Wait For the Lord

David Beale

This Advent season our church choir (hurrah we actually have one now!) has been singing Wait for the Lord by Taize when we light the candles on the Advent wreath. It's a meditative song, which is perfect for this particular moment within the mass.

Being part of the choir I like to look around at the people in the congregation, especially at the kids who are part of the class I teach for catechism. Sometimes the kids look bored. Sometimes they are singing but don't look particular interested in what they're actually doing. And then, like today, one of the kids has closed their eyes and is actively meditating on the song.

As a catechist that's exciting to see. As a Christian that's exciting to see. It should be exciting to see whenever a child is actively taking hold of their faith in such a tangible way. Everyone should be excited that one of their youngest brothers or sisters in Christ has enough of a grasp on their faith that they can enter into a contemplative and meditative state to be in worship with God.

At Imago Dei we don't treat catechism for the kids as just a regular Sunday School program. We catechists aren't there to teach the kids things that they can spit out like Question and Answer Factory. From the very moment they enter catechism around the ages of 3-4 to when they leave around ages 11-12 we tell them that they are disciples of Christ that their faith is their own and they can talk to God.

You get that in a lot of other churches, but having grown up and taught Sunday School in those "other" churches it was never spoken in the way we speak it at Imago. There is a deep-seeded belief that children can be disciples of Christ regardless of their age. When Christ told us to go and make disciples of all nations, he didn't put an age limit on disciples. He didn't say "You can only make disciple's if they are teenagers and able to take on a large active role in the community." No, he didn't say that. Yet, most likely without meaning to, that's how a lot of children's programming at churches gets done. We teach kids facts and stories and moral lessons and only as they reach their teen years do we start telling them to take charge of their own faith.

We should be telling kids that from the start.

Which is why I was so filled with joy at seeing one of Imago Dei's kids today truly mediating on the choral song and its words. That child has already taken charge of their own faith. That child already knows that they can talk to God. That child is already a disciple of Christ and it's wonderful and glorious.