Our Family and Children's Ministry: Part 2

Please go back and read Part 1 if you missed it.

I will list some of the questions David and I had to answer before we could continue sending our children to children's church, but first, I want to say that I AM NOT AGAINST children's ministry. I know there are thousands of children in churches who wouldn't be receiving any biblical teaching were it not for children's ministries. So many parents aren't having family devotionals, aren't teaching Bible verses, and aren't discipling their children at home. In these cases, THANK GOD these parents (or grandparents) are taking their children to church to receive morsels of teaching and good discipleship. Seeds are being planted, and I pray they are fruitful!

There is a church in our area that runs a thriving bus ministry. Every Sunday morning, they drive all over our town and pick up children whose parents don't attend or can't attend church. They feed them breakfast, involve them in fun activities, and teach them Bible lessons. Then they take them home. This church picks up and drops off hundreds of children and youth each week. Thank God for ministries like this! These children would probably not have access to church otherwise, and I pray that they are impacted in a positive way for life because of it.

These posts ARE NOT meant to criticize children's and youth ministries. They are meant, however, to talk about our personal experience with these age-segregated ministries in the church and whether or not our children need to take part in them. I'm all for little old ladies in rocking chairs teaching Noah's Ark on flannel-graph. I'm all for people other than myself investing their time and love into my children. Unfortunately, this model of children's ministry is rapidly disappearing. Nowadays, fun and games are much more the focus. And, even more unfortunately, in the churches where this type of children's ministry does exist, we have not been able to find the freedom in worship or solid, biblical teaching that is so important to our own spiritual development.

Now, on to our questions...

When did churches start segregating people by age? Most churches now, including ours, are so divided: nursery, grade school, junior high, high school, college, singles, young married, married with children, middle-age, empty-nesters, senior adults. Why is that? What is the purpose of this segregation?

Was it not the parents' responsibility to train children up spiritually? When did this responsibility transfer from the shoulders of the parents to the shoulders of the church? 

Isn't the church's model of age segregation for teaching purposes the same as the school's model? Isn't that one of the reasons we're homeschooling, because we feel that's wrong for our children?

If my children couldn't tell me what they learned about God in children's church, how could we reinforce those lessons at home?

Wasn't lessening the world's influence on our young children one of the reasons we homeschooled? Weren't we going against our own convictions by putting them in a room full of children whose values, morals, and parents we did not know?

These and more questions kept coming up until we were sure that, biblically, we could no longer pat our children on the bottom and send them to children's church.

During all this questioning, I was directed to a Website, Intentional Parents, that pretty much outlined everything we were thinking but couldn't put into words. While I don't want to push our decision off on anyone, these criteria, which I am quoting from this site, set a standard for us to make our decision:

• Does [children's ministry] emphasize one-on-one discipleship in everyday life instead of using a traditional classroom approach?

• Does it encourage socializing and learning from all ages rather than fostering a sense of isolation and an attitude of superiority toward those just your own age?

• Does it instill a high respect for God's Word, or does it cheapen the value of God's Word by emphasizing treats and trinkets as a reward for memorizing Scripture? 

• Does it promote unity and encouraging one another instead of fostering competitiveness?

• Do we know quite well and trust the people who will be teaching our children, as well as all material they will be teaching?

• Will the material the children are expected to learn at Sunday school support and complement our plan for teaching the Bible at home or fight against it?

Once we answered these questions as well as our own, we were certain we had made the right decision for our family. We believe the purpose of children's ministry in the church is to support and reinforce parental teachings at home; not to replace it or cause the children to favor the fun and games over strong, sound instruction. We have not yet found a children's or youth program in a church that meets this criteria; and therefore, we have chosen to keep our children with us during services.

There are a couple of exceptions we have, though. First, our church has a very successful marriage ministry, so marriage is discussed quite a bit from the platform. During such messages, we recognize that topics such as the intimacy between husband and wife are discussed. As we are not yet ready to bring up this subject with our children, we allow them to attend children's services during these messages. Second, a few times per year, our church has extended services for prophetic and healing ministry. These services can often last two hours or more. Because they are not held very often and we feel it is unfair for our children to be expected to sit still for such an extended period of time, we allow them to participate in children's activities then too. We have, however, brought our children out of the activities and into the services at the end, and both children have received specific prayer and prophetic ministry.

Part 3 will conclude my discussion of our family and children's ministry, including the most important reason we have found to keep our children with us. It will also discuss some of the benefits we have personally seen in keeping our children with us during church.