| The problem of the inquiry was to understand in what ways and to what extent perceptions of the development of children's religious thinking and the responsibility of the faith community (church) to children, influence the form of children's worship practiced in the local church. The inquiry findings aid in clarifying the phenomenon of children's worship in the faith community and reveal factors present in the development of these perceptions among the subjects. Subjects' theological constructs of children and children's worship, particularly in a Wesleyan perspective, are also identified.;The inquiry is a descriptive study conducted by a qualitative content analysis of ethnographic data gathered from a sample of children's worship leaders in the Wesleyan Church. The guiding social science mechanism for the inquiry is the five part dissertation model described by Borg and Gall (1989).;Ethnographic protocol was guided by a Q-sort exercise. The Q-sample, developed from literature typologies, facilitated subjects' interaction with types of religious thinking, forms of children's worship, and the responsibility of the worshipping faith community to children. The Q-sort exercise was based on Q methodology described by McKeown and Thomas (1988). Analysis was conducted using The Ethnograph computer software program (Seidel, Kjolseth, and Seymour, 1988) and ethnographic techniques outlined by Bogdan and Bilkan (1982), Fetterman (1989), and Spradley (1979; 1980). Krippendorff (1980) and Weber (1990) also aided in a content analysis of the transcribed subject interviews.;Inquiry findings reveal that children's worship leaders perceive children develop in their religious thinking through identification with religious practices (Elkind), and meaning making (Fowler) through the content of biblical stories. Children's worship forms are identified as age graded with multiple rank-order forms following. Preferences of the faith community's responsibility to children perceive children as immature full members, intent on the observation of others in the faith community.;The findings of the study provide grounding for further inquiry into children's religious thinking, children's worship, the development of a theology of children in the faith community, and a theology of Christian education in Wesleyan perspective. |
