Fostering Authentic Faith in a One Room Schoolhouse Context- Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers, best practices and quick help. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project, featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others with practical help and guidance to offer those engaged, especially in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning into this episode of wisdom from the field.
Jim Latimer
I am your host, Reverend Jim Latimer, and today, I welcome Reverend Marissa Rapoza to our podcast. Marissa is a very talented and innovative minister, currently serving as pastor at the Congregational Church of Mansfield, Massachusetts. And in a recent context, as we haven’t known each other very long, I was sharing a lunch with her and another colleague, and I found myself leaning in to how she is meeting the challenge of guiding and equipping children and youth in developing authentic faith. Of course, we’re all facing that. And many of us are facing that in what I call a one room schoolhouse context where children of all ages are together – 10th, 11th graders with five-year-olds, and she’s found an effective way that really works for her. And I’m saying, Wow! Let’s hear more. So, I invited her into this podcast, particularly to speak to that. So, Marissa, we’d love to hear some of your wisdom on this.
Marissa Rapoza
Yes, hi. It’s nice to be here. I have a lot of wisdom on this, I hope!
Jim Latimer
Bring it on.
Marissa Rapoza
So, we were talking at that lunch about what kind of process that I had to go through on how to cater to my smaller church that has a smaller youth group. We don’t have these big, large youth groups like we used to, especially in our rural churches. And so, you know, I kind of had to be creative in that. And how is this all going to work together? And I kind of had to draw back on my youth years. And kind of was influenced by, or who I was influenced by, and the context that I had was that they threw us all together. There wasn’t a junior high youth group and a high school youth group. It was just youth group. And so, we had different retreats, right? But when we met for youth group on a Wednesday night, it was all of us from six to 12th grade in the same room, learning the same stuff.
Marissa Rapoza
And the two people that come to mind are pastor Chris or Crystal is her full name, and she was the first female minister that I had ever encountered. She’s part of the UMC, the United Church, I’m sorry, the United Methodist Church. And she really kind of brought material in a very discussion-oriented way, rather than, Here’s what I want you to learn, and you’re going to learn it and regurgitate what do we tell you. Blah, blah, blah. And then fast forward to my high school, and I had pastor Charlie, who was part of the Presbyterian PCUSA church. And Pastor Charlie did the same thing. It was all discussion based. And you know, we kind of went from there and asked a lot of difficult questions. And of course, you know, Pastor Charlie still wanted us to learn the Bible. And so, there was a lot, you know, memorizing Scripture and stories and whatnot.
Marissa Rapoza
But when I’m when I was working with these kids, so I was like, Alright, I can’t have them separated anymore. I have to have them together, because I had a really small, like, under 10 youth group for a bit and, so I kind of had to lean back and pull from my own experience of what I went through in my own youth group years. And so, it was, you know, looking at different curriculums and all of that stuff, and seeing what was out there. And, you know, just really unhappy with the curriculum, because it doesn’t cater to the one room schoolhouse model. And we’ll talk about that in a minute.
Marissa Rapoza
But the curriculums were very like, here’s the Bible story, here’s what you need to know, and it was a little too conservative leaning for me, just regurgitating materials and phrases and things that we had all learned from the past, you know, 50 to 100 years. Nothing new there. It was kind of boring, and I didn’t want to bring that to these kids. And then, you know, I was looking on the far other side of that. You know, a lot of the progressive Christian materials that were out there and still just not happy with that, because, you know, these kids don’t have the context to have that discussion yet, right? Like questioning certain categories, like the existence of hell, or demons, you know, stuff like that, because it had never been taught to them. They weren’t given these specific categories, or the critical skill thinking to have a real conversation about the different interpretations of hell mentioned in Scripture, or what do you mean a demon and mental health, right? So, like, I kind of had to pick and choose and then leave stuff out. And I just hated that. So, I started writing my own curriculum.
