meg's rite of covenant

In our church, we've made it a custom to hold various rites of passage designed to celebrate an individual's spiritual growth. This year, I've been meeting with our 11-year old daughter Meaghan one-on-one almost weekly and we've been going through a series of discipleship materials. We just finished the second book in the series of four, so it was time for her to celebrate the rite of covenant, which is a rite of passage celebrating her experience of church as family, worship as a love relationship with Jesus and Scripture as food.

An important part of this rite of passage comes when the person going through it shares their own experience of church, worship and Scripture--what these things mean to them. It was a delight preparing for this with Meaghan. She took it seriously and put her heart into it. And, it was humbling seeing how powerful her simple, childlike faith is. Here's what she said last Sunday, in her own words. She divided it into three sections:

Bible
I know that reading and learning the bible is important. Every morning we read the bible as a family. These are the ones we read from:



Now we are reading John. My favorite story from John is when Jesus fed the 5,000. When I think about the bible I hear God. Often I read the bible alone in my room. This is the one I use:


Sometimes I read Psalms, I Samuel, Philemon and Genesis. My favorite verse is on this thing that I’ve made.


It’s John 3:16. It says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his One and Only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

I also write other verses that I like in this box.


Here are three verses I have in the box:


Each week I meet with my dad and we have studied in this book of bible studies.


I also pray the words of the bible in our morning and evening prayers. These parts of our prayers are bible verses:



I also draw pictures about the bible. This is about Heaven.


This is about the good Samaritan.


Drawing pictures helps me to think about the bible.

Worship
I like to worship God when I play and when we meet together for the gathering. I also worship God when our family prays in the morning and at night together. Sometimes we even pray at night with others in our church. This also is worship. When I’m reading and studying the bible, I worship God. I worship God at school. I like to sing praise songs as well. I like the fast ones the best. Two of my favorites are Blessed Be The Name and Your Grace Is Enough. I like to raise my hands when we sing sometimes, to talk with people after church services and to dance. 3 weeks ago, I went to a school camp and I liked singing Those Who Trust. I think of all of this as worship.

Family
This last part is about how I have experienced church as the family of God. I like it when we play in the park, shop, pray and sing together. I also like it when we greet, hug and kiss each other. I like to see people at the gathering. Two of my favorites were when we have done picnics and when we went to the museum together. I loved going to Kelly and Paul’s wedding and I also love it when we celebrate Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving together. Since we do these things together, I thought that families have fun together so I’ve experienced that the church is the family of God.