Child Theology Movement - Articles and Papers

	Child Theology and the Reflective Practitioner: Is child theology relevant for missionaries?
	by Bill Prevette Ph.D.
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Keywords:	Child Theology, Mission, Key Biblical texts, Practical application, Children's spirituality
Introduction:	Compassion Forum – Assemblies of God World Missions Day of the Child, St. Louis, MO -- August 17, 2009 Contents 1.1 First some open questions: 1 1.2 Personal background and interest in the topic: 1 1.3 Developing networks and learning about Child Theology 2 1.4 What is Child Theology 2 1.4.1 A key text: ‘He placed a child in the midst’ (Matt. 18:1-6) 3 1.4.2 A ‘working definition’ of Child Theology 4 1.4.3 Concepts that are being explored in Child Theology 4 1.4.4 Some ideas we are exploring concerning children in crisis and theology 5 1.5 Time for a visual lesson – what about the human and eternal nature of children 6 1.6 Do you expect a ‘child in the midst’ to challenge your thinking about God? 6 1.7 Some practical applications of Child Theology for your consideration 6 When I was first asked to address ‘child theology’ at this conference, I worried that that such a topic would provoke glazed eyes and questions like, ‘and just how is this topic supposed to help me as a missionary or practitioner?’ What follows is a short reflection and outline drawn from personal experience in working with both Child Theology and missionary practice. 1.1 First some open questions: How many of you have heard of Child Theology? Have you read anything? What do you think Child theology involves? Do you think this has relevance for academics, for practitioners – or both? 1.2 Personal background and interest in the topic: Let me give some personal background on this topic. It may help you to know I was raised in Methodist children’s home in North Carolina. I can testify that this was not exactly a pleasant experience. My ministry with troubled youth began after coming to Christ in 1982. I worked with Teen Challenge in Los Angeles and later with Teen Challenge in Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia). After finishing an MA in missiology at Fuller, our family moved to Thailand in 1988 and then Cambodia in 1995. In those first two terms we worked with churches and community outreach and responded to the needs of children and families in the slums in Bangkok. We also began a ministry with children from the Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand who were ‘at-risk’ from sexual exploitation. Later we met thousands of children in Cambodia that had been ‘marginalized’ and abandoned after the end of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. We served as the country directors with AGWM missionaries who were assisting about 4,000 children in a number of projects (including orphanages, schools, clinics, and community development). It was in Cambodia that I first began to articulate theological questions about our work with children. A primary one which I would state today as: ‘how do we integrate our concerns for the physical and social needs of children with our concerns for the eternal needs of children?’ [I will speak on this a bit more later in the paper]. From 1998-2002, I was asked by my mentor and friend, Bob Houlihan to work with Mission of Mercy (MoM) in ‘international program development’. Bob asked me to evaluate a number of programs in Asia where MoM was assisting children. I looked at over 30 projects in the four years I was working with MoM. By the end of that time I had many more questions about children, mission, theology, missiology, and professional practice. I observed that AGWM missionaries and many AG churches were excellent at getting close to children in need. However, I found that simply responding to the immediate perceived needs of children tended to control our actions and thinking. Thinking theologically about children and childcare were new areas for us. Byron Klaus, Doug Petersen, and other friends encouraged me to do additional work in holistic theology and integral mission at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. I recently completed a 6 year (part-time) research project while working as a missionary in Romania. This study was an investigation of partnership between Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) and Evangelical/Pentecostal churches in reference to children and youth in crisis between 1990 and 2004. My research interests were focused on the factors that enabled or hindered FBO-church collaboration as both organizational entities responded to children who had been institutionalized by the state policies of Nicolae Ceausescu. (Continued...)
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	Hope
	by Haddon Willmer (notes) for Keith White and John Collier in preparation for the CT Experiment on hope at the Cutting Edge conference 2008
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Keywords:	Hope, Child Theology
Introduction:	What is to be said about hope in Child Theology? First, in Christian theology and faith, hope is not only important, but also specific. We are not just to be hopeful, forward-looking, cheerful people. Hope is not just a question of temperament or attitude. It is not subjective or internal to personality. There is promise, and so hope has content: not merely do we hope for this rather than that, but what we hope for inspires and generates hope. We hope subjectively, because there is something to hope for. This I think is what N T Wright in his book on Hope at least begins with and is concerned with. Christians hope for the kingdom of God in Christ. It is not enough, however, to believe that and then to let Christ breed in us a hopeful outlook, to make us cheery people. That is very commonly done. To be hopeful people, forward looking in all circumstances – that is what we really care about – and Christ is useful and effective in making us hopeful. Christ gives people optimism, a spirit or attitude. Many years ago, I was turned off by a Wayside Pulpit, which said: “The world looks cheery from behind a cheerful face.” I do not want that kind of illusory make-believe of an internal attitudinal religion. But its popularity arises from the enormous difficulty of giving any other meaning to the word hope. Hope in itself is always difficult because it is insubstantial – it is a form of the future, i.e. the unknown. Uncertainty, the possibility of its being otherwise in the event, cannot be eliminated from hope. Hope always carries the threat and fear of disappointment. Hope is exciting, to those who like danger, because it is akin to a gamble or a close game or to life: the ancient wisdom that calls no man happy until he is dead takes account of the frailty of hope. Even those who have lived many years in goodness and prosperity may be disillusioned in their last days. (Continued...)
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	Karl Barth – Child Theologian?
	by Haddon Willmer
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Keywords:	child theology, bible, children, Karl Barth
Introduction:	Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen 'God’s Search for Man' (English translation, 1935) is a collection of sermons. It includes one called ‘The New Beginning’, on the text of Matthew 18.1-9. It shows Barth was a child theologian. The sermon begins: Jesus places children before us. He uses them as a parable in order to say something decisive to us. Children are people who still stand at the beginning of life…..For them… everything is filled with possibility and promise; life is an open book filled with unwritten pages…. For us (grown-ups) it is too late for almost everything. We do not have an undeveloped life before us. On the contrary, we have run ourselves fast into ruts or run our lives into an impasse……we have become fossilized in our vocation, our work…we work as in a treadmill….We are faithful in our married life, but we simply drag it along as though it were a burden… Still more important, our faults, our failings, our sins…. today we scarcely resist at all. But we groan and suffer. Is not this the really burdensome feature about growing older, that we are forced to see, in so many ways, that going back again is no longer possible? But listen! “Unless you turn and become as little children.” What does that mean? ….There is such a thing as a new beginning… [With Jesus] there is this possibility of a new beginning in a life that has already grown old. We have really said everything that can be said about Jesus when we say that….It means to be an old scarred man, in just such a predicament…one without hope, without possibilities, and then, of a sudden, to face this: “ Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will revive you!” Revitalization that comes from Jesus [does not] mean that we must become actual children, childish people…..in many external and internal things we cannot go back again. But in the main thing we can go back… After this beginning, the sermon talks about the new creation in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven, which is Jesus himself, in the movement from God toward us, so that now we may know God is among us, and we are directed towards God. (Continued...)
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