Jim Latimer
I love it. I love it. Okay, yeah,
Marissa Rapoza
I know. And it’s like I don’t have time to write my own stuff. Yeah, you do, because it’s actually really easy. But, you know, I had to kind of look at what our kids had and what they didn’t have, and what they needed in that moment of their life. You know, I have ten 10-year olds coming into youth group who are like, Oh, Jesus loves me! You know, still very immature in faith. And, you know, Because my mom said, so, right? So, like, parents in the church are like, Our faith is your faith, right? And then you get to high school and beyond, and it’s like, This is my faith, but I’m not allowed to have my faith because my faith questions. My faith has doubt. My faith is asking all these things about you know, that don’t make sense to anyone, and nobody’s answering me right.
Marissa Rapoza
And so, I had to meet those kids where they were. And that really stems around pulling out their own authenticity within the faith, and not just regurgitated stuff or faith that mom and dad said, or pastor in big church said, and you know, whatever the material book said. And then teaching critical thinking skills. That means you have to ask a lot of questions, and asking a 10-year-old questions can sometimes be like pulling teeth, right? And then, like your 18-year olds who want to have this deep theological or philosophical discussion around it, you know? And so, I need to be very creative about what this really looked like. What was I presenting, right?
Marissa Rapoza
And that’s where the one room schoolhouse model came in. So not only am I meeting them authentically where they are in their context, but I’m also teaching the critical thinking skills that we as adults, some of us have that and some of us don’t, but we’re also still learning it as well, even as adults. And you mentioned that I was a millennial. Oh, yes, I am a millennial, but I’m a cusp baby.
Jim Latimer
You’re cusp baby? Okay.
Marissa Rapoza
So, I have some critical thinking skills, right? But, yeah, there’s a lot of like, post certain generations that just don’t have that because schools aren’t teaching that anymore, and so I wanted that in this curriculum so that they can live that authentic faith and be okay with asking questions and having doubts, because that’s part of critical thinking. And so, the one room schoolhouse model that I use in this we’re all together. Everybody is together from sixth grade to 12th grade. So, I have 10-year olds to 18-year olds. And people are like, Man, that’s a wide range, because a 10-year-old is not going to be the same as an 18-year-old, nor is a 10-year-old going to be the same as a 14-year-old, right?
Marissa Rapoza
So, I got a lot of pushback from my church when I first started doing this, and it worked though. I had to explain to them and show them how it worked. You know, the younger kids, they look to these older kids and how they’ve presented themselves with their critical thinking. And when I say present themselves, I’m not like, you know, they’re presenting as these popular whatever you know, kids, but presenting them as like, in their faith, like, how are they coming to the table to have a discussion, right? And so, there’s this like, osmosis type thing happening. So, you have these 10-year olds looking up to these 18-year olds who are like, Oh, that that’s a really good question that they asked. Or, Oh, I never really thought about that. And so, it helps those youngers, like, just really tune in a little bit and start asking a little bit more thought-provoking questions, rather than just like, who, what or not, who parted, but why did the Red Sea part, you know? Why was this, this event happening, you know? And did it really happen? And what about creation, you know? And just asking some deeper questions.
Jim Latimer
Let me pause you for a moment there, Marissa, for some of our listeners that may not understand this notion of critical thinking skills, at least the way that we’re talking about it. What I’m hearing you say is critical thinking doesn’t critical. It’s not that the person’s being critical or being negative. It’s not that it’s critical in the sense of what I’m hearing you say is that are you able to think about your thinking, think about how you think, how and why you think the way you do? It’s not about dissing anything. It’s about being aware of how you’re thinking and what you’re observing.
Marissa Rapoza
Yes, exactly. So, asking those deep, those deep questions, and being okay with not having answers. I had heard one time, not one of my students, but another student, they were complaining about their youth pastor, or their senior pastor, that they had questions. And they kept getting, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and brushed off, right? And the person that’s responding to this is like, you know, I hate when people ask and get the response, I don’t know and dismissed. How about, That’s a good question. Let’s explore it together. And, you know, I learned that early on in my pastorate, and I wish that people would do that, even for me as an adult, instead of, I don’t know, go Google it, right? So, I took that and like, okay, lot of these kids are going to have questions about things like, hey, that is a really great question. You’re not going to explore it alone. You’re not in this alone, because we don’t do faith alone, nor should we. So, letting the kids know, I’m here for you, and sometimes I don’t have the answer, but I’m willing to do the research with you, right? Because sometimes they do ask questions that I’m just like, like, Who created God?
