“The Gifts They Bring”: a resource for empowering and including children and young people in churches

Have you ever imagined James and John from the infamous trio Peter, James and John as teenagers? Does that thought blow your mind right now like it did me when I first met her? Stories like the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration of Jesus, and the vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane will never read the same to me – all because of Amy Lindeman Allen’s book “The Gifts They Bring: How Gospel Children Can Shape an Inclusive Ministry» (Westminster John Knox, 2023).

I read this book for the literature review Roots & Wings: Intergenerational Collaborative Training in Spring 2025. I found Allen’s work so thought-provoking that I wanted to share some takeaways from “The Gifts They Bring” that can inform and enrich training ministries for all ages in Christian communities today.

The basics of the book

“The Gifts They Bring” offers a creative, historical, and child-centered examination of how children and youth appear in familiar gospel stories. Allen’s work pursues two key objectives:

1. Correct a long-standing tendency in Bible studies as well as churches to read Scripture with and toward adults, which often obscures or minimizes the experiences of children and youth.
2. Affirm and discern how the presence of children and young people has theological and ethical significance for interpreting Scripture and living in the Christian faith.

While Allen’s engagement with Scripture produces profound ideas that are worth reading in their own right, the book really shines in the way Allen connects these ideas to the contexts and concerns of ministry. Her hope for this book is that it could be a useful tool for churches in promoting the “full inclusion” of children and youth as essential members of the body of Christ (4), and she weaves together biblical interpretation, theological reflection, and practical application in a way that is accessible to lay audiences.

As you might guess from the title, the book’s main argument is that children and young people have distinctive gifts to offer churches. Allen identifies six gifts and devotes a chapter to each:

• “participation”
• “proclamation”
• “advocacy”
• “listen”
• “sharing”
• “partnership”

She illuminates each gift by bringing stories about contemporary children and youth into conversation with evangelical stories like Jesus welcoming the little children (Mt 19, Mark 10, Lk 18), the shepherds announcing the birth of Jesus (Lk 2) and Jesus feeding the multitude (Mt 14, Mark 6, Lk 9, Jn 6). After exploring the historical and theological dimensions of biblical texts with children and youth at the center, Allen suggests practices that Christian communities can implement in order to embrace the contributions that children and youth can and do make in the body of Christ.

5 points to remember for training

Here are five takeaways from “The Gifts They Bring” that I find particularly meaningful for how Christian communities approach the formation of members of all ages.

1. Children are part of Scripture in more ways and places than we realize

Allen highlights a number of key differences between ancient and contemporary conceptions of children and draws on ancient historical context to note elements of the gospel texts that point to the presence and involvement of children. The result of her investigation is a collection of inclusive stories for children that is larger and richer than many of us realize.

Along with gospel stories that explicitly reference children, Allen cites texts like Jesus calling his first disciples in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 5 as scenes that provide substantial grounds for viewing the characters as children or youth rather than as adults. In the case of James and John, for example, Allen highlights the details of how the gospels describe these brothers to suggest that they could have been between the ages of seven and young adults (90-95). For Allen, their actions and identification as the “Sons of Thunder” particularly lends itself to perceiving these brothers as what we would consider teenagers today (95). If we read James and John in their youth, a significant number of the Gospel stories become texts in which the presence and experiences of young people give meaning to the Scriptures.

2. Caring for children in Scripture is important for the entire Church

Noticing and valuing children and youth in Scripture can certainly be a meaningful ecclesial practice for the formation of children and youth. The opportunities to find ourselves reflected in stories are important for people of all ages, and this is even more important in a context of faith as children, youth and adults seek to discern where they can fit into God’s story with creation.

However, caring for children and youth in Scripture is also an important practice for adults. We adults also need opportunities to notice and value the children and youth reflected in Scripture because, as Allen’s book emphasizes, such stories can help us better listen and learn from the children and youth members of our communities.

3. Children actively participated in Jesus’ ministry

The Gospel accounts clearly show that Jesus exercised his ministry among and with adults. What is perhaps less clear is that Jesus also ministered to and with children. Allen’s examination of Scripture shows that children participated in Jesus’ ministry well beyond welcoming and healing Jesus. They also played an “active role” alongside adults in Jesus’ ministry (17).

