On Saturday I was at a Women’s Retreat and we started talking about saying “grace” before meals. Some of the women were remembering how their fathers used to say the prayer at every meal and the prayer was always the same. Even 40 years later they can remember the rote prayer that was prayed at each meal. While they are not exactly comfortable with spontaneous prayer, they talked about how they would be able to repeat that prayer if called upon to pray.
Listening to the conversation, I was struck by how little we teach prayer in our more progressive Christian churches. We also do not encourage memorization of Bible passages. When I was coming along in a very conservative context, we were taught many things that we were “required” to memorize. Once I moved away from such conservative theology and practice, I deeply questioned how much I was made to memorize because of the disconnection from any meaning or understanding. As I get older, though, I wonder if all of that memorizing was similar to being taught basic skills.
Over the years I have learned how to play various sports, learned how to play an instrument or two (if you count the recorder as one of those!), learned how to write essays, how to preach and how to engage in mediation. In each of those areas, I was taught the basic form before I was taught anything else. It might not surprise you to hear that in many of those areas, once I was able to do the basic form well, I then learned how to improvise and how to change and adapt my form and in today’s parlance, “I made it my own.” Is there a corollary to spirituality? Is there a basic form that can be taught or should be taught? Are progressive churches like the one I am serving missing out on some important steps to faith development?
When our daughter, Emily, was in high school, she took art classes each year and was chagrined at one point when the art teacher was “forcing” the students to learn the basics of drawing. Emily experienced it as a waste of time at first and then over the course of the year was able to articulate how much it ended up helping her broaden her abilities. She did not enjoy the tediousness of it, but did enjoy the fruits of having to be so disciplined. Our niece, Faith, had a similar experience with dance. She experienced some of the basic moves and movements as tedious but later realized how much they helped her when it came to modern dance and other more free-form movements. Is faith development like learning how to dance or draw? Are there some basics to be taught? If so, what are the basics? Should progressive churches be teaching The Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the song “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” or “Amazing Grace?” Or should progressive churches be teaching the Serenity Prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis, the song “What if God Were One of Us” and various quotes from various famous prophets and saints?
As someone with a background in Christian Education and faith development, I am certain we need to be teaching something. Is it time to write some new somethings or do they already exist?