Children

Editor’s Note: Amy L. Sherman serves as Editorial Director for the FASTEN initiative and has been active in the MNA’s Urban and Mercy Steering Committee. She is a member of Trinity Presbyterian in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the founder and former Executive Director of Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries. Sherman has authored many books and has been a regular faculty member for the CE&P and MNA’s bi-annual mercy ministry conference. She writes about one PCA congregation that has grabbed an opportunity to make a difference in their community.

The members of Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama, are heavenly minded–and earthly good. The most visible example of this is the giant replica of the solar system they’ve constructed for Lincoln Elementary School, where 94 percent of attending children are poor enough to qualify for the government’s free lunch program. Bright stars and six foot planets bedazzle the eye as they stretch across the 2000-foot black-painted ceiling of the school’s old gym, now remodeled as a giant science laboratory complete with a salt-water aquarium and terrarium. “The whole idea was to study sea, space, and earth,” enthuses Southwood’s Director of Mercy Ministries Mark Stearns. “We wanted the kids dreaming.”

The science lab’s not the only new thing at Lincoln. With help from Southwood and other churches, the school now boasts a refurbished library with a state-of-the-art computer lab and scores of new books. And in a renovated greenhouse attached to the school, Lincoln students are now busy taking horticulture classes.

These kinds of facilities may be standard fare at private, suburban schools, but they are a rarity in the school districts serving Alabama’s low-income kids. As Lincoln Elementary principal Christy Jensen says, “I don’t believe there is any other elementary, middle or high school in the Huntsville City School District that has anything like this connection” with a congregation like Southwood.

The most important service Southwood PCA has offered to Lincoln, though, hasn’t been money or things. It’s people. Over half of Lincoln’s 212 students now enjoy personal, one-on-one mentor-tutors, thanks to volunteers from Southwood and other congregations, like Cove United Methodist, that Southwood leaders have recruited.

The Ministry of Overhead Projectors

Southwood’s collaboration with Lincoln Elementary won the church $5000 in a ten-state competition sponsored by FASTEN (Faith and Service Technical Education Network), a capacity building initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Southwood beat out 33 other Alabama entrants for FASTEN’s “Partners in Transformation” award. The award honors faith-based organizations that operate a successful social program in collaboration with some organization outside the faith sector. The mercy ministries department of MNA promoted the contest and at the most recent Mercy Ministries conference, I had the opportunity of talking about the need for PCA churches to engage in non-traditional partnerships to transform their communities. Southwood is a great example of putting this concept into action.

The partnership began when Mark Stearns became acquainted with the low-income neighborhood surrounding Lincoln Elementary, the community a mere eight minute drive from the church. One day in 2002, he walked into principal Jensen’s office and asked her what needs she had that the church might assist with. Taken aback – and somewhat skeptical – Jensen thought for a while. Then she proposed that some new overhead projectors would be a boon to the teachers. A few days later, five projectors arrived. “I’d wondered,” Jensen admits, “whether this guy was for real. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.” With the credibility of five overhead projectors behind him, Stearns shared his heart for the community with Jensen, emphasizing that the church really wanted to help. Now, three years later, Jensen reports she and her teachers have been “overwhelmed” by the support. “I’ve been in the education business for a long time,” Jensen says, “and I’ve never seen anything like this. It is very unique.”

When asked whether she is concerned about church-state issues, Jensen says no, because the church volunteers know “what’s allowed and what’s not allowed between 8:00 and 2:30.” In fact, she wishes that more collaboration between the faith community and needy public schools were occurring. “In the U.S., in schools when people say they’re coming from a church, sometimes people get fearful. [But] there’s not anything to fear-it’s a help.”

Poured Out Like A Drink Offering

The collaboration has been a new experience for church members, too. “Southwood was great at equipping people and taking care of its own folks,” Shari Jones, assistant mercy ministries director, notes. “But as far as really getting out into the community and serving-golly, not much. It was more [about] having comfortable settings to bring people in, instead of really getting out.”

With a largely affluent membership, Mark Stearns knew it would be a stretch getting Southwood’s congregants hands-on engaged in the distressed Lincoln neighborhood. He knew he’d need support from the pulpit. So he took Senior Pastor Mike Honeycutt on a home visit to one of the families from Lincoln. The house “reminded me of something from a third world country,” Stearns recalls, noting that the plumbing was broken and the stench was pungent. A few minutes into the visit, it became clear to Stearns that Honeycutt was bothered by the odor. “I remember praying that he would suffer,” Stearns chuckles. “And he did. It was hard. It was difficult to see [the conditions]; difficult to be there.” After they concluded the visit and walked outside, Honeycutt turned to Stearns and declared, “This is where the Kingdom of God needs to be.”

Honeycutt began challenging Southwood to be “poured out like a drink offering” for the Lincoln Village community. Congregational response has been tremendous. “Out of 1100 members, I bet half have done something over there,” Shari Jones reports. “We have people who are falling in love with the kids, taking them with them on their vacations,” Stearns adds. “It’s definitely a really important part of what our Body does now.”

