Raising SamuelS. Greener, February 20131
Raising Samuel:
Releasing Children to Discover God’s Purpose
4/14 Window Missiology Conference
February 26-28
Seoul, Korea
A biblical, ethical and respectful Kingdom-view of children requires that they be valued as more than a strategic means to church growth or as missionary targets. In human essence and as agents of transformation, children are not that different from grown-ups. Yet, adults have a responsibility toward and with children for their holistic nurture, preparation, empowerment and protection, which demands that children be present, active, included and truly heard. Scripture illuminates a proper and godly posture toward children and their place in God’s greater narrative in 1 Samuel 1-3; the story of Hannah’s anguish, the gift of a son, and Samuel’s early years at home and in the temple. The narrativerelates a means of releasingchildren to discover God’s purpose and for proper adult understanding of children’s value as agents of transformation. It also reflects the principles and cautions of contemporary youth participation initiatives. Five principles are gleaned through Samuel’s story:
- Children are to be holistically nurtured throughout childhood;
- Children are to be active participants in worship and service to God;
- Children can be called by God and hear his voice;
- God uses whom he will, including those on the margins of life; and
- The supreme story of history and life is God’s and we are to envision and empower children as participants in that greater Story.
Raising Samuel:
Releasing Children to Discover God’s Purpose
A mother bound by the One Child Policy hopes for a son. In disappointment she aborts the girl child she carries so that she may try again for a boy-child tobring her status in the community and security in her old age. A father in another part of the world celebrates the birth of a son, who he has already determined will take over the family business he has worked so hard to establish. A couple in the West uses every technological advance available to allow the woman to conceive her own biological child because it gives her a sense of accomplishment to physically carry and bear a baby. A mother who cannot carry a child pays a surrogate to carry her and her husband’s biological baby so that the child they receive is truly ‘theirs.’ And in a poorer part of the world, a family celebrates as the mother bears her sixth baby, grateful for extra hands to help with household chores and farming responsibilities.
It would be difficult to make the case that children are not valued by societies. Depending on the culture or the historical time period, children may fulfill differing needs. Children may serve material needs as contributors to the economy or consumers. Children may confer status to a family or meet emotional needs for companionship–or even a sense of fulfillment or affirmation of parental skill or provision. And, children may fulfill a strategic purpose for evangelism and the future of the church. After all, children are more open to the gospel and there are so many of them in the world, particularly in areas where the gospel needs to be shared. Yet, I do not believe that valuing children as a strategic means to church growth and as missionary targets fully embracesa biblical, ethical or respectful value of children in the Kingdomor the Church.
Allow me to offer an example to support what some may see as an audacious statement. I have had quite a few conversations with missionaries who were finding it difficult to justify their work with children to their sending agency, which only gave missionaries credit for adult converts and number of churches that were planted. Initial work with children in countries that were difficult to enter was tolerated because mission to children, particularly children-at-risk, was seen as a foot-in-the-door to restricted access countries and also a means to gain access to the children’s adult family members. In this case and other situations, children are used for what I call “so-that theology.” We minister to children so that we may reach their parents, so that we can plant a church, so that we can accomplish mission that is truly productive. When adults hold the power, it is far too easy for children’s participation and presence to be subsumed under adult agendas, including commodification of children’s ministry as an economic enterprise that sees children-at-risk as productsof effective ministry, as a growth market for developmentally appropriate discipleship materials or as an emotionally-provocative marketing tool to cultivate donors for our ministries.
We can look to scripture for touchstone stories that may illuminate a proper and godly posture toward children and their place in God’s greater narrative. And the raising of Samuel is such a story.
In the first chapter of Samuel 1, we encounter a childless woman, despairing and miserable. Hannah is tormented by her husband’s other wife who has born him many children and does not hesitate to remind Hannah of her inadequacy as a wife until Hannah is crying and unable to eat. Year after year she goes with Elkanah, her husband, and the extended family to the temple, visibly distressed even though her husband expresses his love for her. She may wish to have a child to gain status in her household, please her husband and get Peninnah to stop antagonizing her. We do not know all of her reasons why she values a son. But we do know that she goes to the temple to voice her prayer through weeping and anguished cries, promising God that should she have a son, she will give him back to God, saying “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11, NIV). She is so distraught that Eli thinks her drunk.
“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. (1 Sam 1:15-18, NIV).
