Rebecca Nye

The author, Rebecca Nye, has done ground-breaking research into the area of children’s spirituality and is responsible for helping to introduce the ‘Godly Play’ approach to children’s spiritual nurture in the UK. This short book draws on the results of her research, introduces some of the theory and theology, and seeks to encourage all those who have any kind of responsibility for the nurture of children (parents, teachers, church children’s workers and ministers) to think about their practice.

Nye takes very seriously children’s spiritual capacity and argues strongly against the ‘infotainment’ approach to Christian children’s work which she believes undervalues children’s naturally rich spiritual lives. She invites readers to reflect on their own childhood experiences: Where did you find a sense of the sacred as a child? How did the church help or hinder? She argues that spiritual experiences of children are often overlooked or dismissed by adults because children do not use recognisable ‘religious’ language or concepts to describe them.

Nye offers a handy mnemonic SPIRIT for six different aspects of good practice in the nurture of children’s spirituality.
Space – the importance of both physical and emotional space which respect and give value to the child’s spiritual life.
Process – the recognition that spirituality is more about process than product and the danger of too much focus in children’s work on producing art/craft work for display rather than valuing the ongoing process.
Imagination – encouraging free-ranging creative and imaginative exploration (the importance of story, drama, poetry, art) and avoiding emphasis on correct explanations and right answers.
Relationship – if spirituality is about the urge to relate and connect, with each other as well as with the ‘other’ which some call God, then good practice in our relationships with children and each other is vital. Real spiritual work is how we treat one another.
Intimacy – much of spirituality involves a sense of ‘drawing closer’ – this requires a very safe place, which is slowly achieved and easily broken.
Trust – trust is involved not only on the part of the child but also of the adult working with children – the need to have trust in God and in the child, and in the faith too, rather than seeking to control, interpret and translate in a way that suits our own understanding and fixed ideas.

One chapter of the book takes a brief look at what Christian theology has to say about childhood, which is very little, compared to the vast amount in different disciplines that has been written in the past 100 years. Nye wonders whether this is because academic theologians have though the subject beneath them, to be left to practioners rather than theorists. She notes the consequent confusing, mainly unconsiously held mixture of ideas and images of childhood which exist in church circles – children may be seen as gifts from God or burdensome responsibilities, models of innocence or unreconstructed savages, prophetic or in need of instruction – and recommends some theological effort to inform and critique current practices.

"If our mindset continues to shift towards children’s spirituality, and away from treating children’s religious nurture merely as a matter of teaching them what they don’t know or disguising immense truths in snack-sized nuggets, then hopefully even more theological voices will be attracted by the opportunity to join in. Even if it’s messy."

I think the book would work well as the basis of a discussion group and I would heartily recommend it to any who are involved in, or concerned about, the care and nurture of children, especially within a faith context.… (mere)