A New Beginning

“… there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Gen. 1:5

In the Bible, a new day begins in the evening, while it is still dark. The Church year begins in much the same way—not amid the bright promise of spring, but as summer fades and the days grow shorter. September brings us back to the work of beginning again: worship, learning, prayer, and the religious education of our children.

It is tempting to think of religious education as one more parish program — something for the children to attend while the adults take care of other things. But the faith cannot be handed on by a program alone. Children learn what the parish truly believes by watching what the adults actually value. They notice whether worship is allowed to claim our time. They notice whether prayer has a place at home. They notice whether Scripture and the lives of the saints are living voices or merely books on a shelf. Above all, they notice whether learning the faith matters enough for us to make a real commitment to it.

Fr. Thomas Hopko often reminded us that the heart is revealed by what we treasure. Not by what we say is important, but by what receives our time, attention, sacrifice, and love.

That is true of a parish as well. Our heart is not finally revealed by our buildings, our finances, our social life, or even by the number of programs we offer. It is revealed by whether we are forming people—children and adults—to know Christ, to pray, to understand the Scriptures, to enter deeply into the services, and to live as Orthodox Christians in a world that is also catechizing them every hour of every day.

And here is the sting: if we do not teach our children the faith deliberately, someone else will teach them what to believe. The world has no shortage of teachers, and it rarely cancels class.

Religious education, then, is not optional decoration around the edges of parish life. It belongs near the center. It asks something of teachers, parents, children—and of every adult who promised at baptism to help raise them in Christ.

As this new Church year begins, the question is not simply how many children we can enroll. It is whether we are willing to become a parish in which learning the faith is taken as seriously as professing it.

Our children will know what we treasure. We are showing them already.