Thank you all for the wonderful welcome you have given to me, Neil, Toby and Guy.  Your encouragement and support for this time of settling in has helped considerably. I want especially to mention John Page, Martin and Dudley (the Churchwardens), for getting the house ready and preparing for the licensing and installation.  What a lovely service of welcome for us; my Mum, who is not a churchgoer, said she thought the service was really special: "full of love".  I heartily agree! John generously said at the welcome party that he felt God had called me here, and I feel that too: Hale with Badshot Lea is the answer to our prayers.

One of my special areas of interest is children.  I have just now finished a thesis, to complete my theology degree, centred on children's place in Church.  It has been really interesting to trace back through Church history to see what has influenced attitudes to children.  Sadly, until probably only the last few years, theological insights into children have not kept up with those of either education or psychology.  As a result, the church has often been left behind in meeting the needs of today's children, and it is so important as Christians that we do think how to put our faith across to people.

Traditions of Christian child-rearing can seem quite unacceptable today and we must speak out against them, otherwise folk memory can assume we are still informed by those views.  Take the phrase "spare the rod, spoil the child."  Generations of Christian child-rearers did think that was good advice and acted on it - maybe it happened to you.  But as Christians we must not condone this violence.  I prefer the psychologist DW Winnicott's view that a "child absolutely must live in a circle of love."  Within this love we will give them boundaries and make consistent decisions.

Here is some other child-rearing advice from worthies of church history.  John Wesley said it was important to break a child's will; Thomas Aquinas that it was important a child give their father credit for any success, and to Augustine infancy epitomised "the wretchedness of the human condition."  Maybe you don't know whether to laugh or cry about these phrases?  But those last two men, in particular, are founding fathers of modern theology; their influence cannot be overstated.  We must look again at their influence on the thoughts and actions of the church, asking:  Is this what Jesus meant when he said, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." (Mark 10:14)

References:
The Child in Christian Thought, Marcia Bunge
Let the Children Come, Bonnie Miller-McLemore