children

The Congregational church of which I was minister for almost 20 years (2003) is a strong feature of the local community life. It is still so, although old hands tell me that it was once much more so. On Sunday afternoon hordes of children from ages five to 14 would come down the main road from the fairly mean houses 200 yards away to attend Sunday School. Indeed my forebears had created halls and rooms to accommodate some 500 children in various classes, and these children were taught by enthusiastic leaders and teachers in well-organised classes, and with well-prepared teaching. We are still fortunate in that children come, and when we have a dozen on a Sunday morning we think we are doing quite well; many churches have fewer than that, if any children at all. There is no Sunday afternoon event for them, although there are weekday events which attract small numbers.  The Sunday School movement flourished in nonconformist churches in the early years of the last century, but perhaps two world wars reduced an almost automatic belief in the Christian faith, and Sunday Schools declined in common with church attendance.  It is interesting that the behaviour and confidence of young people seems to have deteriorated in almost exact proportion to the decline of Sunday Schools. Children have been cut off not just from teaching about Christian faith, but contact with the kind of Christian people who taught it and influenced them in our churches. I see a definite link betwen the decline of one and the increase of the other, to the general dismay of the community.