There Is No Junior Trinity After All
[This essay was initially written Fall of 2015 in Theology of Christian Leadership class at Criswell College under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Graham.]
With the coming of age and progeny of the Baby Boomers came the professionalization of children’s ministry. No longer would children’s ministry be bound to merely Sunday school or mid-week programs. An organizational overhaul occurred in the 1970’s and 1980’s with the hiring of children pastors/directors. For some, children’s ministry, in particular children's church, has become functionally “the church” for children to the exclusion of any integration into the broader church.
Stan Grenz argues that “[t]he Father, Son, and Spirit are the social Trinity,” which entails that “community is not merely an aspect of human life, for it lies within the divine essence” (Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 76). How might the social character of the Trinity inform the organizational leadership of children ministry?
The concept of perichoresis, a term that helps us understand the social Trinity, may provide a framework by which children ministry is to relate to the church.[1] Perichoresisis “the teaching that the life of each of the persons [of the Godhead] flows through each of the others, so each sustains each of the others and each has direct access to the consciousness of the others” (Erickson, Christian Theology, 366). The 4th century theologian Basil of Caesarea describes the idea of perichoresis, “For all things that are the Father’s are beheld in the Son, and all things that are the Son’s are the Father’s; because the whole Son is in the Father and has all the Father in himself.” How can the concept of perichoresis inform the organizational leadership of children’s ministry? Two thoughts come to mind: (1) While children’s ministry is distinct from other ministries in the church, so should other ministries flow through children’s ministry and vice versa;[2] and (2) the church must integrate children’s ministry within the whole life and worship of the church.
1. While children’s ministry is distinct from other ministries within the life of the church, the ministries of the church flow through children’s ministry and vice versa. Children’s ministry should not be a ministry within the church that stands separate and unrelated to other ministries within the church. Children’s ministry ought to participate with other distinct ministries within the church. The outflow of children’s ministry into other ministries can express itself as children learning from and ministering to those involved in other ministries. The structuring of a church's ministries can give rise to the complaint that some of the senior adults do not know our younger families well and vice versa. A potential solution here introduces our children to our senior adults, having our children pray for and interact with our senior adults during an event or Sunday school. Although these ministries have distinct functions, they flow through each other and sustain each other.
2. The church must integrate children’s ministry within the whole life and worship of the church. This is worked out importantly through participation in the sacraments. One Sunday morning, I walked into the nursery after church. As I walked in to the nursery, a little 4 year old girl ran up to me and asked, “Did y’all eat with God today?” referring to the Lord’s Supper. While I have made efforts to integrate our children into the life and worship of the church through participation in the ordinance of the church, full integration has yet to occur. When serving at Hickory Tree Baptist, children left children’s church to participate in the Lord’s Supper and baptism, while our infants and preschoolers remain in the nursery. As inadequate as my solution was, I made efforts to integrate our infants and preschoolers by taking the elements of the Lord’s Supper to the nursery to explain the elements, to read Scripture, and to take communion with the nursery ministry leaders.
The social life of the Trinity can inform the outworking of organizational leadership within the church and distinctly in children’s ministry. Through the use of the concept perichoresis, the life of children’s ministry is grounded in theology, particularly a Trinitarian theology. It is unnecessary for us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We maintained a children’s ministry which is integrated into the life and worship of the church and yet is functionally[3] distinct. The life of each of ministry flows through each of the others, so each sustains each of the others and each has direct access to the others. There is no junior Trinity after all.
[1]The way in which kid ministry relates to the church has become a perplexing and complicated question. Churches structure and run their kid ministry in various ways. While some children’s ministries are more static than others, but children’s ministry as a whole is in a state of becoming. Kid ministry, like some other specialty ministries, isolate themselves to the point of being “the church”. The challenge for the church to express the concept of perichoresis reminds the church despite its structural model that the church is unified in the midst of its diversity. It is most important to identify the unity of Christian worship in categories that are experienced by the local church unity-in-person: (1) declaration of the kingship of Jesus by his bride as given by the Father, (2) observance of the ordinances/sacraments in recognition of the bride's solidarity with the sufferings of Christ, (3) the Spirit's empowered unity of a diverse people, and (4) etc.
[2]Kid ministry is not the center or central ministry of the church. However, it is a ministry of the church and as much it flows through the life of the church as do other ministries of the church into the life of the church.
[3]It is not ontological distinct. Kid ministry is only distinct in regard to function, that is its ministry to children. It is ontologically unified to the makeup of the church.