Jim LatimerÂ
Yeah!
Marissa Rapoza
And it’s fun to explore things with teenagers and pre-teenagers, I guess, because they can get pretty creative in their own answering.
Jim Latimer
But that’s how you build relationships with them, and that’s how they come to respect you in those ways.
Marissa Rapoza
Yeah, and it helps give them that authenticity that I’m going for. So, the one room schoolhouse model, I like that, and it’s always going to be a foundation to anything that I do. And I didn’t just do this in my youth group. I also wrote Sunday school curriculum as well in that same context. So, my kindergarten through or pre-K through fifth grade was also one room schoolhouse. And again, the church was like, pre-K, that’s four-year olds with, you know, how old are 10-year olds? So still, like that big gap of age group. But it works the same way. If we look back in our history, one room schoolhouse was around for a long time, and it worked. I feel like kids were smarter, and so I wanted smarter faith. And so, we did that with them, and they just learned. And they would have a buddy that was a few years older than them, that would just kind of help them, like, get crayons or cut or whatever. And then I did that, you know, with youth group. I paired them up with somebody that was kind of older, like, Hey, why don’t you go and be a partner with so and so? And they might be two years apart, they might be four years apart. And it worked, because the older kids were like, Alright, let’s look at this, and let’s do this. And, hey, what do you think about this? Their kind of like natural leadership would start to develop with them.
Marissa Rapoza
And that’s one of the other things that you kind of want in youth group is to develop leaders. And so, this model that I came up with and the curriculum that I came up with just naturally infuses that into the culture of this youth group. So, yeah. Go ahead.
Jim Latimer
That’s great. Marissa. What I’m hearing you say, which is brilliant, is you’re facilitating carefully the context here, right? Having slightly older kids, this is a chance for them to develop leadership skills, but they don’t do it by explaining it to them. It’s got to be in real time. So, they’re working with someone that’s younger, where it’s a natural context for them to begin to develop some leadership inclinations and skills. And then once they have that, then you can debrief that older person. How was that leading, guiding this younger person? You have lots of skills being developed at the same time in this soup of mixed ages here. That is sweet.
Marissa Rapoza
Absolutely. Yes. So, part of my own development as a pastor, I participated in Three M ministry, which is kind of a leadership development type ministry. And we had shapes that we had to memorize. And there’s particular instances about the shapes. One of them was a square, and the square was all about discipleship, and it was modeled after Christ’s discipleship. So here you have Christ. You have Jesus who’s like, Come follow me and watch what I’m doing. And then he’s like, Well, come follow me, or come do with me what I’m doing. Be my helper. And then he sends them out. And is like, go out. I will help you in what you’re doing. And then goes out and is just observed, like, just watches them.
Marissa Rapoza
And so, there’s this pattern to it. And the earlier you start that with kids, the better. So, teaching a kid how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? Come watch me make this peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And then the next time it’s, Why don’t you help me? You know, grab the peanut butter, get the bread, you know, blah, blah, blah. And now you can make it. Oh, it’s a little bit too much peanut butter. Let’s take a little bit off, right? And then they’re fully functional. They can make the peanut butter jelly themselves, self-sufficient. You know, best thing I ever taught my kids – how to make your own food, right?
Marissa Rapoza
So, teaching that early on, it helps with their faith, right? They’re watching us and are we giving them the tools within that so that they can go out and flourish? And that’s what I wanted in this curriculum, the ability for them to go out and flourish in their faith and be okay with challenge, because they all go off to college, right? I don’t know, the most challenging time is high school and college for most kids and I keep calling them kids because, you know, anybody younger than me is kids. It’s helped them. And I’ve seen the results of this.
Jim Latimer
I’m just hearing you say is that it’s a biblical Jesus modeled format or pattern that you have, right? It’s in our scriptures. And you’ve talked several times about this curriculum that you’ve created and designed yourself. So, I’m just saying, So Marisa, can you give us some more specifics in our remaining 10 minutes or so? Can you give us some specifics about this curriculum you’re gonna and stuff?
