by the Rev. Tammy Martens
For the last few months on Communion Sunday, we have slightly changed how we offer communion to children. We have invited the children to return from Craft/Play time and sit with their parents in the Worship Hall in order for them to take communion with their parents/caregivers. In the past, the children have come in for Communion, lined up with their peers, received the elements and then have returned to Craft/Play time in the Christian Education wing. Why this simple change?
Each time we come to the Lord’s Table, as we receive the concrete symbols of bread and wine (grape juice), we reenact the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples. Through this act of eating bread and drinking juice, we remember Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and we remember Christ anew.
Children develop and construct their understandings of God with the help of symbols. They use their imaginations (root meaning of imagination is the “power” of “forming”) to help discern what the symbols mean. When children begin to ask questions about the rituals and symbols of faith they observe and experience, we know their imaginations are grasped by the symbol and that they are working to create meaning for it. These moments are the perfect time to tell the child the story of the ritual’s meaning and to tell how you meet God in the ritual or how the symbol reminds you of God. For symbols of faith to contribute to and enhance the child’s inner images of faith and for adults to be able to share the meanings of the symbols, children and adults need to be regularly together in the presence of those symbols and participating in the rituals which includes the ritual of Communion. (Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey by Catherine Stonehouse.) This is an important reason why we encourage children to be with their parents in the taking of Communion.
