THE DISAPPEARING CHILDREN [R, 1-5-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: THE DISAPPEARING CHILDREN [R, 1-5-23]

 

You expect a smaller congregation when Sunday falls on a holiday, and this past New Year’s Day, that expectation was fulfilled at St. Mark’s above the Smiling Teeth. [1] But the sanctuary was still beautifully decorated for Christmas, and we were urged to take one of the poinsettias as we left. Helen, being a faithful church person, said we had to do our part. I tried a work of supererogation by offering to carry a poinsettia to her car for an old woman who reminds me of Helen’s mother, and uses a cane, so that poinsettia transportation would be difficult for her, but she said her living quarters are so small that she would have no place for it.

The congregation was so small that the organist actually thanked me for coming. And so small that the choir was only three women, standing beside the organ, including Stephanie, the soprano soloist, a grad student in the famous IU School of Music. 

The little girl, about 3 years old, did not know about Stephanie’s credentials, of course, but she had heard her sing a soaring solo earlier in the service, so at the last hymn, she wanted to get in on the music. She went up to stand beside Stephanie, who knelt down to share her bulletin with her. [2] The little girl helped Stephanie by pointing out the lines where they should sing. Every verse. It was an extraordinarily precious moment.

I have often said that the main thing children need to learn in church is that it’s a fun place to be. The emotions we learn are far more important than the facts. If children learn that church feels good, safe, comforting, they will stay, I have said. So, I want to say that when that little girl is Stephanie’s age, she will be singing in the choir and helping some other little girl to feel at home in church. But that’s not going to happen.

When she is Stephanie’s age, that little girl will always remember Stephanie, and the wonderful feeling she got in that beautiful sanctuary, as she sits on Sunday morning on her porch with a glass of wine, [3] or at a coffee shop with her friends. But she won’t be in church.

Our town is full of delightful and caring and engaged people who grew up in our church, and love their memories of it, and don’t want to be a part of it now. That is true in every town. These people are teachers and leaders and contributors in every institution in town except the one that made them feel most at home.

It is useless to help children feel at home in church if we do it so that they will come back and be adults in the church. That doesn’t work. Times have changed. Church is changing. Even the most-loved children, who have provided the most precious moments, will not come to church when they are older.

No, the old pattern will not hold, that pattern we have depended on, where they drop out as teens and return when they have children of their own. Now, once they are gone, they are gone. It is useless to speculate why.

All we can do is keep imparting that good feeling of comfort and belonging, of acceptance, not to contribute to the future of the institution, but to provide simply for the joy of the children who are here in the now.

John Robert McFarland

1] Down the hill is not a dental office, as you might guess, but a restaurant called Bucceto’s, which means “smiling teeth.”

2] We don’t use hymnals; words are printed in the bulletin. The “rubber cigar” line was not printed in the bulletin, even though some in our row sang it during “We Three Kings.”

3] No, women “that” age think that it is never too early for wine. “Wine women” are a cult, without a leader, unless you count the wine as the leader. After all, they learned in church on Sunday morning that it’s okay to drink wine way before lunch time.