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My first job in my twenties was as an elementary school teacher. Back then, I often judged parents and caregivers harshly. I told myself my child would never show up with a runny nose, wear a Halloween costume on non-Halloween days, or be late to school. Then I became a parent. Guess what? My child regularly showed up with a runny nose, wore a bumblebee costume for months, and we were often (and still are) late to school! What I imagined parenthood to be and who I thought I’d be as a parent turned out to be very different. Sometimes, I think faith journeys are like that, too.
When my bumblebee costume-wearing three-year-old asked me about Communion, I panicked. How do you explain something so theologically complex to a three-year-old when, at times, I struggled to grasp it myself? That moment sparked a deep struggle within me about what spiritual formation and faith journeys for children and youth could look like. The struggle stemmed from the realization that my own faith had shifted. The certainties I once held had given way to mystery, a widening embrace of questions over answers, and a profound understanding that God’s expansiveness surpasses anything I can imagine.
As I sought ways to help my child grow spiritually and take ownership of their faith, I realized I had kept God confined to a small box defined by an unexamined dogma. This prompted hard questions: What do I believe? How have my personal and communal experiences, my ethnicity, and my culture shaped my understanding of God? Who is God? Who is Jesus? What is the role of the Holy Spirit? It was overwhelming, but through this parenting journey, God revealed so much about who God is and how I was created with purpose.
This journey eventually led me into vocational ministry and the joy of working with the next generation. The questions I wrestled with as a parent are the same ones that now fuel my work: What does the future of faith look like for our children and youth? How can we expand our thinking about how we embrace and embody faith? How do we create new ways to nurture their formation in Christ that make room for their unique experiences and questions? Being part of the Wild Fig Network is an opportunity to create such a space—a space where Christ’s love is lived out through relationship, inclusion, humility, mutuality, creativity, and practice. God’s love is expansive and wide, and I hope this network reflects that expansiveness, making room for all of us as we aspire to fulfill God’s vision for the Church as an ever-expanding circle of love, kinship, and belonging.
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