Her prayer for a son is answered and she fulfills her vow to God, returning her very young son to that very same temple so that he may spend his whole life (I Samuel 1:28) in worship to the Lord – as an agent of transformation and mission for Israel.
The first three chapters of Samuel 1 tell the story of Hannah’s anguish, the gift of a son, and Samuel’s early years at home and in the temple. After dedicating Samuel to the Lord and leaving him with Eli, Hannah offers a canticle of praise to God as the sovereign deliverer who lifts up the lowly, such as herself, a formerly barren woman. Samuel ministers in the temple and grows in all facets of human development through his childhood and is called by God as a child. The story is a rich one of imperfect people used by God as actors in a much greater redemption story that is especially relevant for releasing children to discover God’s purpose.
I wish to explore this narrative further to discover how God works in the life of Samuel; how Samuel discovers God’s purposes for his own life; and how adults rightly value and nurture him as an agent of transformation. We glean five key principles through Samuel’s story:
- Children are to be holistically nurtured throughout childhood;
- Children are to be active participants in worship and service to God;
- Children can be called by God and hear his voice;
- God uses whom he will, including those on the margins of life; and
- The supreme story of history and life is God’s and we are to envision and empower children as participants in that greater Story.
Children Are to Be Holistically NurturedThroughout Childhood
For those of us who work in Christian NGOs promoting holistic ministry with children, Luke 2:52 is a fundamental supporting scripture verse. It reads, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (emphasis mine, NIV). This brief sentence covers all of the areas of human development: intellectual, physical, spiritual, and psycho-social. We know very little about Jesus’s childhood, yet from this verse we can infer that his development was well-rounded and that he grew in all ways, just as any healthy child should grow.
Holistic ministry is grounded in the foundational truth of the incarnation as proclaimed in the ancient creeds of the church. Most theological statements tend to concentrate on the incarnation of Jesus as a human, but are less likely to explore the implications of Jesus’ development over time [and through childhood]. Jesus not only came in human form, but in the same manner and timing of all of humanity. He, too, was conceived (albeit uniquely), born as an infant, grew throughout childhood and adolescence into adulthood. The incarnation is far reaching, even to the redemption of all of creation, including the whole of human development through the lifespan (Greener, 2006, p. 1).
As stated by Ireanaeus, “He was made an infant for infants, sanctifying infancy; a child among children, sanctifying childhood . . . a young man among young men, becoming an example to them, and sanctifying them to the Lord” (Bettenson, 1978, p. 80).
Interestingly, the Luke passage is not the only or first one to draw attention to the growth of the whole child. 1 Samuel 2:26 parallels this description of Jesus’s childhood (Fitzmeyer, 1981, p. 446). It reads, “And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people” (NIV). The implication is that healthy growth requires awareness and nurture of all aspects of the child’s development. And the passage is placed in juxtaposition to the wickedness of Eli’s sons, the young priests of Shiloh.
Far more detail would be needed to fully describe the areas of nurture necessary for holistic and healthy human development to occur. The intellectual, physical, spiritual, and psycho-social aspects of the human experience are synergistically related and essential to wholeness; research confirms that programs that combine interventions to address children’s needs holistically are more effective than programs that address an isolated area of development (Greener, 2006). And that care needs to begin early, ideally prenatally, and continue with consistency and emotional warmth for many years. As noted in the Samuel passage, Samuel continued to grow, emphasizing the process and continuation of development throughout childhood.
Although parents, programs, and specific ministries can be mindful of holistic ministry, we learn from Samuel’s story that the outcome of nurture is the work of the Holy Spirit and not dependent on adult perfection or biological relationship. In gratitude and acknowledgement of her need for a deliverer, Hannah gives her young son over to the temple to be raised by a father with significant shortcomings. Eli is not a likely choice for a parental substitute, having failed miserably in the rearing of his own biological sons. Yet God uses this imperfect man to care for young Samuel. As stated in I Samuel 3:19, “the Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground” (NIV). Brueggemann (1990) notes that “Samuel’s growth has been nurtured by Eli. It has been governed from the beginning, however, by Yahweh. . . . Eli himself is inept but not evil” (pp. 22-23). Yet God uses frail and all too human Eli to journey alongside Samuel as a nurturer, model, teacher, and support.
