Where did Lucy go?

Some time in the next two weeks, take your kids and go see Prince Caspian. It really is that good. They might not grasp all of the spiritual parallels, but they'll like the story anyhow, and the movie might cause them to pick up the book series. For your part, if you watch Caspian closely enough, you just might spot yourself.

As much as I liked Narnia, I loved Caspian. Not only did they produce a two-and-a-half hour movie that held my interest, but they adapted a book which uses lots of dialogue to bring readers up to speed on what happened in Narnia between the Pevensie's first visit and their return. While much of the first movie focuses on the kids (and the viewers) discovering Narnia, Caspian opens with the kids missing Narnia intensely; stuck in the world for a time, but eagerly awaiting another transcendent experience that will re-place them where their hearts had been all along.

It's the same "already-not yet" tension that we believers live in every day, and the movie captures this longing beautifully. Yet, none of the kids seems to know fully what to do with Narnia once they've arrived. Could this be the clue as to why we don't inherit the eternal kingdom at the moment of our salvation? The three oldest children sense that there is a battle at hand, but are still growing into their roles. But it is in Lucy that we see the picture of a girl with single-minded devotion to the one who enthralls her, her King, Aslan.

I think everyone who discovers Jesus goes through a Lucy period in their lives, when God is new and fresh and thrilling and it's enough just to be with him, demanding nothing. I can relate to that. But I can also surely relate to Edmund - carnal and tempted and wanting to enjoy pleasure too much for his own good; and to Susan - older, wiser, but too level-headed at times to appreciate the immaterial or too impatient to tolerate the intangible; and to Peter - serious about kingdom work to a fault (as an ambitious, battle-ready Peter exclaims in the movie, "We've waited for Aslan long enough!").

It seems no one can stay Lucy forever. New believers are confronted with the reality that others couldn't give two cents about what they believe. They meet the colder reality that even fellow believers don't share their zeal. They come to realize that the Church is filled with still-fallible humans - forgiven, yes, but still toting the baggage of the "old man" with them. Anyone who has grown into a ministry leadership position comes to terms quickly with the fact that laws of economics and politics don't check themselves at the front door of the church. We are forced to temper our idealism with a certain amount of practicality, even cunning. As we "grow up" in our faith, we lose our sense of awe. Bible stories that were once vivid become familiar and then passe; songs that once moved us become background noise; rituals that were meaningful become rote. Once we were enthralled; we become hardened. Once we were on fire; we cool to a steady burn. And before we know it, the baby skin is gone: Where did Lucy go?

The question matters to parents and others who work with children because if we are to guide them to a mature faith and a faith that outlasts Sunday school programming, enduring into young adulthood and anchoring them as they raise families of their own, we must understand how the character of religious faith changes as kids develop, and why. Or to put it another way, why can't Edmund, Susan, and Peter believe the way Lucy does?

To begin with, spiritual development is thought to be shaped by cognitive development. It is generally accepted that you do not speak to a preschooler about spiritual things in the same way you would speak to an adult: preschoolers lack the facility with language to make sense of immaterial concepts. Thus, in a preschooler's mind God is a kindly old man who lives in heaven (which is actually, physically, in the clouds) and people who go to heaven become angels (because the wings allow them to stay in flight). In one sense, the job of teaching adults is to reshape those perceptions formed as children which weren't quite right, but were necessary because a child couldn't understand it any other way (ever try to explain a "soul" to a five-year-old?). The degree to which cognitive development limits spiritual development is disputed by those who study child spirituality: Can a young child be as spiritually deep as a grown adult? is a matter of disagreement, and I can't settle the question here. But, nearly everyone would concede that a child's ability to communicate spiritual understanding is developmentally determined, and for purposes of measuring and evaluating, only what can be articulated is useful.

What happens as kids grow is that they begin to use language in ever-more sophisticated ways, and their holistic grasp of how the world works improves. Thus, a young child has no problem believing in Santa Claus, who is able to personally deliver presents to every girl and boy on Christmas Eve. Young children are given to magical thinking, and the existence of a loving God is no stretch. Lots of children's curricula have moved away from asking children to "ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior" because such terms hold little meaning to a four-year-old. Instead, kids are invited to "ask Jesus to be their forever friend" - understandable and certainly more developmentally appropriate, but not fully adequate as a substitute for "Savior": I can be your friend (even your "forever friend") without being your savior.

What is needed, then, is for us to be vigilant and diligent in following up with kids as they grow and as their capacity for grasping spiritual concepts changes. If we are perceptive, we will catch when they are ready for a more nuanced understanding. One way to do this is to intentionally dialogue with your child about spiritual things, and to listen. Too many people have the idea that unless we (adults) are doing most of the talking, kids can't be learning. Quite to the contrary, I believe the best learning happens when kids themselves are talking because they are being forced to put ideas into words - to think about what they think, if you will - and it's that very process that makes them more receptive to the answers adults have.

A second way to help kids keep their faith as they mature is to be developmentally sensitive and appropriate. In general, churches (and more specifically, the companies that write church curriculum) have done a good job adjusting down: preschool and early elementary Sunday school classes have the same look and feel as academic school classrooms do, and proven effective methods of communication and instruction have been adapted into a religious education context. The same cannot be said for what's out there for older elementary students. Some of the programs packaged for 3rd-5th graders are truly awful. They are, in a word, facile. They do not challenge kids to think and as such they do not teach anything; instead, they re-tell the same Bible stories kids have heard since they were three (leading to the widespread, documented perception among junior high-aged students that they pretty much know everything in the Bible and don't believe it has anything left to teach them). They are fraught with moralizing and allegorizing (the point of the David and Goliath story is not that God gave the Israelites victory, it's that we should be unafraid when facing the giants in our own lives), and focus mainly on developing character qualities, as if the reason Christ died was to motivate us to be better people.

A third imperative is to change the way we use the Bible. Most kids are unaware of the Bible's Big Story, or that it even has a Big Story, and tend to hold the "B.I.B.L.E." (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth) mindset or the "Yellow Pages" mindset, wherein the Bible is believed to be a collection of passages on topical issues (Today: anger. Tomorrow: lust.). Kids are rarely taught that there is a continuity to the story, but grasping that continuity is the key to understanding why the Bible is consistent and why it retains relevance thousands of years after it was written! One way to do this is to teach two Bible stories side by side and ask kids to draw out the parallels: how did God act? What was common in the peoples' responses? How might God act in a similar way today? This method will be part of the Kids Games program this summer.

A fourth way to help kids accommodate their faith as they grow is to have someone else who knows your child spiritually who is not their parent walking alongside. The only way this happens is organically, as your child is continually exposed to older Christians in their church. Across the children's ministry at our church, we have made a deliberate attempt to match students with consistent small group leaders, but we are limited by ratios that don't lend themselves to familiarity (it's much harder to get to know 12 kids and their families than it is to know six) and inconsistency of attendance. When kids only come once or twice a month, the chances of bonding with an adult leader are much less.

As kids grow up, they'll naturally move beyond a Lucy stage. The job is not to hold them there, but to promote and cheer their development, to assure them that God is bigger than their doubts, to encourage their questions, to help them discern their role to play in God's kingdom, and to ready them for that. After all, the older children didn't love Aslan any less, but they did love him differently.