See also Resources on Birth to Three Ministry    

Do we really welcome baptized infants into the Lord’s family, or do we ignore them after their baptism until they turn three and enter Sunday school? Here are questions to ponder and suggestions for ministry to babies and toddlers and their parents.

We welcome you into the Lord’s family. We receive you as fellow members of the Body of Christ, children of the same heavenly Father, and workers with us in the Kingdom of God” (Sacrament of Holy Baptism, LBW, p. 125)

Welcome to the family.... Come back in three years and we’ll get started with this.

As much as we warmly welcome and greet new children in the baptismal rite, this is all too often the informal message given in the church. Although our Lutheran theology of the Sacrament of Baptism encourages us to baptize infants to illustrate the total grace and gift of the sacrament, in our practice we give the message that “growing in grace” requires the physical ability to sit still, the social maturity to interact with a classroom of peers, the fine motor skills to work on craft projects, and the verbal and cognitive abilities to sing songs of the faith.

In the current practices of Community Parent Education, parent-child learning classes begin in infancy and continue throughout the first three years of life. However, this birth-to-age-three window of significant development and learning has been virtually unexplored by the church. How is it that a church with infant baptism as the entrance rite into its life and work fails to engage this time of learning and growth for faith formation?

Asking the Right Questions
I believe it is not for lack of care or value for these youngest ones in our congregations. Christ’s words “Let the children come” have been our guide and norm within children’s ministry for as long as there has been Sunday school. The trickier questions that follow are:

• Let the children come where?
• For what?
• Taught by whom?

The model that works comfortably for us in the 3–12 age range of traditional Sunday school seems woefully inadequate for the birth-to-age-three range. Classrooms of twelve to fifteen students learning together with a volunteer teacher working out of a Sunday school lesson book with handouts and readings clash powerfully with a nonverbal, pre-ambulatory child who is into solitary play.

So, traditional classrooms are out. For many congregations this has been the end of the discussion. But it does not have to be.

Pew Parents
Recent brain-development studies raise a compelling call to all those who tend to very young children that interactive learning is of paramount importance in the first three years of life. And the accompanying theories of attachment remind us that in these same three years a child’s primary teaching relationship is with the parent. The very young children in our congregations already have amazing instructors, and they are with them every Sunday! And, because this age group is most comfortable with parent presence and solo- or parallel-play activities, the sanctuary with pews is an ideal classroom.

This calls for a new framework for parents in their time with their children in the pew. No longer is their task to get the child through the service quiet and entertained. They are called to be pew parents, coaching their children on the actions of worship, inviting them into participation as developmentally possible, and guiding them through their questions and observations of worship as they do in every other area of their parenting practice.

“In Christian love you have presented these children for Holy Baptism. You should, therefore, faithfully bring them to the services of God’s house, and teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments” (Sacrament of Holy Baptism, LBW, p. 121).

Children belong in worship because they are part of God’s family, not because they are successful worshippers. All God asks of any of us is that we worship and serve as we are able. Their presence and participation is an important witness for the whole community of faith.

If your congregation really wants to embody its baptismal welcome, explore your expectations and guidelines for young children in worship. Developmentally, children are not able to sit still and quiet in worship right from the start; this takes practice and a level of physical maturity that comes over time. (Many adults still struggle!) And yet, in these first three years, children are uniquely able to engage worship as infants and toddlers. An important congregational reflection may be: What can be gained by the larger worshipping community by the presence and witness of very young children and their families worshipping as they are able?

Examples
We know that Luther intended the Small Catechism to be taught by parents to their children and that the Lutheran church in recent generations has co-opted the “primary job” of faith formation from the parents. The tricky part has been how to partner with families to empower them in their promises to raise this child up in the faith in the three years before we have any formal Sunday school program. Wonderful work has been done by organizations such as the Youth and Family Institute to look at the “child in our hands” from a congregational ministry vision and a model for parent support for faith nurture in the home (now known as the Passing on Faith conferences). Nevertheless, the area of birth–to-age-three remains elusive. Exploring ways to enhance your congregation’s birth–to-age-three ministry for faith formation will do much to empower parents again to be first priests, bishops, and apostles for their children.

Many parents say that, although they made baptismal promises to raise their child up in the faith, they feel ill-equipped to guide their child in this spiritual journey. What exactly can be done to nurture faith at these early ages, and what does it look like?

Taking a page from the highly successful Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) models of parent and child learning experiences with trained facilitators, our own congregation sought a new way of addressing the need for faith formation for the youngest. It culminated in many changes to how we looked at this age group and, more dramatically, opened our eyes to the gift and witness of the very young to the entire community.

Within our congregation, this led to several new opportunities for our families with very young children.

• A toddler and parent Sunday school class. Modified to thirty minutes to meet the attention and stamina needs of toddlers, this class found a toddler Sunday school curriculum to modify for its class needs. Guided by the developmental needs of these children to learn through all-senses exploration, to pretend play, and to learn through parent coaching, this toddler and parent community is rich in tactile learning, guided discovery, story sharing, sanctuary field trips, and other movement and partnership activities with parent and child.
   
• An infant and toddler Christian nurture program (called Blessing Place) where children are tended by paid staff and volunteer seniors who read and rock the infants and who explore God’s wonders of creation, toddler style. Originally a weekly gathering, it has expanded to a ministry that offers up to four days a week of Christian nurture.
   
• Monthly date night for parents of children birth–to-age-twelve. Following a marriage-care presentation, our parents asked if the same Christian nurture ministry could be offered monthly in the evening for parents to tend to the Christian nurture of their marriages. Research consistently shows that children benefit when efforts are regularly made by their parents to tend to their relationship.
   
• A prenatal-to-age-three faith formation ministry that offered a small-group, child-centered learning community. Parent(s) and child met twice monthly with children and families the same ages for these first three years. In these groups parents found guidance and modeling, and community and support as they sought to be first priests for their child. Children experienced their parents tending to them in faith, leading them in rituals, and guiding them in discovery as well as their first peer faith community.
   
• Finally, we invited one of our women’s circles to begin a welcome ministry to all families welcoming a child into their homes. In addition to praying for these new families, members delivered baskets to their homes containing a blanket, a baked treat, brochures of the birth-to-age-three ministries of our congregation, a child’s book, and a three-year subscription to SPLASH, a monthly newsletter to support faith formation in the home right from the start.

These are a few ways our congregation has explored the question of ministry with the birth–to-age-three community. As each congregation engages the ministry needs of the very young among us, it will take many creative shapes and styles, reflecting the gifts of each congregation. This is an exciting mission field, especially given how many families identify children’s and family ministry as a strong value in choosing a church. And, like parenting, it is worth every effort as we seek to find new ways to engage and empower our families to hear Christ’s call to “let the little children come” and to welcome them with open arms and opportunities to grow in faith and love, right from the start.

It is worth every effort as we seek to find new ways to engage and empower our families to hear Christ’s call to “let the little children come” and to welcome them with open arms and opportunities to grow in faith and love, right from the start.

Nancy B. Windels is pastor of Education and Family at Normandale Lutheran Church, Edina, Minnesota.