Background

Religious communities have been identified as an important source of social support for children. Although church children’s ministries (i.e., church programs where children receive religious education separate from their parents) have been suggested as a potential avenue for the transmission of social support, the specific children’s ministry practices that promote social support have not been established empirically.

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether contemplative-reflective practices, structured playtime, and unstructured playtime predict between-church differences in children’s church-based social support (i.e., received support, perceived support from peers, perceived support from adults) controlling for children’s individual characteristics and children’s ministry size.

Methods

Using a multilevel approach, we analyzed self-report survey data from 43 children’s ministers and 1,090 children from 43 Church of the Nazarene congregations in the United States.

Results

Results showed that children’s supportive experiences were largely predicted by their individual characteristics (e.g., family religiosity, agreeableness). However, contemplative-reflective practices had a medium positive effect on received support and perceived support from peers and adults. Unstructured playtime had a medium positive effect on received support only. Structured playtime was unrelated to all three outcomes.

Conclusions and Implications

These findings suggest that, although some children are naturally predisposed to thrive socially at church, children’s ministry practices appear to have a significant and substantive impact on children’s church-based social support. The results shed light on the conditions that create and sustain church-based social support. Churches wishing to make children feel part of a supportive community should consider incorporating contemplative-reflective practices into their children’s worship service (e.g., mindful prayer and reflective experiences, meaningful choices, leadership opportunities for children, safe and intimate opportunities to share and receive prayer, and liturgical traditions), as well as regular space for unstructured playtime wherein children can exercise autonomy, demonstrate their unique talents and abilities, and engage in informal conversations with peers and adults about their life experiences, feelings, and personal problems.

中文翻译：

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支持教会儿童事工的作法：对美国基督教会教会的探索性多层调查

背景

宗教社区已被确定为对儿童的社会支持的重要来源。尽管有人建议将教会儿童事工的部门（即教会计划中的儿童与父母分开接受宗教教育）作为传递社会支持的潜在途径，但尚未凭经验建立促进儿童社会支持的具体儿童事工做法。

目的

本研究的目的是确定沉思反思性练习，结构化游戏时间和非结构化游戏时间是否能预测儿童基于教会的社会支持（即，获得支持，同龄人的感知支持，成年人的感知支持）之间的教会间差异。针对儿童的个性特点和儿童事工的规模。

方法

我们采用多层次的方法，分析了来自美国43名儿童部长和43名拿撒勒教会的1,090名儿童的自我报告调查数据。

结果

结果表明，儿童的支持经历很大程度上取决于他们的个人特征（例如家庭宗教信仰，喜好程度）。但是，沉思反思性做法对同龄人和成年人的支持和感知支持产生了中等积极的影响。非结构化的游戏时间仅对获得的支持有中等积极的影响。结构化的游戏时间与所有三个结果无关。

结论与启示

这些发现表明，尽管有些孩子天生倾向于在教堂里社交，但儿童事工的做法似乎对基于教堂的孩子的社会支持产生了重大而实质性的影响。结果揭示了创造和维持基于教会的社会支持的条件。希望让孩子感到自己是支持社区的一部分的教会，应考虑将沉思反思活动纳入其孩子的敬拜服务中（例如，正念祈祷和反思经历，有意义的选择，儿童的领导机会，分享和接受祈祷的安全而亲密的机会，和礼拜传统），以及定期安排的非结构化游戏时间，让孩子们可以行使自主权，展示其独特的才能和能力，