Marissa Rapoza
Oh, I don’t know. I want to bait people to stay a little longer. Ha! Of course. What I kind of looked at was, How did Jesus teach His disciples, right? He talked about the heart, right? Our heart, our body, our mind, our social awareness, and did spiritual practices. He went off and he prayed. And he taught this model to his disciples. And so, I broke that down into kind of a weekly model for a month. And each month, or each quarter, has a fifth week in that month. And so, the heart of it, though, is we spend the first meeting would be like a spiritual direction, right? So, the first Wednesday of the month, we’re talking about spiritual direction, or spiritual practices. And so, I would have the kids do a Lectio Divina, where they would just have to sit and be still for upwards of 15 minutes sometimes, depending on what Scripture I chose to read and have them listen to. And so, I would give them a piece of paper and a candle and turn off the lights, and I would just read to them in the dark. And they would spread out. Some of them would face the wall so they weren’t distracted. Some of them would look towards me so that I could see them. And so, they would just sit and listen. And it’s this practice of teaching what’s still hard for us adults to do is to be still and be with God, right? That’s the hardest thing to do.
Marissa Rapoza
But also, to listen, to listen to God, or to listen to the Holy Spirit for what is coming up. And so, I would read this scripture and ask them a simple question, What is one word that you hear? What stands out to you? And then I read it again and have another prompt. The prompt for that might be, what feelings come up for you when you hear this? And then the last one, because I would do it three times, What do you feel you’re called into? From all of this practice, all that you’ve heard, all that these feelings, what do you feel you’re being called into? And I would get things from like, I feel like I’m being called to be nicer to this person at school who’s just kind of mean to everybody. Profound things like that! To, you know, I feel like I’m being called to be a teacher or to go into some type of ministry, not a pastor, but some type of ministry, right? Like trip or something. So, it’s really cool.
Marissa Rapoza
So, the first week was, you know, spiritual practice. The second week of the month would be all about our emotions. So, these kids are coming in and they do not know how to regulate their emotions. And so, I would teach them in Scripture how people have dealt with their anger. And it might be righteous anger, where Christ is throwing tables and got his whip out, and how we deal with that in our own life. What’s the difference between holy anger and our anger? Like we’re mad and we want to hurt people. And so, we would talk about that, and then, like Jesus wept, you know, it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to be emotional. Things are okay.
Marissa Rapoza
And, this is stuff that they’re not going to learn in school, because school is not teaching it, and they all have hard home life. So, doing a lot of that work is necessary, because we as Christians, when we get angry and stuff like, the first thing that we do is like, you know, throw our prayers up to God, like, Why is this? Why is it that? That’s okay to do. But then how we act upon our emotions is a whole different ball game. And so, how does Christ teach us to deal with all this stuff?
Marissa Rapoza
And then the third Wednesday of the month, we would talk about our bodies. So, we would play games, and because, our bodies, we need to keep them physically active, and we need to eat the right foods and get good sleep and all of that stuff. And how does that impact our faith? Or, why is that important for our faith? And it does. If our emotions are out of control, then we’re not sleeping, which is going to feed into the next week that I’m gonna get to in a minute. So, we would play games, like almost the entire youth meeting, and it was for two hours. So, we would have tons of games, and we’d have, we’d make a snack, right? We would cook on these days. So, it might be anywhere from, Stone soup, where the kids just bring in the hodgepodge of stuff and we throw it in a bowl and we eat it, to like, Hey, let’s go bake bread or a pie or something, you know, or homemade ice cream in the summertime, I would do. And then have discussion while we’re eating, after playing and just break it down and talk about our bodies and how to keep them physically fit and mentally fit, and, you know, all of that stuff, and then apply it to our faith.
Jim Latimer
Let me pause you. Here really quickly. You’ve mentioned Wednesdays, versus, Sunday school being typically Sunday morning in people’s minds. So, could this also be Sunday morning? And when you’re speaking of these things, it sounds kind of like a youth group meeting? Does it include younger children too, these things that you’re talking about?
