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Children’s faith formation is an integral part of their development and upbringing. During the early years of a child’s life, they are most receptive to the teachings and values inherent in faith. The home serves as the primary platform for this formation. The home is where children first encounter morality, ethics, and spirituality principles through modeling, socialization, and direct experiences.
Children learn about faith in the home through lived experiences and examples set by their parents or guardians. This is primarily informal and happens through daily routines and rituals such as prayers before meals or bedtime, attending religious services, or celebrating religious holidays. These practices allow children to observe and participate in faith-based experiences, fostering a sense of belonging and community and being the start of developing their sense of self.
Parents and guardians can provide their children with experiences in faith formation through storytelling. Stories from religious texts or family histories can illustrate the teachings and values of their faith. These narratives can help children grasp abstract concepts (like fairness, justice, respect, and love) in concrete ways, making them more relatable and easier to understand.
However, faith formation at home is not just about instruction and practice. It also involves creating a nurturing environment where children feel safe when asking questions, expressing doubts, and exploring their beliefs. Encouraging open dialogue about faith lets children know it’s okay to have questions and that faith is a personal journey that can change and evolve. It becomes essential, then, that parents share their faith journey with their children through stories and examples.
It’s important to integrate faith formation with the child’s overall development. It should promote values that contribute to their holistic growth as individuals. For instance, the principles of love, kindness, and respect, often taught in faith contexts, are also essential life skills.
Home faith formation plays a crucial role in children’s spiritual development. It lays the foundation for a lifetime of faith and spirituality. However, it’s important to remember that every child is unique, which means their faith journey will also be unique. Therefore, faith formation should be adaptable, responsive to the child’s developmental stage, and, most importantly, rooted in love and understanding.
Parenting is one of the most important jobs anyone will have. As with many things, “It’s not rocket science, but it helps if you know what you’re doing,” I tend to say. It’s important, then, for parents to educate themselves on children’s faith formation.
Here are some of the best books on children’s faith formation:
Children’s Spirituality: What It Is and Why It Matters. Rebecca Nye (Westminster/John Knox, 2009). This concise guide mixes theory with tips on ‘good practice’. It shows how choices made in churches and homes can stimulate or stifle a child’s spiritual development, exploring:
Exploring and Engaging Spirituality for Today’s Children: A Holistic Approach La Verne Tolbert, editor. (Wipe & Stock, 2014). This book answers questions about the most effective ways to help children, pre-teens, and teens develop spiritually. This collection of research gleaned from presentations during the Fourth Triennial Children’s Spirituality Conference at Concordia University in 2012 is divided into four major sections:
Scholars and ministry leaders unite with parents to promote a holistic environment for children to love, respect, and obey God. Children’s voices resonate throughout these studies from birth to high school as they share their reflections and experiences.
Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity. David M. Csinos and Melvin Bray, editors. (CopperHouse, 2013).
Knowing how to nurture faith in young people is a challenge, particularly when we want to encourage a generous, innovative, and contextual faith. Faith Forward gathers 21 presentations from the 2012 “Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity” conference held in Washington, D.C., expressing various contemporary takes on Christian faith and discipleship.
This book is a gold mine of information and inspiration for those seeking to engage children and youth in respectful conversation, exploration, and learning in today’s complex world. It is a grassroots, forward-thinking, ecumenical, innovative, and collaborative way to do children and youth ministry.
Fostering Children’s Faith. Jeanne Hall (Resource Publications, 2012). This book briefly explores many ways we can support children’s faith formation, including our day-to-day interactions with children, the images of God we share with them, how we pray together, the rituals we create, service opportunities we provide, the music we share together, the stories we tell and listen to, our celebration of the sacraments, and more.
The book is rooted in the conviction that the God we seek a relationship with and hope to foster our children’s relationship with is infinitely loving, welcoming, and constantly yearning for a deeper connection with us.
The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence Edited by Eugene Roehlkepartain, Pamela Ebstyne King, Linda Wagener, and Peter Benson (Sage Publications, 2006).