In addition to James and John, Allen cites a few other examples:

• the shepherds in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, who probably included children and adults and all of whom spread the news of Jesus’ birth throughout the city as the angels instructed them to do (56-61)
• Mary, Martha’s sister in Luke’s gospel, who was perhaps a teenager – not yet an adult – and who chose to listen at the feet of Jesus and learn from him (109-116)

4. Children matter to God

One of Allen’s key theological statements in the book is that “children are important to God” (24). This belief is evident in stories like that of Jesus asking his disciples to let little children come to him. This is also evident in many stories of healing and exorcism, in which Jesus takes the time to restore children to health and free them from the powers that rob them of life. However, as Allen notes, the fullest and clearest expression of this belief is the incarnation, in which God becomes a human being in infancy and identifies with newborns (52-56).

What makes this seemingly simple theological idea actually radical is the way it flies in the face of first-century Greco-Roman social reality. As Allen points out, in this ancient social context, children occupied more vulnerable positions in society than adults, and some children – those who were poor, enslaved, or colonial subjects – were made even more vulnerable than others. Additionally, Jesus himself was a poor, submissive, and possibly enslaved child. Jesus’ assertion that the children he encountered—impoverished, submissive, and enslaved children—are important to God is therefore a powerful, socially transformative, and life-giving message for ancient contexts as well as our own.

5. Gifts offered by children are vital to the body of Christ

When Allen describes children’s contributions to Christian communities as “gifts,” she is not characterizing children’s involvement as superfluous or merely beneficial. For Allen, the inclusion of children and young people in the life of the Church is essential to being the body of Christ. She says: “The full inclusion of children in worship is not only or even primarily about children. [. . .] Full inclusion means accepting that we are all members of one another, working together rather than in opposition to one another for the good of the kingdom of God” (5).

I find Allen’s theological commitment striking in two ways. First, it highlights that Paul’s description of the body of Christ in I Corinthians 12 applies to children and youth as much as it does to adults. Age and status differences between children and adolescents and adults”[do] not to do [them] least part of the body” (v. 15, NRSVUE) or justify other members saying: “‘I don’t need you’” (v. 21). In fact, the status reversals in I Corinthians 12 suggest that the body of Christ is a place where children and youth are to be considered “indispensable” and given “greater honor” and “respect” (vv. 22-24).

Second, Allen’s thinking disrupts contemporary asymmetrical power dynamics between adults and youth. According to Allen, children and youth have gifts to offer in the body of Christ, not only as human persons in whom the Spirit is at work, but as people immersed in childhood and adolescence. What I hear Allen saying is that these particular experiences and periods of people’s lives generate gifts that differ from those that adulthood brings. The changes and development that humans experience during life and aging all have a role to play in witnessing the work of the Spirit. Children and young people are therefore vital to the whole body of Christ during their childhood and adolescence.

Embracing the gifts of children and youth

What might it look like for our faith communities to be the kind of places Allen envisions: places where children and youth find affirmation in the gifts they bring to the body of Christ? Where children and youth participate in worship (ch. 1), proclaim God’s good news (ch. 2), lead advocacy efforts to meet needs and seek justice in the broader community (ch. 3), take front-row seats to hear from God (ch. 4), share ministry alongside adults in ways that “respect” their “free will” (ch. 5, 143), and partner with adults to shape the lives and practices of the Church (ch. 6)?

In the tradition of Godly Play, and in the vein of Sarah Bentley Allred’s conviction in “Vibrant worship for all ages“That ‘we belong to one another as children of God’ and ‘as younger and older images of the Creator,’ I wonder if that might look like a fuller reflection of the God who loves us and has entrusted us all to one another. Like relationships forged by caring that make each person feel more deeply seen, heard, and known. Like the grace and freedom to be ourselves and the blessing that comes from experiencing life and faith with others I wonder if this might look like the kind of community we are for. have been made.

The image shown is of sing that on Unsplash