Child’s Play at the Cornhill Training Course

Many people currently attending the Cornhill Training Course have chosen to do so part time. This enables them to spend one part of their week learning how to understand and teach the Bible and the other part putting it into practice in gospel shaped ministry. One of those people is Johanna Boddam-Whetham who has been attending Cornhill over the past two years while working part time as a children's worker at St James Clerkenwell.

" So when are the exams?" "So what's the piece of paper you get at the end of all this?" Both common questions asked of me by family during this Easter break preceding my last term at Cornhill. Well I suppose they have a point - it has been said that "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it is written on" and yet as I near the end of my two years, the closest I'll get to a piece of paper is the class photo.

So why spend a year, or two in my case, on a course which gives you no letters after your name and not even a certificate for the wall? Particularly when you work with children! What is the verbal contract on offer? For those to whom Cornhill is a type of car insurance let me give you a brief flavour of the course. "A year's investment for a lifetime's ministry" is the official catchphrase and it sums it up well. During the course students receive the key building blocks in understanding the bible and communicating it. It takes place in central London for four days a week, with Wednesdays for study. You are linked to a placement church where you get involved as appropriate.

For me, and many others, it looked a little different. I did Cornhill over two years, attending on a Monday and Tuesday in my first year and then Thursday and Friday the next. I guess it depends on your situation, but I loved doing it part time. More time to build relationships, and acquire the general tools that CTC offers whilst applying them practically for the rest of the week. Highlights include having a half term again and spending time with such a variety of people all intent on being taught and teaching the bible. I think I had a preconception that everyone would be the same. I couldn't have been more wrong. Where there is unity of purpose there is diversity in nationality, age, experience, current situation and future plans.

So why include a children's worker in all that diversity? Isn't that more about Pritt Stick than Philippians? Surely they need more entertainment than exposition?

When I got to university it came as a surprise to me that the bible was a unified whole which centred on Christ. And while I love surprises, this is one surprise I want to spare the children in my care. If the bible is what we claim it is in our preaching conferences and what we discuss enthusiastically as students, if it is, in fact, what God reveals it to be then we cannot afford to teach our children otherwise. Every time we focus on the human hero of a bible story and not what we learn about God and his salvation plan, every time we teach them that song which really does miss the point, we deny what we preach. And we deny it to the very people who will witness to our communities in the future.

But surely that buys us a little time doesn't it? No! What about their parents who read through their files, what about their friends at school who they tell about Jesus? Imagine someone in your youth group, your student group, your home group who is already on the look out for the context of the passage, keen to see how it fits into the larger picture, someone who is already asking the simple, but key questions. Think what godliness, humility, and passion for evangelism will characterise our children; think what tools we are giving them by teaching them the bible, biblically.

This has been in my heart ever since key friends taught me about the bible at university. I kept asking myself 'why did no one tell me sooner?' And now I'm trying to establish these ideas in my head, my hands, my imagination, my timetable, and yes, even my Pritt Stick! The only limit on how biblically a child can think is the teacher we give them. Of all the many things I have learnt at CTC I think the most important is that I don't know it all. My understanding and skill is limited, and I need to keep learning. But I have also learnt that I CAN keep learning. Meeting each week after school to study Ephesians with a ten and an eleven year old has been a learning experience. Marrying the children's delight in glue and scissors with mine in the melodic line of the book we are studying on Sunday mornings takes time and skill. Let's not deny the people who teach our children the chance to learn, to be trained, the time to work on the passage and not just the collage. Perhaps this is obvious, or maybe you disagree completely. Perhaps you are involved in the leadership of a church, or are considering getting involved in the children's work. Wherever you stand please take a step back and think through what the theories AND practice in your church say about children and God's word. And consider CTC or similar training as a key ingredient in your strategy.

After all, what's in a bit of paper?

Johanna Boddam-Whetham

Top