Last Sunday, a dozen brave kids from the Senior Department of our Junior Church played a central role in the morning service. Brave because they read, sang and performed in public as few will have done before. And brave because their theme touched on topics that rarely get an airing in church.
Orthodoxy doesn’t normally countenance doubt; doctrines don’t usally get voted upon; and when did you last hear questions like “Do gay people go to Perpetual Paradise?” in church?
Our young teenagers didn’t intend to shock, but they risked not being invited back. They showed that they recognized God as unseeable mystery [Exodus 33: 20]; they saw themselves as being on an exploratory journey of faith, prepared to question and doubt the received wisdom, and not afraid to use contemporary non-Christian references.
Some of us older ones may think we could teach them a thing or two from our vantage point along that road of faith: others will realise that these kids could indeed do the same for us.
