'Hopeful and determined' ~ Diocesan Children & Youth Adviser Carolyn Edwards on her return from Talinn, Estonia:

I had the enormous privilege of being part of the team at the ‘Called 2 Change’ conference delivering training for church leaders and key congregation members from United Methodist Churches in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Denmark.

The conference happens every few years, and thinks about what needs to change in order to be mission-shaped churches of the twenty first century.

Very similar to our LYCiG (Leading Your Church into Growth) events, there were keynote speeches and training tracks along with scheduled times for churches to work out what the input means for them.

I have never been to Estonia before, and was a bit apprehensive about what to expect, especially when Gatwick airport on Thursday evening was full of men clearly heading off to stag weekends!

I needn’t have worried; as always, the Europeans’ command of English is humbling, and the hospitality at the conference centre was fantastic - even if I did have to ask people what the delicious thing I was eating actually was!

The old town in Talinn is delightfully medieval, having survived World War Two pretty much intact, which is unusual for a European city. On Friday night Bishop Christian Alsted treated us to dinner in a traditional restaurant, complete with staff in medieval costume and sword fights.

I ran the sessions with the Revd Anne Thompson (pictured, right), who was one of my students at Cliff College and is now leading the Children’s Ministry Certificate in Denmark. On Friday morning a new book was launched at the conference. This is the first book specifically written by and for people working with children and young people in the Nordic states, and Anne was delighted to have two chapters in it. It is so exciting to see how Anne has taken the faith development model I developed for Scripture Union some years ago, and used it to help churches nurture faith in children and young people in the contexts they are working in.

During our sessions we gave participants the opportunity to think through different biblical perspectives on children taken from Marcia Bunge’s book The Child in Christian Thought. It was thrilling to see the impact of discussing the both/and of the theological perspectives Bunge identifies: children as gifts from God; children as sinners who have fallen short; children as in need of instruction; and children as models of faith. For many this was the first time they had had the opportunity to think theologically about their work with children, and it was encouraging to hear, in the reflections at the end of the sessions, how they were going to use their new understanding to change the way that they do things back home.

We also offered practical tools for facilitating the flourishing of children’s spirituality and to help them to grow in knowledge and love of God. We considered the ‘Spiritual Connections’ that I cover in my book Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs’ Tails – Helping Boys Connect with God which include things like risk, humour, nature, silence and service. Here we are running through the ‘Active prayer’. Despite what it looks like, it is a fantastic tool for helping children to ‘exercise their silent muscle’ and spend time listening to God.

Here, I am doing a breakfast tutorial with Maria Thaarup, a trainee minister who also contributed to Anne’s book. Maria is doing her BA dissertation on young people and holiness. What is frustrating for her, is that so many of the resources, both academic and practical, emanate from the UK and the US. She is determined that her work will contribute to the growing body of contextualised understanding and practice.

As I said goodbye to Bishop Christian, he remarked how attendance at one of our sessions had inspired him to prioritise the church’s work with children. So I left Estonia determined to go back and explore it at leisure, and feeling really hopeful. I was excited too that people like Anne and Maria will continue to develop all that has been learnt so far about children’s spirituality and faith development, and be instrumental in a complete transformation of the church’s engagement with children and young people across the Nordic and Baltic States.

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