Marissa Rapoza
Yes. So, all of those, you know, I started this kind of as, like a beta program, and then paired it down a little bit, because you only get 20 to 30 minutes in most churches for Sunday school, right? Because kids start off in big church, and then they’re dismissed, and they go about their time in Sunday school. And so, you only get 20 to 30 minutes, so I had to pare it down, but yeah, I did this exact same thing the first Sunday of each month. We’re talking about a spiritual practice. So, it might be teaching the kids how to pray, right? Or in lower Sunday school, you know, our K through fifth graders, it might be teaching them like red light, green light, and just how to be still and wait for the call, right? That might be super important for them, which can be both the body and it can be the spiritual practice. So, a lot of imaginative things that you can do and still have that. We might talk about Jonah and the whale, and like how he didn’t want to go, he was just like, defiant. I’m not going right. So, we’ll talk about the emotions around that. When we don’t want to do something, you know, and kind of go from there. So, yeah, I would kind of pare it down into all the other curriculums that I was writing, from Sunday school to even confirmation,
Jim Latimer
Wow. So, I interrupted you, and you were body physical, and then there was another one, right? Because there’s five, right?
Marissa Rapoza
Yeah, there’s five of them. And all of them kind of feed into each other. And so, the fourth one, the fourth week of the month, was super important for me, which is all about our mental health. Again, we have this emotional intelligence that kids are just struggling with. And then we have our mental health, which so many kids are struggling with, especially post Covid, right? And so, teaching them coping mechanisms, you know, things that they can do to deal with their anxiety or stress or depression, you know, who they can call, who the adults are in their life that they might be able to go and just have a vulnerable conversation with? And I had one student who just had such a horrible, horrible home life, right? And she just was in such a bad place, and she experienced a bad trauma. I won’t go into it, but she experienced a really bad trauma when she was, you know, just, you know, four or five years old. And when she first started coming to youth group, I was taken aback by her, just a little bit like, Whoa, this girl’s got some stuff going on. And so, kind of teaching, all right, We’re going to experience our own traumas in life, and how do we respond? Who do we have to go to that we can say, Hey, I’m mad, I’m depressed, I’m suicidal, I’m, you know, insert whatever it might be. And so, giving them the resources, but then also, like the coping mechanism or the methods, right? So, we might go outside on any particular day. And this would be on a Wednesday for youth group, and I’d ask them to take their shoes off and go stand in the grass or the mud or the dirt or the pavement, just go stand and be grounded, right? Take a deep breath. What do you smell? Touch the grass, what do you hear? What do you see? You know, all five senses are in play, and that’s one of those coping methods for stress and anxiety, you know, when we’re feeling anxious.
Marissa Rapoza
So that was really important for me. And you know, I have a couple of pastors who unfortunately have experienced suicide with one of their youth or in their church context, and so that was influential on and we really need to touch base on the mental health that’s going on with these kiddos. But then we would also talk about our faith in that, and how we can, you know, go to God with some of these things. And so, we would, you know, look at scripture, and a lot of them was, you know, in in the Psalms, you know, with Daniel or with David, just like, Aaaargh! What are you going to do? I’m worried, I’m anxious, I’m angry, I’m sad. You know, all these different, you know, things that are going on, and just our dependency on God and our faithfulness to Christ. S
Marissa Rapoza
So, then a really cool thing would happen. Once a quarter, we would get a fifth week, and on those fifth weeks, it was all about social awareness. Usually what we would do for the social awareness, we would make, I think I call them love bags, and those we would pre-make these bags that had, like, toiletries and maybe a $5 gift card to Dunkin Donuts or McDonald’s or something, right? And then what else did we put in those? A granola bar, a bottle of water, stuff like that. And then they would keep them in their cars. And like as they were passing people who were experiencing homelessness, they would give it to them, so that they had at least something.
Marissa Rapoza
We would make those, you know, periodically. Other times, we would go out with our Loaves and Fishes Ministry and work directly with those experiencing homelessness. Other times, you know, we would go to an old folks home, a retirement community, and sing Christmas carols, you know, or just have conversation. We would gather around a table with some of the people who lived in these communities and like, Work your wisdom on these kids. What is it like to be 65, 85 or 100, and what was your life like? How did your faith grow? And just having that social awareness of the aging process. And so, we would have just a whole bunch of different things that are about our social awareness. And later on in the program, we started to get into justice stuff with our social awareness. So, LGBTQ+ justice, racism, white supremacy, you know, Christian nationalism, all of that stuff, and how that impacts our society, in particular, our community context that we’re in. We would do a lot of work around that. So those are the five things that I would incorporate into this curriculum, and make sure that we touch base on from all the way down to kindergarten, all the way up to 12th grade.
