Children and Church

The Russian Orthodox priest and theologian Alexander Schmemann wrote

As a general rule, children like attending Church, and this instinctive attraction to and interest in Church services is the foundation on which we must build our religious education. When parents worry that children will get tired because services are long and are sorry for them, they usually subconsciously express their concern not for their children but for themselves.

Children penetrate more easily than do adults into the world of ritual, of liturgical symbolism. They feel and appreciate the atmosphere of our Church services. The experience of Holiness, the sense of encounter with Someone Who is beyond daily life, that mysterium tremendum that is at the root of all religion and is the core of our services is more accessible to our children than it is to us. "Except ye become as little children," these words apply to the receptivity, the open-mindedness, the naturalness, which we lose when we grow out of childhood.

Is Schmemann right? Are adults missing some of the experience of the Holy? And if he's right, how do we tap into that?

In the archives is the sermon As a Little Child, the religion column Teaching Children the Language of Faith, and the information on Making Room for Children in Church.