by Leah
Meredith wrote a great post about giving her son a choice in his religious upbringing, since it was such a positive experience for her growing up. Read it here!
I didn't grow up with a choice. My parents have both been committed to my home church since we moved into town (when I was 2 and a half) and were committed to the church where I was baptized before that. They were both born during World War II and had a little more of the no-nonsense, you-are-going-to-church-unless-you-are-bleeding-or-vomiting than the you-can-choose-to-go-to-church-or-not attitude. So my sister and I went to church pretty much every Sunday of our young lives, including on vacation if we were visiting people who went to church. I think both of us had plenty of mornings where we would have rather stayed in bed, in our pajamas, eating cereal and reading or watching Star Wars or ANYTHING other than get up early on a precious weekend morning and have to put on nice clothes.
After all this enforced churchgoing, my sister turned out to be an atheist.
And I turned out to be a pastor.
Go figure.
Meredith wrote a great post about giving her son a choice in his religious upbringing, since it was such a positive experience for her growing up. Read it here!
I didn't grow up with a choice. My parents have both been committed to my home church since we moved into town (when I was 2 and a half) and were committed to the church where I was baptized before that. They were both born during World War II and had a little more of the no-nonsense, you-are-going-to-church-unless-you-are-bleeding-or-vomiting than the you-can-choose-to-go-to-church-or-not attitude. So my sister and I went to church pretty much every Sunday of our young lives, including on vacation if we were visiting people who went to church. I think both of us had plenty of mornings where we would have rather stayed in bed, in our pajamas, eating cereal and reading or watching Star Wars or ANYTHING other than get up early on a precious weekend morning and have to put on nice clothes.
After all this enforced churchgoing, my sister turned out to be an atheist.
And I turned out to be a pastor.
Go figure.
Despite my protests at the time, though, and how often I dragged my feet to the point of having to eat my cheerios in the car on the way to worship (this is hard to do without spilling on your church clothes), I am really glad my parents made me go. That consistent church attendance turned out to shape my faith and my worldview in ways I couldn't have imagined as a 7- or 10-year-old. It taught me that church is a body of people who care about one another in tangible, joy- and burden-sharing ways. It illuminated for me the rhythm of the church year which now provides the rich, undergirding cadence of my faith life. It ingrained in my soul the importance of service and planted seeds of justice that later grew big and bushy and fruitful. It modeled that women and gay people could be pastors. It nurtured a love of beautiful music and an appreciation of good liturgy and great sermons. It taught me the stories of God's people and of Jesus, stories that have formed who I am at the very core. And, most important, it gave me a place to practice and play with my own blossoming faith, to experiment spiritually and to deepen what I now consider to be the most vital part of myself.
I want all of that for Little Bit. I want it deeply. (And I pray for the grace to hold it lightly if she decides at some point that Christian faith*--or faith period--are not for her).
When I read over that list, the church her dad and I co-pastor is all of those things and more: explicit, extravagant welcome of people from a wide variety of backgrounds including race; a sense that she, or anyone, can participate in worship and throw their 2 cents at the text; and a chance to learn to embrace the challenge that comes when people from those wildly different provenances decide to share those 2 cents!
But I know my younger self well enough to know that most Sunday mornings, I would have chosen bed--or chosen church a regretful 15 minutes after my parents had left for worship. So I figure church will probably end up being a non-negotiable for Little Bit, just as it was for me. I want her to give it the full, generous shot that I was asked to give it so that it can shape her life, too--especially during the tweenaged slump when you're old enough to stay in church and listen to the sermon but you aren't really interested in it. If she decides, like her auntie did, to become an atheist, or a humanist or a Buddhist or a whatever-ist, I trust that she will see her enforced childhood** churchgoing as our loving attempt to nurture her spiritual side and provide a community of faithful people to which to belong and by which to be challenged and changed.
That, and she can't very well stay home when both of her parents have to be at church for their jobs. :)
See a forthcoming post on how baptism and confirmation work in the UCC to understand more about religious choice in my tradition.
*Let's be honest, if my daughter converts to Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Orthodox Christianity, etc. etc...the solidly universalist religious geek within will be super excited to learn about her new faith with her. The disappointment I'll have to fight will be if she decides she doesn't want aaaaaany of it. This will be me: "Not even meditation? Please??"
**I don't remember when my sister stopped going to church regularly--it may have been in late high school. I figure if my 16- or 17-year-old daughter comes to me and says she has really thought it out and church ain't her thing, I will respect her decision and we'll come to an understanding--something along the lines of the age-old "sit in the back row and do your crossword puzzle" tradition.
I want all of that for Little Bit. I want it deeply. (And I pray for the grace to hold it lightly if she decides at some point that Christian faith*--or faith period--are not for her).
When I read over that list, the church her dad and I co-pastor is all of those things and more: explicit, extravagant welcome of people from a wide variety of backgrounds including race; a sense that she, or anyone, can participate in worship and throw their 2 cents at the text; and a chance to learn to embrace the challenge that comes when people from those wildly different provenances decide to share those 2 cents!
But I know my younger self well enough to know that most Sunday mornings, I would have chosen bed--or chosen church a regretful 15 minutes after my parents had left for worship. So I figure church will probably end up being a non-negotiable for Little Bit, just as it was for me. I want her to give it the full, generous shot that I was asked to give it so that it can shape her life, too--especially during the tweenaged slump when you're old enough to stay in church and listen to the sermon but you aren't really interested in it. If she decides, like her auntie did, to become an atheist, or a humanist or a Buddhist or a whatever-ist, I trust that she will see her enforced childhood** churchgoing as our loving attempt to nurture her spiritual side and provide a community of faithful people to which to belong and by which to be challenged and changed.
That, and she can't very well stay home when both of her parents have to be at church for their jobs. :)
See a forthcoming post on how baptism and confirmation work in the UCC to understand more about religious choice in my tradition.
*Let's be honest, if my daughter converts to Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Orthodox Christianity, etc. etc...the solidly universalist religious geek within will be super excited to learn about her new faith with her. The disappointment I'll have to fight will be if she decides she doesn't want aaaaaany of it. This will be me: "Not even meditation? Please??"
**I don't remember when my sister stopped going to church regularly--it may have been in late high school. I figure if my 16- or 17-year-old daughter comes to me and says she has really thought it out and church ain't her thing, I will respect her decision and we'll come to an understanding--something along the lines of the age-old "sit in the back row and do your crossword puzzle" tradition.