In addition to the tutoring program, several businesspersons from Southwood have launched the Lincoln Village Preservation Corporation. Their aim is to attack the problem of indecent housing in the Lincoln neighborhood. So far, the Corporation has purchased 25 properties to refurbish. Many church members are also active in the neighborhood food pantry, connecting with Lincoln residents as they meet practical needs for food.

Impact

Studies by the U.S. Department of Education indicate that effective tutoring programs tend to have the positive impact, on average, of increasing reading comprehension by half a grade level. Principal Jensen says that reading and math scores are gradually climbing at Lincoln. In the first years of the collaboration, tutors especially focused on the kids’ writing skills. Aggregate scores in this area were in the “red zone,” well below expected state standards, when Jensen first arrived four years ago. Now, students’ writing assessment test scores have quadrupled.

Kids aren’t the only ones being touched through this ministry. Church volunteers are slowly forging relationships with the students’ parents as well. Jensen is thrilled with one effect of that: PTA attendance has skyrocketed from about a half a dozen participants to over 100 at the most recent meeting. “We pack out the place usually now,” she exults. “And I think that part of that is that [the tutors] have helped the parents see the importance of parent involvement.”

Shari Jones is quick to add that the transformation occurring is mutual: “I feel like I have every bit as much to learn as I do to give,” she stresses. “I look at the culture in Lincoln and think, ‘You know, it’s probably better to sit on our porches more like the folks there do, because they’re not so busy with so many activities. So,” she sums up, “I feel like it’s an exchange, more than a ‘we have so many answers we want to share with you.'”

Enlarging Worlds

Asked to describe what the partnership with Lincoln has meant to Southwood parishioners, Jones talks about tutor Cliff Ibsen. Recently retired from Boeing, Jones says Ibsen is the type to take notice of things. He discovered dyslexia in his first “tutee” and encouraged the school to do some additional testing. Now he’s paired with De Angelo, a third grader at Lincoln. One of ten kids from a single-parent home, DeAngelo is “bright,” “responsive,” and “eager to please.” In addition to the weekly tutoring session, Ibsen has helped DeAngelo and his brother obtain needed dental work and treated them to visits to the beach, the theater, and the Botanical Gardens. It’s about enlarging the kids’ worlds, Jones explains. A long-time member of the board of directors for the Community Ballet Association, she laments that poor kids in under-resourced schools like Lincoln “are almost cut off from the arts community as a whole.” Last year, she facilitated a whole-school field trip to attend The Nutcracker. Three children from Lincoln have also earned scholarships to the ballet school.

These kinds of opportunities expand the kids’ horizons. As Jones puts it, DeAngelo is “more broad in his thinking [now]; more open to possibilities.”

She adds, “When I first went out there and asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, it was professional football player or hairdresser. That was pretty much the range. DeAngelo’s one who will consider other possibilities now.”

In a training session with children’s ministry leaders, a somewhat inclusive question came to us regarding infant baptism, election, covenant and evangelism. Volumes have been written on each of these, but we can only make a short response here. If you read through the PCA Book of Church Order, especially those parts listed below, you will find infant baptism, election, covenant and evangelism are all connected.

The Presbyterian Church in America Book of Church Order has the following to say about the church:

1. “The members of this visible Church catholic (universal) are all those persons in every nation, together with their children, who make profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and promise submission to His laws” (1:1-3).
2. “The Visible Church before the law, under the law, and now under the Gospel, is one and the same and consists of all those who make profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, together with their children” (2:2-1).
3. “A particular church consists of a number of professing Christians, with their children…” (4:4-1).
4. “The children of believers are, through the covenant and by right of birth, non-communing members of the church. Hence they are entitled to Baptism, and to the pastoral oversight, instruction and government of the church, with a view to their embracing Christ and thus possessing personally all the benefits of the covenant” (6:6-1).
5. “The church Session is charged with maintaining the spiritual government of the church, for which purpose it has power: a. To inquire into the knowledge, principles and Christian conduct of the church members under its care; to censure those found delinquent; to see that parents do not neglect to present their children for Baptism; to receive members into the communion of the Church; to remove them for just cause; to grant letters of dismissal to other churches, which when given to parents, shall always include the names of their non-communing baptized children” (12-5-a).
6. “Every Session shall keep an accurate record of baptisms, of communing members, of non-communing members, and of the deaths and dismiss ions of church members” (12:12-8).
7. “Before baptism, the minister is to use some words of instruction, touching the institution, nature, use, and ends of this sacrament, showing: a. That the promise is made to believers and their children; and that the children of believers have an interest in the covenant, and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the Gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament; the Covenant of Grace, for substance, being the same; and the grace of God, and the consolation of believers, more plentiful than before; (56:4-e). b. That the Son of God admitted little children into His presence, embracing and blessing them, saying, “For of such is the kingdom of God. (56:4-f) c. That children by Baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible Church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers…(56:56-g). d. That they are federally holy before Baptism, and therefore are to be baptized (56:56-h). e. By virtue of being children of believing parents they are, because of God’s covenant ordinance, made members of the church, but this is not sufficient to make them continue members of the Church. Whey they have reached the age of discretion, they become subject to obligations of the covenant: faith, repentance and obedience. They then make public confession of their faith in Christ, or become covenant breakers, and subject to the discipline of the Church.” (56:56-j).
8. “Do you acknowledge your child’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?” (56: 5-1).
9. “Do you claim God’s covenant promises in (his) behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for (his) salvation, as you do for your own?” (56:5-2).
10. “Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before (him) a godly example, that you will pray with and for (him), that you will teach (him) the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring (him) up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?” (56:5-3).
11. “Do you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of this child?” (56:5-5).

