I spoke a couple of weeks ago about growing up going to the United Church with my dad. Once I was confirmed around the usual age, I was “voluntold” (that’s how I remember it anyway) that I would be teaching Sunday School. One Sunday I found myself teaching a lesson which I found extremely problematic. I don’t think I quite understood why, but I just did not understand what I was teaching, and I didn’t believe in some of the things that it was saying about God.

I went to the minister with my questions - a well known and very revered Senior Minister - and whatever transpired, I guess it just didn’t satisfy me, because shortly afterwards I resigned from teaching Sunday School, and then left the church for almost 20 years.

I sometimes wonder what might have happened if the questions of my heart had been heard that day. What difference might it have made in my life?

I have often also wondered how it is that once I returned to the church as a young mother, I spent much of my ministry, both paid and volunteer, supporting children, youth and young adults answer the same kinds of questions I had at their age.

I suspect it’s no accident.

Elizabeth O’Connor, one of the founders of the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, in her book Cry Pain, Cry Hope, in the chapter “On Hearing Call”, says: “…We sometimes teach the things we need to learn. Or is it that we heal others in the way we either need to be healed, or have been healed? … When we are able to keep company with our own fears and sorrows, we are shown the way to go; our own parched lives are watered and the earth becomes a greener place.”[1]

When I read this, many years ago, it helped me understand why I had become a teacher and educator and an advocate of children and youth when my own experiences of the early church, and much of my formal education, had been pretty grim.

This Sunday we celebrate the children, youth and young adults in our Sunday School. And all the gifts that they bring to us. Louisa will lead the service and has graciously given me a few minutes to offer a very brief reflection. It has led me down memory lane as I remember all the children that have ministered to me over the years.

It’s been a difficult week for me for a number of reasons, so I don’t have much else to say. So I thought I would just offer up a few pictures of some of the young people that I have had the great blessing and privilege to encounter during my years in ministry. With much gratitude I share them with you.

first, my own kids, the biggest teachers of them all …