"Can we have Communion?" asked a seven year-old excitedly, then all the others started joining in. "Oh, can we, can we?"
As we talked, it became clear that for many of these children, sharing in the Lord's Supper is a way they experience the living God and has played a major part in their faith development.
This caused me to reflect on my changing experience of Communion. When I was the age of the children I was talking to, Communion was a mystery to me - not in a "holy use and mystery" way, I just had no idea what it was. When Communion Sunday came round, the children were all sent out into the hall. All I knew was if I arrived at church to see a cloth over the table, we'd be going out to do some colouring-in.
When I reached about 11 or 12, we were allowed onto the church balcony to watch the spectacle of Communion taking place, but it was made very clear that we were not welcome to participate.
A few months after my 15th birthday, I participated Communion for the first time. I found the whole experience a bit strange: lots of silver and pewter, a sombre silence and a procession of strangely-dressed elders distributing the elements with military precision using some secret code of imperceptible nods and winks to ensure that each side of the church progressed at the same rate. Of my peer group (which was quite large in those days), I was one of only three who stuck around the church long enough to share in this bread and wine.
Over the last few years, my experience of Communion has been hugely different. Within the context of our all-age worship service, we have shared bread and wine in many and varied ways, and each has been a moment I will cherish.
Typically, I've found myself sat on the floor, surrounded by children and people of all ages as we share the story of the institution by asking and answering questions. There's no sombre silence - stories of faith are shared and explored and challenged, as adult and child learn from one another.
Far from a procession of suited elders, the elements tend to be shared round by young children. On one occasion, a three year old girl was handing out glasses of wine and as she handed each one to its recipient, she pulled her skirt over her head, danced in a twirl and shouted 'Hooray!' Surely to such as these belongs the Kingdom.
Rather than everyone taking a very prim and proper square of bread, my experience of Communion is more of a buffet with the bread and wine shared until all are satisfied. As one four year old boy likes to shout as he eats the bread, "God is good!"
The presence, questioning, sharing, joy and challenge that children have brought have transformed my understanding of the sacrament and have made this celebration a place of encounter with the risen Christ. Clearly, these are proving to be formative and transformative experiences for the children too.
And yet, statistics show that only a tiny percentage of children in our churches participate in Communion and there are still relatively few churches who routinely welcome children at the Lord's Table. Fewer still will break with traditions in order to create a space where children and adults together can meet God through the sharing of bread, wine and story.
To deny a child a place at the table is to deny their place as a disciple. Is it any wonder, then, that most of them don't stick around? If Communion is the meal of the family of God, what does it say about that family if we do not make room for all to be present and participate fully?
I am convinced that removing children from the celebration of the sacrament has contributed to the decline the church has seen, and that embracing the gifts that children can uniquely bring to the celebration of the Eucharist would transform the church. The time has come to embrace the vision of Shirley Erena Murray's hymn:
For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song.
The hands of a child in hands kind and wrinkled:
for young and for old, the right to belong.
And God will delight...
