that's exactly the position my dog is in now as i type this entry from my laptop, sitting next to a sleepy dog and a pile of junk on my bed.
in a few hours, a bunch of small kids will be unleashed on me, or rather, i on them. i consider myself particularly poor with children, hence the phrasing. i'm already boring enough with people my own age, those kids must find me absolutely stuffy. i just really don't know what to do with them. oh well, i just do what i can, help where i can.
apart from the misgivings i have about my child-minding abilities, i have misgivings about this whole enterprise. that hillsongs kids vcd i got from jim to learn the songs really made me think. it started off reasonably enough, with "jesus is my superhero", which i suppose is something kids can relate to, doctrinally sound or not. i guess what made me uncomfortable was how the whole kids worship session ran much like a pop concert, and how the children assumed certain outward forms of worship that i'm not sure they understood. it was weird, seeing the kids being encouraged to close their eyes and raise their hands and cultivate that semi-stoned look as they gazed at some indeterminate point on the ceiling. some of the older kids looked a bit self-conscious, as though they knew they were acting out some kind of performance. some of the younger kids copied the actions of the adults in brightly coloured clothes prancing around them. some of the kids just looked blur.
i'm not sure how much of this criticism comes from the fact that i grew up in a christian context, and really, there were so many times that i just didn't know what i was doing, just following along. so many kids in the christian primary school i was from used to raise their hands time and time again when the altar call was issued. in my self-censure, i imagine being told off by a hypothetical children's ministry person: did Jesus not say "let the little children come unto me"? and that we should have "faith like a child" and that "out of the mouth of infants you have ordained praise"?
well i feel that the gospel truth is indeed simple enough for a child to embrace but i baulk at over-simplification like this: what is sin? oh, sin is not listening to your mummy and daddy. see, all of you have been naughty once before right? so all of you have sinned. i do feel that the gospel should be declared, even to little children, but i question doing so in a setting which encourages a purely emotional response.
but how do you explain the gospel then? and how should we reach out to children then? please don't assume that i sit on my high blog-horse and criticise, judgmental and self-righteous. i've been thinking, and i have no ready answers. i don't know.
as i get older (hopefully more mature), i find myself feeling ambivalent, not just to this, but to many other issues. my childhood world of black and white has been replaced by shades of grey. and, i do welcome this, i'd much rather struggle with these issues than be content with a oversimplified palate that does violence to reality. and yet sometimes the struggle, the need to know, feels overwhelming, and i feel so misunderstood.
moving on to feelings of being misunderstood, thats how i feel at DTC sometimes. its frustrating. by now they must think i'm a needlessly argumentative, blindly angry and man-hating feminist. but argh, i just want to have my ideas engaged with and my perspectives heard.
on women teaching in church. i find it strange that people would object so strongly to women on the pulpit and yet have no qualms about female sunday school teachers. my point being this, children are so impressionable, its so much easier to teach them the wrong thing. whereas on the pulpit, your audience is supposed to comprise of mature, thinking adults, who are free to question and challenge your interpretation and exegesis, and in fact it is their responsibility as a congregation to hold you accountable to what you preach. i feel it is far worse to have a woman teach sunday school than to preach if the claim that women should not teach is based on the accuracy or acceptability of what a woman says. but its not. its based on something i don't quite understand, a hierachy and order established from creation (see 1 tim 2:11-15). i do accept that, submit to the authority of God's word. but i still don't like how some people (women included) argue this issue. the concepts of headship and superiority need to be made more distinct, too often people argue for them as though they were the same thing. men should assume headship, but not because they are inherently superior, but because Eve was the one decieved, although i do not know how that pans out as an implication. im just tired of these chauvanistic sorts beating their chests and dragging women off by the hair, and then using the bible as justification. that's just disgusting. and would be nice also if more christians realise that many of the things we believe in cannot be justified outside the context of christianity, though we would like to believe that our views are universal. for instance, it is one thing to agree with scripture and say that women should not have authority over a man and a totally different thing altogether to disrespect a female boss because she is a woman. just a little bit of clear-headedness people!
ok, sorry for the ranting.
i was saying something about kids before this whole stream of consciousness thingy. well, to arm myself for the task ahead, i watched supernanny on tv. and i've noticed a trend in the families shes been helping for the past few episodes. housewife mum who's got too low self-confidence to discipline her own children, working authoritarian dad who comes back home from work and imposes marshal law, also belittles his wife's attempts and authority. sigh.
for the record, i'm not a needlessly argumentative, blindly angry and man-hating feminist, ok? let's leave it at that.
perhaps i should join AWARE and channel all this pent up energy into something productive. they're 21, like me!
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