Parents as Spiritual Directors: Fostering the Spirituality of Early Elementary-Aged Children
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Transcript of Parents as Spiritual Directors: Fostering the Spirituality of Early Elementary-Aged Children
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Christopher C Hooton
Parents as Spiritual Directors
Fostering the Spirituality of Early Elementary-Aged Children
Parents as Spiritual Directors
Fostering the Spirituality of Early Elementary-Aged Children
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 1
Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on
them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said,
Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that thekingdom of heaven belongs. And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.1
Who would doubt Jesus sincerity about wanting children to come to him? Yet the
actions of many in the church imply that we dont believe children can really access the depths
of relationship with Christ. There are challenges associated with the spirituality of children, to be
sure, but against them stand the very nature of God and ancient practices that can assist children
on the way.
Challenge
When I was a teenager I was delighted to be ministering to children. I felt called to
childrens ministry as a child, and as a teenager I was already realizing the dream. However, one
Sunday morning shook my convictions so violently that, for a time, I abandoned the thought of
ministry to children. A new pastor had just taken over the childrens ministry that I had been
running with some friends. I was helping her this particular Sunday when she invited the children
to respond to a salvation message. I saw many children finding places of prayer, asking Jesus to
be their Savior. Instead of producing joy, this event rocked me to my core. Many of these
children were already saved and had in the weeks and months before been finding places of
prayer to deepen their relationships with God and seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I was
immediately faced with the question: Can children understand this spiritual life? Is the richness
of relationship with the triune God available to them?
Today, I am the father of five-year-old Foster and seven-year-old Ella. This challenge
comes home to me as I attempt to use all of my training as a childrens pastor to help them find
1 Matthew 19:13-15 (NRSV).
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 2
their own experiences of God. Ella is naturally more interested in the things of God. Foster is
younger and is at a stage where Jesus things are boring. Exploring Fosters spirituality with
him is even more challenging. I have come to believe that the wealth of spiritual relationship is
for them, yet those questions from my teen years spur me on to study how that spiritual growth
happens.
Worldview
The stakes are high. The majority of people who come to faith in Christ will do so as
children. At the same time the church is facing high numbers of young adults abandoning their
faith as they enter college. Their worldview is challenged, and for many, who have made a
black-and-white, inflexible structure of beliefs and ideas, their faith will topple.
George Barna gives a litany of statistics profiling the children of our nation. Fewer than
three out of ten fourth graders read at grade level. One in ten teenagers report having had sex
before their thirteenth birthday. One in ten eighth graders smokes daily and one in three were
drunk in the past year.2 While Barna points out that these statistics dont represent a crisis, and
children on the whole do pretty well in spite of messy lives, he says, Our nations children will
struggle to maintain a healthy balance in life.3 The trajectory of statistics suggests that, The
end result of growing up in this challenging culture will be a country of adults whose standards
have been lowered and whose sensitivities have been blunted.4 Barna suggests the missing
factor, on which all these problems hinge, is spiritual health.
2 George Barna, Transforming Children Into Spirtual Champions (Ventura, CA: Regal
Books, 2003) 18-21.
3 Barna, 26.
4 Barna, 26.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 3
Rational Theology
The church has wrestled with what to do with children from the earliest days. There have
been many questions. Are children born innocent or guilty? What happens to an infant who dies
before coming to Christ as savior? Does infant baptism redeem them? All of these questions
have influenced the way that the church has dealt with the challenge of forming faith in young
ones, and the churchs responses have created many challenges over the years. The challenges
became that much more stark during the enlightenment when theology and spirituality became
increasingly rational.
Two Extremes
The major solution to the questions posed by the church was the age of accountability.
This idea proposed that children are in a special state of grace until such time as they can discern
right from wrong. There has never been a consensus about what age that would occur, and it has
been left mostly subjective. Theologians come to this idea from two perspectives: the inherent
innocence or guilt of the child. The early church, before the time of Augustine and his
contemporaries, emphasized the childs innocence.5 For the early church, it was this innocence
that Jesus was commending to his followers as a subject for imitation. Augustine and some of his
contemporaries argued for the immediate baptism of infants because their fallen nature would
condemn them in death. The two extremes then are that children are innocent and nothing need
be done for them, and that children are sinful and unbaptized children will not enter the
Kingdom. In between these extremes is belief in the special status of children before the age of
5 Holly Catterton Allen, ed.,Nurturing Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives
and Best Practices, ed. Holly Catterton Allen (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008), 64-66.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 4
accountability.6
The response of the church to these ideas falls on a continuum from inaction to zealous
evangelism. If one holds completely to the innocence of children the danger is that no effort or
value will be placed on developing the spirituality of children. Inaction is also the possible
outcome of those who, trusting in infant baptism, leave the childs spirituality alone until
confirmation. The same can be said of those who trust in a Christian family environment to
protect a child. On the other hand, the revivalists of the enlightenment came to see children as
the objects of intense evangelism, focusing on conversion, and then again possibly leaving the
spiritual formation untouched.
