Reflections from the 2006 Summit
by Sarah Grans

Participant Sarah Grans shared reflections on the Children's Summit events of March 28.

Karen Marie Yust – Plenary

Karen Marie Yust walked through the different developmental stages of children and youth and how each stage develops their faith differently.

The stage that gave me the biggest “ah ahh” moment was the Faithful Younger Elementary Age Children. She talked about the importance of honoring their questions and the experimental viewpoint of God and the things the God created. God was not a black and white God to them, God was an every changing and every creating being, their imaginations must run wild a little bit and allow them to experience God in their own way and their own viewpoint.

Yust also talked about the different types of questions that we ask children and the different types of question that children do ask about God. It was interesting to remember that we as the parents and teachers of the faith, that we need to honor their questions, and try to weave them into the both the biblical story and weave them into our life story as well.

Workshop #1 – Equipping Homes to Pass On Faith
Marilyn Sharpe – Youth and Family Institute

Marilyn talked about the importance of passing on the faith in the home, but also of being able to equip parents with tools and resource so they feel that they can do the job of passing on the faith to their children and families. Parents often feel ill-equip to pass on the faith to their children. That is why there is a church available with “professional” God teachers inside who will take care of teaching their children about God.

The change and the shift that we as leaders in the church need to make is one of equipping parents, and other adults in our congregations, and teaching them how to be truly present in the lives of their children and the children of the congregation.

Using the Four Keys for Nurturing Faith as a base for families to create a space where the faith can be passed on in the family is a great starting place when parents might feel ill-equip for teaching about faith.

Workshop #2 – Consumer Culture
Andrew Root – Luther Seminary

This was a very interesting workshop. Andrew based this time on a book called, Born To Buy written by Juliet Schor. This books talks a great deal about how the consumer culture in our world affects our children and teens in their decisions and how they live their life. The more the better is the under lying message the marketers give to kids, and it is working.

Teens’ spending power in 1989 was 6.1 billion dollars and in 2002 it grew to 30 billion dollars. This is the amount that parents are spending on their children; it is not the money that they might receive from allowances or babysitting jobs. It was interesting to see how children and teens have the power of their parents when it comes to the money that they earn, but on the other hand it might be easier for the parents just to give their children the money so they do not have to deal with their children.