New Study About Spirituality vs. Religion and Children

An eye on the community…, originally uploaded by carf.

Recent research has found that spirituality (a sense of one’s life having meaning and having quality relationships) in the life of children 8-12 years old positively affects their happiness. These findings are detailed in an MSNBC article I found via the Children’s Ministry and Culture blog.

According to the article:

…religious practices — including attending church, praying and meditating — had little effect on a child’s happiness…

“Enhancing personal meaning may be a key factor in the relation between spirituality and happiness,” the researchers stated. Strategies aimed at increasing personal meaning in children  — such as expressing kindness towards others and recording these acts of kindness, as well as acts of altruism and volunteering — may help to make children happier…

Here is what I posted as a comment on the Children’s Ministry and Culture blog:

As I read through this article and then through the original journal article, my first thought was to swing the pendulum and say, “See! Relationship and Community need to be emphasized in spiritual formation for children!” Then as I started telling people about the article and my emotional response was tempered, I think the nugget that we need to gather from this is that we have to have BOTH spirituality and religiosity. I think the educational models we mostly have when it comes to spiritual formation are just that… educational. There is more emphasis/importance leveraged on learning material and right practices and right HABITS. A lot of resources are put into making sure children know/believe the right things and can defend those and much of the communal and relational aspects are downplayed if even mentioned.

The call to love God and love others is also about relationship and community. Sprituality (defined as relationship and community) and Religion (defined as religious practices like prayer, church-going, etc.) are two sides of the same coin. You really can’t have one without the other and expect transformation to be lasting and continual. Spirituality brings life/meaning to Religion and Religion brings strength and endurance to Spirituality.

One other thing that we can glean from this research, too, is that children need intentionality built into how we help shape their spiritual framework just as much, if not more than, youth and adults. Also, we need to make sure that following Christ is seen as something that is relational (horizontally and vertically) as well as communal and not just a bunch of “right beliefs.”

Also, this research point to the reality that an apologetic of love/relationship is much more effective at evangelism than an apologetic of facts and knowledge.

What are your thoughts? What are some ways that we can connect spirituality with religiosity? Do you even see this as an issue?