Question:

I seem to have, unofficially, taken over Sunday School. I don't mind, I have three children under 6 and, in a small village, my children often make up at least 50% of my class. Please don't get me wrong, I love working with the children, but how do I get across that I would like to share in the worship and not just be the "wonderful lady that looks after the children"?

Answer:

Hmmm ... How committed are you to ministry to children, and how ossified is your parish? How courageous are you to trying new solutions, and what purpose is your Sunday School serving?

Here's where I'm coming from: the obvious solution is to do Christian Education before or after worship, or on a different day, so that children *and* parents can *both* attend worship and *both* pursue their Christian education. This is, in fact, the norm alluded to in our Book of Common Prayer, however much common practice may have diverged in the latter years of the twentieth century. I strongly believe that this is the healthiest pattern for both the children's formation, and for the formation of the whole Church.

But in many parishes, Sunday School serves the primary purpose of keeping the children out of their parents hair so that the parents can concentrate on the service without having to answer questions, referee disputes, and quell disturbances -- while simultaneously exposing the children to some wholesome Christian knowledge. If this is what the parish and the other parents really want, it can be a very slow process to convince them that a different pattern is desirable.

One alternative open to you is to take your Sunday School class in the nave. Provide them with colouring sheets or quiet crafts that illustrate the lectionary themes. Assuming that your priest bases his sermon on the lectionary, that means you'll be hearing the sermon while engaged in a vaguely-related craft. In a perfect world, your right and left brain hemispheres will then be working together. This alternative requires that you have the support of the congregation. Many, probably most, Anglican parishes here in Canada are dominated by the blue-haired crowd who find children in church colouring and gluing during the sermon to be inappropriate. A similar effect can be obtained by simply having the sermon audio -- or the whole service -- piped into the room where you are caring for the children. It's less satisfactory than actually being there, but it may be enough to sustain you while you work toward a better solution.

On the other hand, if the real purpose is to engage the children while their parents worship, can you simply hire a girl from the village to act as child-minder?

Another alternative is to hold the Sunday School before worship and use the time to prime the children to take an active part in the service. Teach them the hymns that will be used, explain the lessons so they recognise the story, and hand out the colouring sheets that they can then take in to engage their minds during the sermon under their *parents* supervision.

If you are really committed to continuing to work with the children, maybe you can find some other adults who would be willing to do it once a month, or even every other month. If you can get enough partners that you can manage to hear the sermon every second week, would that make your ministry sustainable? I'm sure God gives us our talents in the expectation that we'll use them to build up his kingdom -- but usually in ways we don't expect. Maybe there's some inspiration in the way the gift of your talents comes together with the opportunity to serve the children?

Good Luck!