So the question is, what gaps are your Sprouts living in today? What difficult issues do they have to deal with in their daily life? And how can you as a Sprouts leader help them "stand in the gaps"?

In Silence on Fire: The Prayer of Awareness, William H. Shannon, priest, professor, and author, describes different approaches to dealing with change within the church. The "close-minded traditionalist" wants no change at all. The "ahistorical traditionalist" wants as little change as possible because tradition is considered without regard to historical influence; our heritage is outside of history. The "historical traditionalist" is willing to change when necessary because history and culture have influenced the course of our heritage. And the "prophetic" voices are willing to explore new insights into current reality and consider new directions for living as a disciple.

As in all schemes that try to make sense of our approach to life, this one isn't perfect. One could make a case that Wesley was a historical traditionalist — if not a prophetic voice —in bringing new life and new understandings to the church and people of his time. He was willing to adapt and innovate in order to serve the needs of the people. He kept what he believed to be essential yet responded to the issues and culture around him. Using Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason, he was able to stand in the gaps of many issues.

Covenant Discipleship provides an excellent tool for teaching balance, for bridging gaps, for learning to live with the mysteries and paradoxes of our faith, and for making choices among different value systems. The very structure of Covenant Discipleship demands that we be both/and disciples — loving God and loving neighbors. It is that gap between compassion and contemplation.

Here are some of the gaps your children might experience:

• Old/new: Do we sing the "old" hymns or the new songs?
• Being/doing: How do we balance our time spent in prayer/devotion and time spent doing acts of kindness?
• Faith/culture: How do we keep Sabbath in today's world? Do we go to church or to the soccer game?

Ask your children what other gaps they experience in their efforts to be disciples. Draw a seesaw and put the two "sides" at each end of the seesaw. Talk about how Wesley was able to balance the seesaw and that we need to be able to balance it, too — not just sit on one end or the other so that the seesaw doesn't balance. Let them discuss how they try to work out their answers to these difficult issues. Remind them about (or introduce) the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. (See the Spring CDQ for ideas about teaching the quadrilateral to Sprouts.) How can this system help them deal with the gap issues, balance the seesaw? Remind them that gaps are never "solved once and for all" but are continuing issues we address. Encourage them to see that dealing with tough issues is an act of devotion as they work out their life's values and activities in light of their relationship to God. Perhaps you might make a bulletin board of seesaws with the issues and some of the answers that make for balance. Continue to remind them of these seesaw issues during the course of Sprouts meetings.

Visit the Sprouts website, www.sproutsnet.org.

Edie Harris is the Volunteer/Casework Coordinator for St. Laurence Chapel: Caring Center for Homeless People, Pompano Beach, Florida, where she also serves on the Methodist Federation for Social Action Board of Directors. With Shirley Ramsey, she co-authored Sprouts: Nurturing Children through Covenant Discipleship.