Revivalist approach
During the enlightenment, revivalists were calling people to repentance and conversion.
They expected that men and women would come to rational terms with their sinfulness and turn
to God. As the enlightenment came to a close, revivalists came to question the practice of leaving
children in their sinfulness until such a time as they could have a conversion experience because
they had reached a level of mental reasoning.7 Figures such as D. L. Moody, Charles Finney and
Edward Payson Hammond began to increase their efforts at evangelizing children. Yet the
enlightenment/rationalist attitude toward children prevailed in church thought, as theories of
cognitive development seemed to limit the kind of rational thinking about God in which children
could be expected to engage.
6 Donald Ratcliff, ed., Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives, Spirituality And
Applications, ed. Donald Ratcliff (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2004), 55.
7 Michael J Anthony, ed.,Perspectives on Children's Spiritual Formation: Four Views,
ed. Michael J Anthony (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 26.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 5
Developmental theory
For years the church followed modernist thought, birthed out of the enlightenment, that
spiritual development required high level abstract reasoning skills, and was reserved for thinkers,
intellectuals and academics. It was not for the average Christian, let alone the child. This thought
dominated the research of childrens spirituality during the cognitive period of thought (1960-
1990).8 Based on the work of Jean Piaget, the prevailing thought of this period suggested that
children developed in stages. The cognitive ability to reason in the abstract doesnt occur until
adolescence. If that is the mark by which children are seen to have access to the spiritual richness
found in Christ, then young children would be excluded.
Fortunately for those interested in the spiritual development of their children, Piaget does
not have the last word. Erik Eriksons stages of development offer insight into ways parents and
other adults can help the child experience God. In each of Eriksons stages there is a core conflict
being addressed by the individual with one of two outcomes. In infancy the conflict is between
trust and mistrust. The parent then can aid the spirituality of the child by helping him or her learn
to trust mom and dad. As the toddler begins the struggle between autonomy versus shame and
doubt the parent can help the child learn self-control without losing self-esteem. Children at this
stage learn they have a will and also how to submit to the will of another. From four to six the
child struggles between initiative and guilt. Not only does he or she test boundaries but also
develops conscience. These are important parts of the development of the child morally and the
parent can offer guidance through these and every stage of life under his or her care.
9
Stage theory has its limitations, however. Many people looked to the developmental
8 Allen, 26.
9 Catherine Stonehouse,Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey: Nurturing a Life of
Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 48-58.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 6
stages offered by Piaget, Erikson and others to determine how best to nurture the spirituality of
children. One problem with this is that a descriptive account of what is does not automatically
lead to a prescriptive account of what can orshould be.10 Building lessons and methods based
on generalized ideas about the cognitive level of a group will leave children who are ahead or
behind the mark frustrated. On the other hand, children can often rise to a challenge set before
them.
Another note is that much of the research into what children could experience spiritually
was based on what they said about their spiritual experiences. This is limited by their ability to
use language. One cannot assume because the childs ability to express a spiritual experience is
limited, that the experience itself is limited.11
Along came the recent work of Rebecca Nye and David Hay to answer these concerns.
They found that behind the language and descriptions of the children there was a common
thread. The core of the spirituality of children, they found, was a relational consciousness. Those
experiences that were spiritual in nature were times when the child had a heightened
consciousness of his or her relationship to the reality around them. The exciting thing to note is
that this is not directly tied to cognitive development. Nye and Hays research demonstrates that
the core of spirituality is available to children and can be nurtured. The challenge then is how do
adults best nurture the unique spiritual lives of children? There is a wealth of material that has
emerged recently about childrens spirituality and the implications for formation.
10 Allen, 32.
11 Robert Hay and Rebecca Nye, The Spirit of the Child: Revised Edition (Philadelphia:
Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006), 60.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 7
Theological Foundation
There is no better place to look for a foundation for our treatment of childrens
spirituality than in the very nature of God. In his breathtaking book, The Knowledge of the Holy,
A. W. Tozer bookends his discussion of the attributes of God by drawing the tension between
two chapters, God Incomprehensible and The Open Secret. These two attributes will serve
us well as we approach the spirituality of children.
