The Role of Children and Parenting through a Biblical Lens is Professor’s Passion
Dr. Amy Lindeman Allen has been spending time out of the classroom working on one her of her primary fields of interest – teaching about children in the Bible to reinforce their critical role in modern worship practices. Lindeman Allen, who serves CTS as the Indiana Christian Church Associate Professor of New Testament and Director of the Master of Divinity Program, was recently a two-seminar presenter at the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza in St. Louis.
The Extravaganza is an annual event designed to educate and provide networking opportunities for youth and children’s ministers. Over 500 attendees were there to strengthen and empower youth leaders to help children, families, and congregations flourish. Lindeman Allen said she enjoyed being in a setting where children’s ministry was the central focus because she was able to naturally engage others on the topic rather than try to prompt listeners to talk about their role.
“There is just so much energy around youth and children’s ministry, she said. “It was a chance to learn how we can love and live into the centrality of youth in church today.”
Lindeman Allen’s first session was “The Gifts They Bring” which shares its name with her most recent publication. Each chapter looks at a spiritual gift that children can (and should be encouraged to) share with their worship community. Her hope is that more adult leaders learn to pay attention to the value that children can give and take from an engaged church community. In the session, she focused on different gifts, Biblical stories, and ways that ministers can engage their own young congregation.
In her first time at the Extravaganza, Lindeman Allen also presented a workshop called “Reading Between the Lines” which teaches adults how to see the subtle messages that can be in children and illustrated Bibles. She said this session is rooted in her hobby of collecting children’s Bibles.
According to Lindeman Allen, she does not have a favorite children’s Bible to recommend because it should be personalized to the faith community and beliefs that are supported by the family. However, she has come across several that reinforce gender stereotypes or provide misinterpretation to readers. It is important that the adults reading the Bible can see the underlying lessons being taught.
Interest in creative and meaningful ways to engage children in worship services continues to grow. In January, Lindeman Allen taught a weeklong intensive course, Children and the Bible, enrolling more than twice the number of CTS students who participated when she last offered the class in 2024.This Spring, Lindeman Allen has her next book coming out with co-author Sung Uk Lim, called Parenting Beyond Boundaries in Mark’s Gospel. She said this is a push back to the conservative narrative that parenting in the Bible is exclusively conservative and punitive. The text asserts that in the Gospel of Mark alone, four different parents are portrayed with multiple methods and approaches. This book will be released on April 21.
Lindeman Allen is also working with Lim to co-edit a book entitled New Testament Families in Global Perspectives which highlights how an individual’s cultural experience informs an understanding of parenting and Biblical stories.
