Shifting Gears

“There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.” John 4:18b, The Message

On one of my first days working as an au pair in Geneva, Switzerland (an experience I’ve written about before on this blog), I received lessons on how to drive a stick-shift car. In a parking lot that faced Lake Geneva and the French Alps, this 22-year-old farm girl who had never once driven a tractor, was finally taught how to operate a clutch.  

Mostly. (How I hoped and prayed no one would get too close behind me when I stopped for a red light on the city’s steep streets!) 

My employer needed to know I could cross the border to the French grocery store (where the prices were lower) and transport her kids to and from school, piano lessons, and soccer practices. But the rules were laid out—even though I spent several hours alone each day while the kids were at school—I was not to use the car for social events or personal pleasure. It was fine to ask permission to drive it for work purposes, or even if I was heading to the au pair group that met at a local church. But if I wanted to meet a friend for coffee, venture into the city to shop, or go out for dinner, I was to walk or take a train.

“You can only drive that car when you’re not sinning,” my fellow au pair friend half-joked.

I remember shaking my head at the absurdity of this policy. I wasn’t allowed to take the car up the road to buy myself for a croissant, and yet, as a new driver in an unfamiliar place, I could drive halfway across a busy city with my employer’s most precious cargo, her children. 

Attempting to draw black-and-white lines in gray areas still leaves me as uncomfortable and disoriented as my first days in that new country. I tend to be distrustful of any effort, especially those of Christians, to hammer the rules of right conduct into the ground, often for the purpose of false security—or to separate the insider from the outsider.

Too often, especially when kids are taught what faith looks like, the tactics are transactional. If you love Jesus, you’ll obey your parents, quit hitting your sister, and share your favorite crayons. If you are a good kid, you’ll sit still in church, know the Sunday School answers, and avoid asking too many questions.

I’m grateful that several years ago, here on the RJ podcast, Kate Kooyman introduced me to Meredith Miller, a pastor and parent who works in faith formation. In 2023, Miller released her book, Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From. The guidance she gives for those of us with children—or for anyone who works with children in religious settings—is transformational. 

I have worked in public education for more than 20 years, and as much as I’ve discussed educational philosophies and methods in school, the same conversations don’t always happen in church settings. There can be a bit of a blind trust that when the restless little ones are whisked away into Children’s Church or “Family Night” programming so the adults can do the “real” learning, all is well. But all isn’t always well. 

The book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, a landmark sociological study of the faith of teenagers, revealed that the religious viewpoint of most Americans can be whittled down to a three-letter term: “moralistic therapeutic deism.”  It’s a faith of morality and virtue. The idea is that God is far away, but can help if we get stuck, if we can be good enough to earn his favor. 

Studies of this sort most often garner the attention of those who work with youth groups and teenagers, but as Miller points out, if a teenager’s faith is moralistic, the roots of those beliefs were likely planted in early childhood. 

“We have set [children] up for a moralistic faith that says what God cares most about is that they follow the rules and be good kids,” Miller writes. “We end up using the Bible as if it were a morality-producing manual, instead of the story that reveals who God is. What often gets called obedience is actually moralism, teaching kids to be good rather than helping them get to know the God who is good.”

One way we shift from this emphasis on obedience before trust is to welcome kids’ questions, doubts, and wonderings. Instead of giving them quick and easy answers, we show them early on that faith isn’t fearful of not knowing. We show them that God is God and we are not. We don’t sweep away their unknowing with all-knowing by giving simplisitic answers that leave room for their wonderings. 

Miller also suggests moving away from telling biblical stories in ways that put humans at the center: Be like David. Be like Noah. Be like Peter. (There are plenty of points in scripture when we’d say, ‘Ummm, but not here. Don’t be like David here.”) 

Approaching the story as if the flawed and fickle people are the heroes  “communicates to kids that God is also a bystander in their own lives,” Miller writes. “God watches them, evaluates their choices, and likes them a little bit more or a little bit less depending on whether they get it right or not. If God likes them, they might slay giants: if not, they’re in trouble.” 

As my church has made shifts in philosophy and incorporated Miller’s approach to teaching young children, my enjoyment of teaching has gone up exponentially. It turns out this approach—a focus on the goodness of God versus a blind obedience to a God we don’t quite understand or know if we can trust—is freeing for all ages.  

I haven’t driven a stick-shift again since leaving Switzerland. It wasn’t a skill that stuck. It was something I learned not because I wanted to, but because it was required of me. And I wasn’t given the freedom to practice, to figure out what it looked like inside the context of my everyday life. 

While rules are often made for the purpose of keeping us safe, there’s a danger if we are taught to follow the rules only for the sake of staying within a boundary without understanding of it. Maybe safety isn’t safe at all when it’s born out of obligation and fear rather than trust and love. And maybe faith, at its core, is not about perfectionism and self-reliance, but an act of releasing our death grip on the wheel.

Header photo by Alok Sharma on Unsplash
Child with Bible photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash