On Sunday morning after church, ask a young child one of these questions. You can begin with one of the questions designed to simply get to know him or her and move toward one of the questions that engages his or her faith. Whatever you ask, it will probably be the start of a great conversation, and it might even awaken love for the church in the next generation.
Creating a Conversation
When I was a kid, the longest part of Sunday morning wasn’t the drive to church, the Sunday school hour, or even the worship service. The longest part of Sunday morning was the time after the service when all the grown-ups stood around and talked. My stomach was rumbling, my shiny Mary Janes had begun to pinch my toes, and many of my friends had already left. And yet Mom and Dad kept talking. And talking. And talking.
Several feet shorter than the conversing groups of adults, I often felt invisible, amusing myself by twirling around my mom’s legs, down near the floor where nobody bothered to look. Heard from my knee-high position, this grown-up conversation, like the “mwahhmwahhmwahh” of the adults in a Peanuts movie, was unintelligible at worst and uninteresting at best.
But every so often, one of those adults would stop talking to my mom or dad and would bend down on my level. The church member would look me in the eye, smile, and ask a question to me. All of a sudden, I’d forget my hunger and my shoes. I’d forget my boredom. This person thought I was important! This person wanted to know me!
Forming the Next Generation Starts Now
As churches everywhere shake their heads in frustration over declining commitment among younger generations, we need to remember that a person’s commitment to the church is often formed early.