them to be.
If we take faith development insights seriously we shall want to look for a range of responses by children to the gospel rather than expect a uniform one. And we shall want to discover what kind of response is appropriate for each stage.
One final point: you may be wondering where distinctively Christian faith fits in. The answer is that God may grant such faith at any of these stages. The baby who is unable to think or articulate beliefs is as much the object of God's love in Christ as the fully-fledged reasoning adult. What's more, faith development models do not imply anything about the content of faith merely about the way in which it develops. Used properly, they have much to teach us.