Children's Spirituality Summit 2024

"Pentecostal scholar and theologian, Amos Yong, has termed inspiration and actions informed by the logic of the Day of Pentecost narrative in the Book of Acts “the pneumatological imagination.” Essential to the pneumatological imagination is the reality of the Holy Spirit poured out universally across gender, age, socio-economic and ethnic boundaries. The Pentecost narrative affirms the Spirit’s presence fully and completely at work in and through the lives of children. Further, the pneumatological imagination invites us to consider how the Holy Spirit is communicating the current and future reign of God in and through the lives of children.

Consistent with Yong’s proposal that there is a discernible logic to the Day of Pentecost narrative that should guide the thinking and practices of followers of Jesus, James K. A. Smith has proposed five key elements of a Pentecostal worldview (a way of seeing the world informed by the logic of Pentecost). For Smith, these elements “highlight the way in which the Spirit invites us to see the world otherwise.” In an effort to elucidate some of the ways that children reveal and clarify the life and work of the Spirit, this paper will describe how each of Smith’s five elements are communicated in and through the lives of children. In addition, environments and practices that may embrace, cultivate, or quench the pneumatological imagination in children will be explored.
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