A warm invitation to Child Communion, June 10th, 2024.

Dear Darrell, thanks for your letter and for the pointed questions about child

communion. Please thank your session for me as well. It is rare to find the combination of

attributes that I see in your questions, receiving biblical teaching with real eagerness, well at the same time

cross-checking everything against scripture to see what the truth actually is,

Acts 1711. That being the case, I think I would like to approach this a bit differently if I might.

I do this because I know you have already read a pile of books on the subject, both pro and con,

and perhaps this might provide a fresh angle.

I would like to take this opportunity to write to you about our practice of child communion,

but I want to adjust your expectations before we begin.

My goal in this is not quote unquote to prove anything or even to defend it against criticism.

My intention is much more simple. It is simply to describe what it is like to think about the sacrament the way we do.

And if I am successful, I will not have necessarily persuaded you of anything. I will not have converted you to the view that

child communion is the way to go, although I would certainly hope for that.

Rather, Lord willing, I will have written of it in such a way that you understand why it matters so much to us.

And perhaps I will even have written in such a way as to make even the strictest

advocate of cradle communion turn away from this prospect with some regret,

thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful if this were true?

We know that what we have is entirely the grace of God, and we also know that we didn't earn a bit of

it.

What do you have that you did not receive as a gift?

And if it's a gift, why boast as though it were not a gift?

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