Dear friends,
Dr. Lisa Miller, a research psychologist who studies the impact of spirituality on children and youth, was on the subway in New York City. She noticed that most of the commuters had crowded into a couple of cars. They seemed to be avoiding a distressed, disheveled man sitting in an almost-empty car, eating chicken, loudly inviting anyone he saw to join him. She watched as a young girl and an older woman, dressed as though for church, got on the train. The troubled man called out to them. They caught each other’s eyes, nodded to each other, and went to sit beside the man.
Their nod stuck with Dr. Miller. She imagined that the grandmother and granddaughter, on their way to church, shared a conviction that this man was a beloved child of God. They checked in with each other for confirmation; together they acted on their faith. The nod she saw shaped Dr. Miller’s future research. “What impact does it have on a young person,” she asked, “when they share a sense of spirituality with someone from an older generation?” After years of study, Miller concluded that it has a huge impact, enabling resilience in the face of challenges.
At our recent congregational conversation on faith formation, I shared that story from Dr. Miller’s book, The Spiritual Child. As we talked about our experiences of faith formation and our hopes for the future, it struck me that we are all about the “nod” — the ways we share faith and spirituality among different generations.
It was a rich conversation, one that will form the basis for future conversations about programs and staffing. We talked about experiences of faith formation that have had an impact: times our young people claimed the power of ritual, times they found joy in service, times they understood that we love them exactly as they are. We talked about the way one of our young people shared a favorite biblical story with their grandmother. We named the sense of belonging that comes from being in a pageant or dressing up for Trunk or Treat. We acknowledged the power of our young people creating their own project room. We remembered moments from our own confirmations and baptisms.
From those experiences, and from our reflections on Dr. Miller’s research, we named our hopes for our young people. We hope to help them cultivate a heart for service. We hope they have a sense of belonging and safety, a place to ask questions and wrestle with hard issues. We long for them to have intergenerational community, and also a community of people their age. We want our parents to feel confident that they are their children’s best role models. We want our young people to learn the stories of our faith in ways that are engaging. We want them to know they are loved unconditionally here.
I am so grateful for Rev. Dr. Karen Nell Smith for the ways she has nurtured and uplifted the spirituality of our young people (and people of all ages) in the last five years. I will really miss her wisdom, creativity, and love for our children. She has given us a strong base to build upon.
We don’t yet know what the next steps will be. What programs will help us live into our hopes for our young people? What staffing model will support the congregation as we live out the promises we make every time we baptize a child? I look forward to exploring these questions in the coming months. This first meeting was a powerful start, claiming the wisdom of our own experience and power of the “nod” we offer one another as we share our faith.
Peace, Debbie