Holy Listening with Children 

Children, who have recently come from God into God’s creation, have an innate spiritual connection to their Maker. When nurtured and encouraged this connection can flourish throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. This strong spiritual connection is a part of our very being.

Children accept God’s relationship with them and theirs with God. Caring adults can help children identify their experiences of God and encourage each child’s religious potential, by participating with them, learning from them, providing them with opportunities to grow as children of God.

In encouraging their spiritual capacity, adults help children identify, claim and strengthen their spirit, their relationship with God and their ability to live lives of love. This spirituality can also provide the basis for healing, coping and thriving in everyday life.

Through the process of “Holy Listening” children are enabled to express the things they believe about God, to explore and make spiritual sense of what is happening in their lives, to use their own spiritual strength to work through problems, and learn to trust their inner selves, knowing that God is present with them.

In addition, they grow in their connectedness with those around them, in their capacity to pray for others, and in their abilities to lead loving, compassionate lives.

Adults using “Holy Listening” in the spiritual nurture of children are blessed also by seeing with “new eyes” the presence of God in their own lives, as well as those of the children and find their spiritual lives deepened and nourished.