The incomprehensible God
God is completely other. Our minds cannot conceive of something so outside our
experiences. Tozer notes, that even the mythical creatures of lore are nothing more than fanciful
versions of creatures known to human experience in nature.12 In God there is no such point of
reference that can accurately capture who God is. We make comparisons in order to understand
truths about God, but they are sorry approximations of the reality of the Transcendent.
Faced with the awesome reality of God, our minds completely fail. No creative
imagination of child or adult can create majesty so resplendent as to be worthy of God. No
amount of logic and systematic theology can draw the outline of Gods boundaries. Volumes
have been written and myriad traditions guard numerous sacred truths, and yet God is not known
in true fullness.
For many the idea that God is ultimately beyond our mental capacity is disconcerting. We
have learned to distrust mystery and fear that which we cannot know. How can we be confident
in our relationship with God if we can never know God fully? For those who wonder if children
can have access to God before they have the capacity to comprehend God, however, this is good
news. Children are in good company! Not one of us can apprehend God with our minds.
12 A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1961), 10.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 8
Apophatic Spirituality
Words sometimes get in the way of our understanding of our experiences with God. This
is true for adults as well as children. Apophatic spirituality is an ancient way of approaching God
without words. This way affirms that God cannot be apprehended by the intellect but can be
apprehended by love.
The fourteenth century English mystic who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing, spoke of
putting all the good and valuable things under a cloud of forgettingand placing our naked intent
before the cloud of unknowing.13 We are invited to beat upon that thickcloud of unknowingwith
the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what may.14
Try to understand this point. Rational creatures such as men and angels possess two
principal faculties, a knowing power and a loving power. No one can fully comprehend
the uncreated God with his knowledge; but each one, in a different way, can grasp him
fully through love. Truly this is the unending miracle of love: that one loving person,through his love, can embrace God, whose being fills and transcends the entire creation.
And this marvelous work of love goes on forever for he whom we love is eternal.15
I am reminded of Hay and Nyes work in childrens spirituality. Words often limit the
childs ability to describe the spiritual experience. In some cases, even the religious language
became a fall-back to which children retreated to hide from the reality of what they
experienced.16 Apophatic spirituality is about apprehending God with love. This resonates with
13 Tozer, 15.
14 William Johnston, ed., The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling, ed.
William Johnston (New York: Doubleday, 1973), 55.
15 Johnston, 50.
16 On the other hand, the disadvantage of encouraging children to talk in religious terms
was that it tended to trigger off impersonal learned responses rather than reference the childs
personal experience (Hay and Nye, 88).
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 9
the core of childrens spirituality as found by Rebecca Nye: relational consciousness. Even
without the higher, abstract, reasoning capacities garnered in adolescence, children still
experience the spiritual as relationship. For Christian children this means experiencing their love
for God and Gods love for them. Five-year-old Foster can say, Do you know how much I love
my whole family? As much as I love Jesus! In that statement he is aware of his special
relationship with his family and with God through Jesus Christ. That is intensely spiritual,
though he and children like him may struggle with their young minds to understand the nature of
that relationship.
The constant voice of God
While no person can apprehend God by his or her intellect, God delights in revealing the
Divine nature to us. Gods voice is constantly speaking and self-revelation is almost a
compulsion for God. It seems to me that all of creation exists so that God can express Gods
Divine nature. Scripture is the story of God with us, Gods self-revelation, and also contains
evidence of Gods compulsion. God walks with Adam. God covenants with Abraham. God
speaks to Moses as to a friend. In the ultimate act of self-revelation, God became man in the
person of Jesus Christ who is the radiance of Gods glory and the exact representation of his
being.17
At the end of his chapter God Incomprehensible, Tozer says that while we will never
know what God is like in Gods self, we can know the things God has revealed.18The Open
Secret is that we each may know God in relationship.
To know God is at once the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. It is easy
because the knowledge is not won by hard mental toil, but is something freely given. As
17 Hebrews 1:3
18 Tozer, 16-17.
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sunlight falls free on the open field, so the knowledge of the holy God is a free gift to
men who are open to receive it.
But this knowledge is difficult because there are conditions to be met and the obstinate
nature of fallen man does not take kindly to them. 19
The conditions that he describes are the disciplines. The voice of God is constantly
speaking to us. It rolls on like a river from eternity past. The disciplines put us in a place where
that grace can wash over us. The voice of Gods self revelation, as Tozer put it, is like sunlight
surrounding us and bathing us in its light. Children are constantly surrounded by the speaking
voice of God. It may speak to them from the beauty of nature. It may even come when wrapped
in wonder over the water running from a tap.20 The voice is constantly speaking, though we may
not always recognize it. Adults and children, alike, benefit from someone who will help them
listen.