Thus, a tension arises in holistic ministry with children. Adults are to be mindful of children as whole and fully-human persons who need continual and consistent nurture and care for all facets of development and adults have a responsibility to ensure quality and holistic childcare. If ministry efforts are targeted on only one or two areas of development (most typically, the spiritual and/or physical areas), some caring adult must maintain responsibility and advocacy for complementary care so that children’s growth and development are holistically addressed (e.g., in the intellectual and psycho-social areas as well). This may require not only investing in biological parents but casting vision for the Church to see all of her children as a community responsibility. Yet, just as God used Eli to nurture Samuel, God can and does use frail and broken adults to do His work. We do not need to be perfect and when successful,we are not to take inordinate pride in the outcomes of holistic and hopefully, high-quality childcare; rather, we must recognize that positive outcomes are the work of the Holy Spirit. The holistic nurture of children is not done solely for the sake of healthy development but to allow children to be in a place of discovery of God’s purposes for their lives. And part of that purpose is to worship and serve God (Psalm 8, Matthew 21:15-16).
Children Are to Actively Participate in Service and Worship to God
Once weaned, Samuel was taken to the temple at Shiloh by his parents to be apprenticed as a priest by Eli, likely when he was little more than 3 years of age (the approximate age of weaning and when a boy’s name was entered into the genealogical records, II Chronicles 31:16). Other than his parents’ desire to return him to God in gratitude for the gift that Samuel was to them, there is no indication that young Samuel had any particular gifts for the priest hood.
Yet, 1 Samuel, chapters two and three repeatedly tell of Samuel’s participation in worship and service to the Lord. In I Samuel, chapter two, we are told that “the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest” (v. 11), that he [Samuel] “was ministering before the Lord – a boy wearing a linen ephod” (v. 18) and that “the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord” (v. 21). I Samuel 3:3 repeats that “the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli.” The author is making clear to the reader that Samuel is not a passive receptacle of adult input, but an active participant in worship and service to God under the supervision of Eli the priest and likely in ways that are developmentally appropriate to Samuel’s age and abilities.
I do wish to say this carefully, but feel it is important to ask questions about children’s participation in worship in our churches. In many traditions, the greatest segregating demographic characteristic in the church is age. Children are in their own Sunday school, their own worship service, their own youth groups and may have little to no intergenerational interaction except as a cute, sentimental presence for a Christmas program or to sing a choral selection for a special occasion or a specially designated youth Sunday. For example, when a church congregation grows too large for worship space, often the first way to adapt to this reality is to remove the children from the sanctuary to give adequate space to adults.
I have never forgotten one interaction that I had at a church-based child development project in South America a number of years ago. The staff members were lamenting the lack of space for effective large-group program activities for children. The building was two stories with classrooms below and a sanctuary above. The sanctuary was an enormous room with chairs in the front third of the meeting space and with two-thirds of the room left empty. One person suggested that perhaps some of that space could be used for children to meet for large group activities and the pastor quickly retorted, “Our sanctuary is for adults, not for children.” He did not say that it was holy space or God’s space or argue that learning activities were unsuitable for a sanctuary, all points which could be argued. He said that the church was adult space. As I heard him say this, I realized that this was a common view among adult leaders, and that we have a long way to go toward understanding the significance of children in worship.
A few questions are offered for reflection on our own churches and ministries. How are children’s gifts of praise and worship recognized and nurtured? Are girl children, as well as boy children, viewed as bearers of God’s image in such a way that they can be seen as full recipients of gifts from God and participants in the life of the church? Are children considered to be full participants in the church or passive receptacles of adult ministry efforts? Do generations within the church have opportunity to engage and learn with and from each other? Is it surprising that recent U.S. research indicates that a number of teens and young adults leave the church because they have not been fully integrated into the intergenerational body of believers (Kinnaman, 2011)?
It is challenging to see how children can be agents of transformation and mission if they are sequestered in certain parts of the church building and from much of Church life. I would assert that releasing children to discover God’s purpose and allowing them to grow as transformational agents of God’s mission requires that their gifts and callings be nurtured and affirmed as they are encouraged to fully participate in worship and service to God within the Church, just as Samuel had that opportunity to participate in the daily life and community of believers. Children’s spirituality is dependent upon their “relationships with a human community of significance and care, with non-human creation and with sources of transcendence and/or the sacred” (Mercer, 2006, p. 31). Fostering deep spiritual development requires full and deep integration into the intergenerational family of God.