This is a collection of academic and research-oriented essays on spiritual development, is organized into six parts:
In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Jossey-Bass, 2007).
The author shows us how to integrate and strengthen the practice of faith in the everyday experience of raising children. Rethinking parenting as an invitation to discover God in the middle of our busy and overstuffed lives relieves parents of the burden of being the all-knowing authority figures who impart spiritual knowledge to children. Finding spirituality in family activities such as reading bedtime stories, doing household chores, and playing games can empower parents to notice what they are already doing as potentially valuable and practice it more consciously as part of their faith journey.
Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Jossey-Bass, 2003).
Bonnie Miller-McLemore writes about the struggle to raise children with integrity and faithfulness as Christians in a complex postmodern society. She shows that the care of children is a religious discipline and a communal practice that places demands on both congregations and society.
“This is a book about how adults think about children (a descriptive task) and about how adults should think about children (a prescriptive or normative task).”
Listening to Children on the Spiritual Journey. Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May (Baker Academic, 2010).
Over a decade of field research, Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May listened to children talk about their relationships with God, observed children and their parents in learning and worship settings, and interviewed adults about their childhood faith experiences. This book weaves together their findings to offer a glimpse of children’s spiritual responsiveness and potential. It provides insight into children’s perceptions of God and explores how they process their faith. It suggests how adults can more effectively relate to and work with children to nurture their faith.
Making a Home for Faith: Nurturing the Spiritual Life of Your Children. Elizabeth Caldwell (Pilgrim Press, 2007).
Churches often assume that parents know what to do with their children regarding nurturing them in a life of faith after baptism or dedication. Elizabeth Caldwell addresses this need by offering parents and educators insights and ideas for encouraging children’s faith and creating a faithful ecology at home, church, and the world.
Nurturing Children’s Spirituality. Holly Catterton Allen, Editor (Cascade Books, 2008).
This book is a collection of the best materials from the 2006 Children’s Spirituality Conference. The book’s first half addresses definitional, historical, and theological concerns related to spiritual development in children. The second half explores best practices for fostering children’s spiritual growth—in families, churches, Christian schools, and among special populations of children—from a broad spectrum of Christian scholars and practitioners.
Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality Edited by Karen Marie Yust, Aostre N. Johnson, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Eugene Roehlkepartain (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).
This is a collection of essays from prominent religious scholars examining religious knowledge and theological reflection on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.
The essays are organized into six parts:
Real Kids, Real Faith: Practices for Nurturing Children’s Spiritual Lives. Karen Marie Yust (Jossey-Bass, 2004).
The author provides insights and helpful tips for nurturing children’s spiritual and religious formation. She challenges the prevailing notion that children cannot grasp religious concepts and encourages parents and educators to recognize children as capable of genuine faith.
Understanding Children’s Spirituality: Theology, Research, and Practice. Kevin E. Lawson, editor. (Cascade Books, 2012).
The book answers the questions. How important is childhood in the spiritual formation of a person? How do children experience God in the context of their lives as they grow? What does God do in the lives of children to draw them to Godself and help them grow into a vital relationship with God? How can adults who care about children better support their spiritual growth and direct it toward a relationship with God through Jesus Christ?
Over two dozen Christian scholars and ministry leaders explore important issues about the spiritual life of children and ways parents, church leaders, and others who care about children can promote their spiritual formation.
Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood. Joyce Ann Mercer (Chalice Press, 2005).
Sometimes families choose not to participate in the church because the church fails to welcome their children.” With these words Joyce Ann Mercer begins her search for a child-affirming theology and for a church that genuinely welcomes children, cares about their well-being, and advocates for them in situations in which they are marginalized or harmed. She writes about how Christian identity has the power to oppose the destructive identities consumer culture offers today, and how church leaders and families can nurture children into the Christian faith.
Consider these readings to pursue new ways of faith formation with your children over the holidays.
Israel Galindo is Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary.