Biblical Philosophy
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been
revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and wentto Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was
calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you
shall say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.21
In this story Samuel hears the voice of God for the first time. It takes three interruptions
of his sleep for Eli to realize what was happening, but he is finally able to help his young charge
recognize the voice of God.
Scripture repeatedly affirms that God speaks to children. To the child, Jeremiah, God
says,
19 Tozer, 180.
20 Hay and Nye, 122.
21 1 Samuel 2:7-9a (RSV).
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Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.22
Jeremiah protests that he is too young to speak to the nations, but God affirms that God
has placed Jeremiah even as a youth over nations and kingdoms to deliver Gods word.
To Timothy, Paul writes,
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing
from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with thesacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.23
Often we exalt the testimonies of those who have dramatic adult conversions. How much
more wonderful is it, however, for a person to be able to say with Samuel or Jeremiah or
Timothy, I have known the voice of God since I was a child?
Gods use of the family
Timothy was the child and grandchild of godly women. Paul is reminded, as he writes
2 Timothy 1:5, of the sincere faith of Timothys grandmother Lois, and mother Eunice. God used
Timothys family to stir in him a sincere faith. The family is Gods chosen instrument to form
the faith of little ones. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses instructs parents to pass on the commands he is
giving them. The imagery he uses is continual, daily and creative. Parents are to talk when they
get up and when they lay down, when they walk on the road and when they stay home. The
commandments are to be written on the walls and gates and tied to their hands and foreheads.
There is symbolism and constant reminder offered through the context of the family.
Barna reports that, four out of five parents (85%) believe that they have the primary
responsibility for the moral and spiritual development of their children, but more than two thirds
22 Jeremiah 1:5 (RSV).
23 2 Timothy 3:14-15 (RSV).
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 12
of them abdicate that responsibility to the church.24 God has uniquely equipped the family with
nearly constant contact and given them the tools to nurture spiritual formation. The church has
never found a better way and must help families fulfill this high calling.
Model
How then can parents help children come to recognize the constantly speaking voice of
God? There is a strategy for doing just that, which has been practiced for centuries: Spiritual
Direction.
Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is a relationship in which three people enter into a conversation: the
person seeking direction, the director and the Holy Spirit. There is one purpose to this meeting,
helping the person recognize the voice of the Spirit. The director listens and asks questions of the
person while all the time listening to the Spirit. The person tells about his or her experiences with
life or prayer where they might be conscious of the relationship with God. The director simply
helps them see and hear more clearly and pay attention to elements of richness they might
otherwise miss.
Brief overview
This relationship is different than counseling or coaching. In those contexts two people
meet before God to pursue a human goal, while in spiritual direction, the person and God meet in
the presence of a witness, the director, to pursue Gods goal. 25The director is another set of eyes
24 Barna, 77-78. Also Allen, 255.
25 Gray Temple, "Spiritual Direction in the Episcopal Tradition," in Spiritual Direction
and the Care of Souls, 78-95 (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 91.
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and ears, a mirror to reflect the conversation back to the person experiencing Gods voice.
The spiritual direction meeting, then, is a place of prayer. When I sit down with my
daughter, Ella, for spiritual direction, we light a candle and spend a little time in silence to
become aware of the presence of Jesus. I want to establish an atmosphere of prayer. Both the
director and the person need to approach direction with this attitude of prayer. Prayer is when
the human heart discloses itself to God and is open to listen and respond. 26 In spiritual
direction the director is invited to listen along.
Effective spiritual direction meetings depend on both people intending to listen
attentively for the Holy Spirit, which leans more toward patient waiting than active
striving to hear God. Prayer becomes a mixture of activity and passivity: an activeintentionality to be available to the Spirit and a passive open willingness that invites God
to set agendas for spiritual direction conversations. Directees do not need to have whatthey describe as an outstanding or successful prayer life. But they do need to be willing to
pray regularly and explore the Spirits invitations. The willingness of directors and
directees to continue to pray and seek God even when prayer is not satisfying orcomfortable is essential for spiritual direction to take place.27
The role of the director is to ask questions that help the person recognize where God
might be speaking, and at same time listen to the Spirit speaking in order to give feedback or
direct questions to where God would have them go. The job is not an easy one. It takes full
active attention to the person telling about his or her experiences with God. At the same time, the
director is listening with wrapped attention to the stirrings of the Spirit. From the Spirit, the
director may sense what parts of the persons story are important, what to press, and where to ask
questions. The director may also hear from the Spirit a special word of encouragement or
direction for the person. The director must also have a high view of the individual sitting across
from him or her. Thomas Merton writes, A true director can never get over the awe he feels in
26 Jannette A. Bakke,Holy Invitations: Exploring Spiritual Direction (Grand Rapids:
Baker Books, 2000), 39.
