Schooling the youngest ones in faith

You'd pardon the Rev. Patrick Gray for feeling disrespected by the students attending his theology lesson. Some crane their heads toward the back of the class, pointedly ignoring Gray's earnest discussion of Genesis. One brazenly stretches on the floor and fiddles with the edge of a rug, legs and rump toward the priest.

But Gray takes it in stride. After all, what do you expect when the oldest children in class are toddlers, and the youngest student a 1-month-old slumbering in a car seat?

Welcome to Beulah Land, a Sunday school program that, as practiced by The Church of the Advent in Boston, brings the Word to children who may not have learned to eat solid food. Ringed by two dozen parents and children forming a crescent on the floor of the Beacon Hill Episcopal church's playroom, Gray stands in front of a flannel board and attaches cutouts made of felt to tell the stories of creation and Noah: a red heart and two hands depicting God, a tree entwined by a snake to tell the children about the fall of man, and an ark.

''He took in all of the animals two by two," Gray chirps, pasting animal shapes on the board. ''Even the three-legged horses," he adds, acknowledging one noticeably misshapen felt equine.

Some of the toddlers pay sporadic attention to the colorful board; 4-month-old Emily Zadig beams beatifically at her mother, Megan, who is propping her up on her tiny legs.

Beulah Land -- the name comes from a passage in Isaiah in the King James Bible -- is a product of the Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James church in New Haven, which markets the sets of felt pieces telling Biblical stories for children between the ages of 3 and 10. Beulah Land's creator, Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, finds it ''fascinating" that The Advent, as the church calls itself, is using the materials with babies and toddlers.

''It has never dawned on me to use it with kids younger than 3," she says.

But Gray, a lean, youthful-looking 35-year-old cleric, says you're never too young to learn. Beulah Land marries two of his passions -- his Christian faith and his love of children. He and his wife had been unable to conceive until doctors discovered and treated a benign tumor on his pituitary gland. Today, the Grays are the parents of 21-month-old Ezra, who attends the Beulah Land classes with his mother and father.

''Even little 6-month old kids, who pretty much can't focus on anything, can still sort of see primary colors," says Gray. ''Now, are they going to be able to comprehend a Bible story? Probably not. But if they have a sense that there's something going on here that's a little different . . . and they get a sense of the movement of the story -- told on felt board, of all things -- it starts to help them develop a visual vocabulary of faith. It's not necessarily a vocabulary they can articulate, but it's going to be there, somewhere, working in their heads."

Michael Zadig, Emily's father, agrees. His daughter is the third generation of Zadigs to attend this church; Michael Zadig's father converted from Judaism to Christianity here in the early 1950s. Beulah Land ''is, I think, the first step toward church school," he says. He attended Sunday school as a child, and ''I feel like she's walking in the same footsteps that my wife and I did, in terms of [attending] something besides just the church service."

That parental satisfaction is key. Beulah Land is not just for the children; Gray says it's also a marketing tool to attract their mothers and fathers to a congregation seeking young families.

Founded during the Gilded Age, The Church of the Advent lost many families with children a decade ago after a nasty debate over whether to dismiss a popular rector who convinced parents there were better examples of Christian love elsewhere, Gray says. Many of the 300 to 350 people who show up at Sunday worship are singles and childless couples, he says. The church is competing with other congregations and the lure of the suburbs, to which couples emigrate in search of better schools and affordable housing. (The Zadigs, for example, drive to church in Boston from their home in Woburn.)

Narrative is a powerful teacher, and Biblical narratives have demonstrated their staying power by etching themselves into centuries of public consciousness. The Church of the Advent is not the only congregation that believes in Beulah Land's effectiveness; 250 congregations in the United States and Canada use it. In the end, the eternal appeal of a compelling tale, rather than ethical instruction, is what may stay with the tender-aged pupils in Gray's class.

''The story is what changes people. It's not the moral," he says. ''That's why this Beulah Land thing is all about story."

Questions, comments and story ideas can be sent to spiritual@globe.com.