Jim Latimer
Wow. That’s brilliant. And just what the five are, again, if I can say them back: One was spiritual practices; the second was heart or emotions; the third one was body, physical; the fourth one was mind, mental health. And then the fifth one social awareness, when there’s a fifth week to a month, and this could be on a Wednesday evening, or it could be on a Sunday school time on a Sunday morning with perhaps less time. But all of these, as you have proven again and again, can be done. You do them to great effect in what we’re calling a one room schoolhouse. In other words, all the kids are together and being thoughtful about how the older kids interact with the younger kids, and taking advantage of that to develop leadership skills in the older kids. And it also develops a relationship between young and old, and the kids then develop respect for the older ones. Lots of lots of skills are developed when they’re all together like that.
Marissa Rapoza
Yes. And asking the right questions. In all of these it’s all about asking the right questions. If you get that one prompt for whatever you’re discussing, that one prompt, it can spark the most fruitful 20 to 30-minute discussion. Just one question. Because they would all chime in, Oh, well, I think this, or I think that. Or can you explain that a little further? And somebody else from the group might explain it, and I don’t even have to do anything. So, it’s just really, really cool to see.
Jim Latimer
And I think it takes some of the pressure off the teacher or facilitator like you in this case, or perhaps a lay person, when they realize that they don’t have to have the answers. This isn’t about answer giving. The youth do arrive at answers, but it’s not incumbent on you to give them the answer, give them the right answer. But through that process, rather than saying, I don’t know, say, That’s a good question. Honor the question, and let’s explore it together.
Marissa Rapoza
Absolutely. It’s really cool to see that, because, you know, these kids go through life being told how to be, who to become, what they’re allowed to do, what they’re not allowed to do, right? And so, when we put that into our faith, you know, the church, for a long time, has done the same thing. Here’s what you’re supposed to believe, here’s how you’re supposed to behave. And when you do all that, then you can belong to our church or our community, right? Jesus flips that right upside down. Y’all do belong. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to believe a specific thing. Here’s what you can rest on. You belong as part of the kinship of God, as a beloved child. That’s the core and the foundation that these kids need to hear. They belong. And then through that process, they learn how to become like Jesus, just as Jesus called His disciples. Hey guys, you belong. Learn how to be like this. Learn how to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. And through that, their belief grew. They became aware and began to understand via, you know, the Pentecost, the time of Pentecost, they were like, Oh! It’s a process, and it’s an ongoing process, even for us as adults. If we can get these kiddos and start teaching them that at such a young and vital age, it’s going to filter into their adult faith, and they’re going to be very aware of their own opinions and thoughts, and not just regurgitated opinion and thought and claim that as their own, which, you know, for some people, that might be okay. But Jesus, I feel, wants us to be authentic in our faith and true to ourselves – the necessity for the critical thinking and the asking questions.
Jim Latimer
Wow, Marissa! I’ve certainly have been filled up and inspired as an intentional interim minister myself. In fact, I just started a new congregation just this week, and their young children that I’m going to meet this Sunday for the first time, and I’ll be using a lot of what you have described here. And just to say to our listeners that if you want to learn more about Marissa, and perhaps how to get in touch with her and learn more about her, that that’s in her biography that page can be found on the Coachingforinterims.com website. She’ll have her bio there. And because I imagine some people are going to want to ask for more information or have a conversation with you. You’re very approachable and, well, I don’t need to talk anymore. It’s what you said. Your wisdom rests there, and people can take it from here. So, thank you so much, Marissa. This has really been a blessing for me. It’s been great to see your smiling face and hear your heart and spirit and wisdom come through so strongly.
Marissa Rapoza
Thank you for having me and letting me share.
Jim Latimer
You’re welcome. Bye, now.