In the above statements, it is clear that our theology of children is connected with our ecclesiology and certainly our understanding of the covenant. But in chapter 63, entitled “Christian Life in the Home,” in reference to Christian education, we read in 63-6, “in the supreme task of religious education, parents should cooperate with the church by setting their children an example in….” Several itemized things follow to underscore the cooperative role of the home and church in raising covenant children.

Recently, I was reading from an excellent book by Dr.Peter A. Lillback, a PCA teaching elder and newly elected president of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. The book is entitled The Binding of God, Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology. I was tracing the development of the Reformation and particularly its understanding of the above topics. It was quite interesting to review the evolution and formulation of the doctrine of infant baptism. Lillback quoted some involved in the Anabaptists movement saying, “infant baptism is a silly and blasphemous outrage, contrary to Scripture…that only believers should be baptized, no children.” Then he reference December 16, 1524, a day in which Zwingli finally rejected the Anabaptist position in favor of infant baptism (page 89). I mention this because, as Lillback pointed out, Zwingli, at first, did not base his conclusion in favor of infant baptism on the covenant nor appeal to it as the reason for doing so. He simply maintained that since baptism replaced the Old Testament circumcision, infants were circumcised and therefore should be baptized. He also referred to the household baptisms including children. However, soon those Reformers, including Zwingli, began to include the covenant promises in their doctrine of infant baptism. They began to emphasize the continuity between the promises to Abraham in the Old Testament, the Covenant of Grace, with the New Testament continuation of that promise; therefore the accompanying signs of the covenant.

Balthasar Hubmaier was a staunch believer in believer’s baptism, or as he said, “I have not otherwise known or understood all scriptures which speak of water-baptism that that one should first preach, after that believe, and thirdly be baptized…but now Master Ulrich Zwingli has made known to me the covenant of God made with Abraham and his seed, also circumcision as a covenant sign, which I could not disapprove.” (ibid page 96). From their he went on to embrace infant baptism based on his understanding of the Covenant. Lillback goes on to talk about Zwingli’s connecting the doctrine of the covenant with the doctrine of election.

Obviously, we stand in the tradition of the reformers and as recipients of God’s gracious covenant promises. The Bible teaches that God has chosen or elected some from all the nations of the world to be saved, including their children. He has promised to save his elect by his active and passive obedience in Christ, specifically his death on the cross. Election refers to his choice of those for whom Christ died, which was made from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4-6). He has worked out the mechanics of that election by means of a covenant.

God said to Abraham, “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). “And, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17:7). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31).

We must presume on the basis of the covenant promises that our children and all children of believing parents, or even one parent, are among the elect. They are children of the covenant. They are sinners in need of saving grace. They will need to repent and believe at some point in their lives but in infant baptism God allows and even instructs parents in the covenant to presume that they are his and treat them accordingly. The Book of Church Order follows that line of reasoning. Our covenant children are to be identified as such and received into the church and connected to a particular church through the covenant sign of baptism. They are to be presumed to be the elect unless, at some point, they demonstrate otherwise.

Our role as parents, church teachers, and other Christian adults is to assist in the process of enabling our children, through “religious education,” to know who they are – children of the covenant. Teaching them the things of the Lord and their need to demonstrate repentance of sins, faith in Christ, and obedience to his Word is our privilege and responsibility. We make that commitment publicly at the time of baptism.

This makes a significant difference in how we see our covenant children. For example, some believe children are lost and cannot be discipled until they are saved, baptized and then taught. On the other hand, we believe our children are covenant children and need to be identified as such, taught what covenant means, and as they are taught, they will learn the necessity of their own faith, repentance, and obedience. Our BOCO states “that by virtue of being children of believing parents they are, because of God’s covenant ordinance, made members of the church, but this is not sufficient to make them continue members of the Church. Whey they have reached the age of discretion, they become subject to obligations of the covenant: faith, repentance and obedience. They then make public confession of their faith in Christ, or become covenant breakers, and subject to the discipline of the Church” (56:56-j).

Only God knows with certainty whom he has chosen. Therefore as with adults, so with children, we presume upon his electing grace and that we are members of his covenant family and this family relationship brings with it certain privileges and responsibilities, which we vow to learn ourselves and teach to our children. This is evangelism, part of the discipleship process and not some prelude to it as though it were a separate part. The ideal is that there will never be a time when our covenant children do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord. It leads me to say that discipleship is teaching covenant children and adults the meaning and significance of their baptism in Christ.

As a young Christian and seminary student I was greatly helped to see how these things fit together reading Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology and R. B. Kiuper’s God Centered Evangelism. I recommend both to you if you are interested in pursuing these topics. (Both are available from the CEP Bookstore.)