27 Bakke, 39.
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the presence of a person, an immortal soul, loved by Christ, washed in His most Precious Blood,
and nourished by the sacrament of His Love.28
Parents as spiritual directors
In order to minister to children, I am convinced one must approach them with just the
kind of awe and humility Merton writes about. We must be convinced that the spiritual needs of
our children are as important as our own and that the charge of nurturing that spiritual formation
is a high and holy calling. Spiritual direction can be an intimate setting, as the sharer and the
director both lay their souls bare to receive from the Spirit. It is appropriate for parents to serve
in this very intimate position.
After centering into the presence of Jesus, the director usually asks something like, So,
where have you felt close to God this week? However, it could be a month since the last
meeting. That is common for adults, who have full hour sessions, but I have found in directing
my own children, that fifteen to twenty-minute sessions, weekly, work out better.
The child then goes on to tell the stories about where they have felt God. It may be a
special time at church, or maybe they felt Jesus playing with them, or helping them with their
schoolwork. Often the discussion centers on some experience of prayer. If the child doesnt have
experiences from which to draw, the parent can help the child with these experiences throughout
the week. Going on prayer journeys from The Praying Family or exploring disciplines from
Habits of a Childs Heartmay be very helpful here.
The parent as director listens to the story, asking questions for clarification. Here, the
parent must resist the urge to correct the experience or interject a moral lesson. The role of the
28 Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction & Meditation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
1960), 34.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 15
director isnt to teach but to listen and draw out from the child conclusions about where and how
God is speaking to him or her.
Spiritual direction is also helpful in times of stress or crisis for the child. When Ella was
having a hard time at school, spiritual direction became a safe place for her to rest in the love of
daddy and Jesus. When we found out that she was being bullied, I led her through a healing
prayer meditation where she actually took her bullies to Jesus! She was imagining Jesus was
with her, and she asked him where he was when she was being bullied. Jesus showed her that he
was right behind her, following her every step. This is an image she can take with her, and when
she feels threatened or hurt she can lean into Jesus or turn and give him a hug.
For a parent to become good at directing his or her children, it is important that they find
a spiritual director themselves. The direction sessions will not only help them find where God is
speaking to them but introduce and strengthen techniques and methods for being a good director.
A parent may also want to find an experienced director to supervise the parents direction of his
or her children. A supervision relationship helps the director see blind spots in his or her own life
that may affect the ability to effectively direct the child. A supervisor normally listens to a
recounting of the directors session with an ear to what is happening in the director and between
the director and God.
A note about the term
There has been much discussion among Spiritual Directors about what this relationship
should be called. Many feel uncomfortable with the term Director as the best Spiritual
Direction is non-directive. Alternatives have been suggested including: Spiritual Friendship,
Spiritual Father/Mother, Anam Cara, Soul Friend, or as one colleague suggested, simply Dad.
Some very specific expectations come along with the term. I have in mind simply what I have
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 16
described above. I am not suggesting that parents be subjected to the same rigorous code of
ethics maintained by organizations such as Spiritual Directors International, nor that they should
be recognized as Spiritual Directors to the community in general.
Some issues could be difficult to navigate as well. Spiritual Direction, as we have
discussed it, is not a time for instruction or making assessment as to the correctness of the
Directees spirituality. This is an important part of the normal role parents are to take in the lives
of their children, but for the Spiritual Direction session this should be set aside. However, it may
be difficult for a child, hungry for parental approval to set this role aside. This brings us to
another potential difficulty: navigating the power differential that exists between parent and
child. I believe that these issues can be successfully navigated, particularly with the use of
Supervision.
Conclusion
The spiritual direction approach is consistent with what we have discovered about
childrens spirituality. Spiritual direction like this may well be the missing component to the
spiritual development of children. They get the cognitive lessons through Sunday school,
devotions and stories, but the relational consciousness can be developed through conversations
like these. As we build a foundation of experience of relationship with God, we help children
find something that cannot be taken away. A worldview can be challenged, beliefs can be
shaken, but when a child experiences his or her own relationship with God, that story can never
be denied.
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Parents as Spiritual Directors 17
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