Abstract
We warmly welcome Transformation readers to this special issue on children-at-risk. It has been 18 years since the journal highlighted this issue. In the intervening years, research, books, conferences, and movements have gained momentum, resulting in global recognition of the importance of this issue for the Church. Including children-at-risk in the Cape Town Commitment (CTC) of 2010 was one such ground-breaking example. The CTC makes mention of children-at-risk, including children as part of the poor, enslaved, and oppressed. In fact, children have a section dedicated to them in the CTC (CTC II:D:5) that is more empowering and inclusive than earlier documents.
In November, 2014, over 60 theologians, practitioners, and church leaders from five continents, gathered in Quito, Ecuador to respond to the first child-focused mandate from the Cape Town Commitment (CTC II:D:5) in which the people of God are charged to take children seriously, through fresh scholarship that reflects on God’s love and purpose for them and through them, and to respond to Jesus’s provocative action in placing a ‘child in the midst’. 1
We have selected several papers first presented at the Quito Consultation: a missiological reflection on integral mission with children-at-risk (Greener), engaging models of prevention of spiritual abuse through appropriate child participation (Segura-April), and an appeal not to dismiss the vulnerability of boys as we respond to sexual exploitation (Miles). Willmer and Prevette provide a theological reflection on the realities of human risk as related to both children and our understanding of God’s nature. Shaw and Constantineanu offer insight into creating hospitable space and opportunity for children to engage in missional ministry. Anchoring our conversation in praxis, case studies are offered on ministry response to sex-trafficking at mega events (Neptune), advocacy for full inclusion of the young in the Church of the Nazarene (Jara), and an overview of mission and children in the Eastern Orthodox Church (Kozhuharov).
Please join us on a scholarly journey to take children-at-risk seriously as strategic and indispensable to the mission of God.