When Friends worship, we reach out from the depths of our being to God, the giver of life and of the world around us. Our worship is the search for communion with God and the offering of ourselves – body and soul – for the doing of God’s will.
Faith & Practice, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
QuakerBooks of Friends General Conference carries a number of children’s story Bibles. None of them pretend to be Bibles, per se. Rather, they are severely edited retellings in language appropriate for children. They are quite different, and appropriate for different age levels. In this article I will comment on seven children’s Bibles and provide selections from each so that you can gain a sense of their style, age appropriateness, and approach. We will look at how the different authors treat some of the same passages, such as the creation story in Genesis.
The problem of sporadic attendance in First Day School is common to large and small meetings. The number of school, sports, and enrichment activities available to children has expanded leaving them exhausted or otherwise engaged on Sunday mornings. Religious Education Committees have to work hard to creatively find ways to thrive in spite of these cultural pressures. To have a vibrant First Day School, we need to offer well-planned lessons, create opportunities for personal engagement, and work more explicitly at communicating with families and developing our sense of community.
Many years ago in Africa, storytellers traveled from village to village sharing myths, gossip, and lessons with the people. Together, they laughed and cried and shared their bond of humanity. Then television came to the region. The television started telling the same stories as the tellers. However, the stories on the television were embellished with magnificent special effects and beautiful or handsome narrators. The people turned to the stories on television. First the young adults, attracted to the hip young narrators, switched to television.
Middle school and high school Friends represent two entirely different groups in terms of developmental needs. The former (roughly grades 6th through 8th) are young adolescents entering a stage of rapid and volatile growth driven by raging hormones. As they leave the quiet and protected years of childhood, they begin a transition into adulthood. Yet, these years are marked with awkwardness, confusion, and uncertainty. Fortunately, as high school begins, their bodies adjust to the dramatic physical changes and their emotional roller coaster starts to settle.
In 1989 we began a new retreat program called Junior Yearly Meeting Elementary Retreats under the care of New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) for children in grades two through six. We provide five retreats during the school year held at larger meetings around New England, and two retreats, spring and fall, at Woolman Hill Retreat and Conference center located in western Massachusetts.
Multiple Friends have expressed concerns in recent years about how many children and young people seem to have trouble making the transition from Young Friend (in First Day School) to Adult Friend (in meeting for worship, committee work, etc. ). I think we need to be intentional about helping them cross over and stop underestimating their capacity for spiritual experience!
My “Friendly” outlook in writing this article is to look at the concept of multiple intelligences through the eyes of a Quaker and to consider possible applications in a First Day School setting. There comes a point in the life of a Friend when the realization comes that the inner and outer lives are connected. It is this inner light felt by individuals in the sense of “daily living” that we can present Friends social testimonies of peace, simplicity, equality and ecological witness to children in our classes.
A growing tension exists between our Quaker families and our culture of busyness and ‘round the clock scheduling. Caught between school sports and all of other choices that now exist on Sunday mornings, Quaker families often don’t prioritize meeting attendance. Needless to say, this is very discouraging for First Day School teachers who have worked hard to prepare a lesson. Irregular attendance also inhibits the formation of friendships among class members and the development of a sense of community.
Welcome to this opportunity to wonder with the young Friends in your meeting, to be a mentor and role model, and to join together as you search for the Inward Teacher available to all. There are some excellent materials available to you to help you organize and present a First Day School (FDS) program. We have listed some of them at the end of this article. But you’ve been asked today! Here are a few ideas that others have found helpful.
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