The Gift Of Faith: Tending the Spiritual Lives of Children

by Jeanne Harrison Nieuwejaar

Filled with practical advice and psychological insight, The Gift of Faith celebrates the importance of nurturing our children's spiritual growth. Eloquent and inspiring, The Gift of Faith celebrates religion in the lives of children. Jeanne Harrison Nieuwejaar draws from her own personal stories and experiences to illustrate how religious community plays an integral role in deepening the faith of parents, who are children's primary educators. She encourages parents to communicate their beliefs in words and in actions and to become part of a religious community that supports these beliefs. She offers ways to foster spiritual awareness in the home and includes practices for marking the many events in children's lives as religious occasions.

Genres: Parenting, Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

We got this book at our children's dedication at our Unitarian Universalist Church. While many of the sentiments in it I agree with whole heartedly, it didn't speak to my own story and beliefs quite in the ways that I would hope.

The basic premise of the book is that parents (and the larger family and spiritual community) need to nurture the spiritual lives of children just as much as we nurture the intellectual, artistic, and physical health of our children. While I agree whole heartedly in this concept, Nieuwejaar argues that this can only be done fully within the parameters of a religious community defined by a church, synagogue, or the like. With chapters on the sacred, the culture, the children, the parents, the home, and finally the religious community, she does address how each of these areas nurture the spiritual life of children. However it is clear that as a minister she believes that only a church community can provide certain forms of nurture. As an occasionally active member of Unitarian Universalist Church, I am not opposed to this idea, but I also don't believe that organized religious institutions are the only way to create "the beloved community," or that they are even essential.

With that said, there is much to offer in this book particularly the concept that as parents we must be intentional in our support of our children's spiritual lives just as much as the other parts of their lives. If we are not, as Nieuwejaar suggests, they will fill that hole with something and it might not be as fruitful or as satisfying as we would hope.

[Kristin Rounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent guidance for parents and anyone who interacts with children, sensitively presented.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortly after my spouse and I married nearly fifteen years ago, we joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation. When we moved across the United States, we found and joined a congregation in our new state. When we moved again, we tried the two UU congregations near us, and neither was a good fit. After our first couple of visits, my pragmatic spouse was no longer interested in attending. I, however, couldn't quite accept that it wasn't working for us. For nearly two years, I took our daughter every Sunday, taught religious education, volunteered at coffee hour. After an embarrassing winter morning when it became dramatically apparent that this church wasn't going to work for us, I started trying other religious congregations in the area. I visited Episcopal, Congregationalist, and Catholic churches, Baha'ai gatherings and Buddhist temples.

My spouse couldn't understand why I was so fixated on finding us something to do on Sunday mornings, and I couldn't really understand it myself. But since reading The Gift of Faith, I think I have a better idea what drove me to try and find a spiritual home for my family.

Nieuwejaar says it well:

"With extended families scattered across the continent and beyond; with telecommuting replacing the social context of the office; with shopping malls replacing the local marketplace; and with neighborhoods characterized more by fences and alarms than by open doors and shared backyards, our experience of community is becoming rarer and rarer. To nurture spirituality of children only within the family is to perpetuate the isolation of the family unit and to bypass one of the finest opportunities for community available to us."

I knew that I could nurture my children's spiritual lives at home, I knew I could establish rituals that would help support our religious beliefs even away from a spiritual community, but we would be missing the embrace of a loving community of seekers.

As much as I felt the need for this community and felt keenly its absence, I didn't really understand how much it meant to me until we moved across the country again and found a congregation that feels like home to us. There really is something powerful about going to a place where everyone is committed to honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person. My children are friends with the other children in the congregation, and with loving adults they see multiple times a week, not just on Sundays. They are developing the kinds of close relationships they would (I hope) have with their extended family were we closer to that family.

And of course, the benefit isn't just for our kids, although that was the focus of this book. My spouse and I know that we can rely on our spiritual community to support us through hard times and celebrate with us through happy ones. The Gift of Faith is a lovely echo of all of those things we value in our spiritual community.

One more of my favorite quotes:

"In religious community we may honor one another simply on the basis of the inherent worth and dignity, the inherent divinity of each person. Then from religious community we must take this attitude back into the larger world in whatever small ways we can, chipping away at the barriers and indignities of public life, the deceptions and impatiences of the marketplace. And as the indignities and injustices of those places begin to touch and tarnish us again, we need to return to communities of the spirit to be reminded of trust and love, to be made whole and to remember the possibility of a world made whole."

A healthy spiritual community is an oasis of love that recharges us so we can engage in our daily lives with compassion. And if we can do that, we're doing our small, local part to change the world.

[Kristen Kellick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a gift from my church when my son was dedicated. While clearly written from a UU perspective, I think it makes a lot of good points about providing a positive, supportive spiritual environment at home, and being part of an intentional community, that can be applied to any faith. An earnest but realistic book that shouldn't take more than a few hours to read, if that, depending on how fast you read.

[Kristen-Marie Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't find too much of use in this one, personally. Didn't find it engaging enough to finish.

[Margy Levine Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

This small volume makes a nice argument for taking your family to church. Should we give one to every family in our UU congregation?