Spirituality and Children: The
Missing Piece in Treatment History:
New Horizons is a nonprofit
agency serving children and families in central Texas since 1971.
Relationships have been the key component
to the New Horizons philosophy and success in helping children and
adolescents resolve trauma. For many years, the understanding of why
relationship has been such a key component,
has taken on a new direction.
Blessed with the opportunity
to build a chapel on the 150-acre residential treatment center campus,
the need arose to create a spiritual program from the floor up. At
that time, children from the "Ranch" went into Goldthwaite
once a week to the Church of Christ, Baptist and Methodist churches
on a rotational basis. The pastors from each of these churches would
provide a short object lesson after several songs had been sung. While
providing a good activity, the specific spiritual needs of traumatized
youth were not being met effectively.
Some obvious issues had
to be considered in designing our own program. The first was that
children who are or behaviorally challenged are often very emotionally
needy. Traditional services, which offer and thrive on emotional responses
to invitations, do not work well with our children. Likewise, because
many of our children have experienced difficulty with authority and
opposition issues, preaching was not the best option for delivery
of messages. Because children come from many different backgrounds,
we shy away from symbols or doctrine. In similar fashion, we use a
variety of materials including poetry, literary works and the Bible.
Traditional pews, which create a lecture-type setting, were traded
in for chairs, which were portable and could be set up in concentric
circles. Charley Johnson, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church
in San Antonio , assisted in developing the structure of our group.
Charlie's keen knowledge
and awareness of the issues which most often face our children assisted
greatly in developing three key cornerstones to our Spiritual Program:
- God Is,
- God Loves,
- God Gives us Choices
In the initial weeks and
months, these cornerstones were used as a basis for developing topics
for the services. One unique aspect of the program was that the children,
through an elected committee, decided on the topic and assisted in
planning for the service.
Continued consultation with
Rev. Johnson resulted in the identification of recurring themes to
both the topics which were chosen and consequently the struggles the
children were having related to God.
Rev. Johnson explains in
the following interview some of his thoughts on what we learned; "Spiritual
Needs" Questions to Charles Foster Johnson, former Minister,
Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas. Reverend Johnson is
a consultant to New Horizons in matters of meeting the spiritual needs
of children
Q. How does the New Horizons
staff address the spiritual needs of the children?
A. " The New Horizons
leadership has always felt that spiritual development was a key to
healing. But training programs for the staff have not been able to
deal adequately with the spiritual dimensions of the human experience."
Q. Is New Horizons alone
in seeing a need for spiritual as well as emotional and physical healing?
A." Modern psychology
and the social work movement are beginning to see that each human
being has a spiritual hunger planted deeply within. The wholeness
and health of that human being is dependent upon the development of
the spirit."
Q. How can these children
be introduced to a spiritual concept?
A. "We try to nurture
these children with the understanding that God made them, that God
cares for them, and that God does not cause bad things to happen to
them... that as a matter of fact God stands with them in the struggles
of life."
Q. Why is a spiritual understanding
important to these children?
A. "When a child is
experiencing difficulties with relationships and with family, all
of those natural inclinations to love and trust are broken down. They
are obliterated! The job of New Horizons is to put those capacities
back together again."
Q. Do these children need
"special education " to know that God is a loving God?
A. The first thing we do
with these kids is to correct God's "bad reputation". They
somehow begin to think that God was responsible for their situation.
First you must break down that misunderstanding. Then you must reintroduce
them to a God who is an authentic God. Someone has suggested, "Jesus
is God's answer to a bad reputation". New Horizons is trying
to correct God's bad reputation."
Q. In a few words, what
would you like to see done at New Horizons?
A. "To nurture these
children with the love of God and thereby convince them of their love
of themselves and their love for each other. Simply stated: The love
of God. The love of self. The love of your neighbor.'"
Q. Do you think it possible
to reinstate those capacities for love and trust without some spiritual
experience?
A. "In order for an
individual to be whole, he or she has to recognize their source who
is God. And I think if we try to experience wholeness apart from God
we will fail."
Q. Do you know any absolutes?
A." We have come up
with three irreducible values: 1) GOD IS. 2) GOD LOVES. 3) GOD GIVES
US FREEDOM. If we can aid these children with those understandings,
we feel like we are getting somewhere. Someone might want to add GOD
FORGIVES to that list.
