This is just a quick note to myself, because I’m prone to forget why I do things I do. I’m stupid that way, or maybe I just get busy and move on to the next thing in my head.
Anyway, last week during the church service I finally made the decision that I would not have my children going to “children’s church” anymore. It’s something that’s always bothered me, but because they often seem to enjoy the experience I was hesitant to keep them from it. Rebekah especially likes going to children’s church, mostly because of the social aspect of hanging out with other girls.
Here’s the problem. I don’t buy into this idea of telling kids how important they are to the church and then carting them off to a separate room. This is exactly what happened last Sunday morning.
I see no Biblical foundation for the idea of children’s church. Every instance in Scripture, from the tent of meeting in the Torah, to the disciples shooing the little children away and Jesus telling them to knock it off, kids are observed with their parents, hearing the Word of God, seeing the worship, and learning the ways of God, not at some dumbed-down kid’s level, but at the same level as everyone else.
A child’s spiritual tutor from Genesis to Revelation, as prescribed by God, is not a youth minister or children’s church leader. It’s Dad. And Mom too, of course. But Dad is supposed to be leading his family into the worship of God and remembrance of His Word.
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6,7)
In other words, the place kids get their spiritual direction isn’t from a weekly hour of watered-down milktoast spew parroted from the lips of a stranger, but from day-to-day life with Dad and Mom.
The American church’s love of “children’s ministry” has grown from the factual necessity that fathers aren’t there.
Bottom line, my kids belong with me and Jessica. Pursuing God as a family is a goal of mine; I’m not into concepts that bring greater separation.
And the second problem is that the pseudo-pastor’s daughter is a snotty, spoiled little priss of a thing and she fosters a clique-y, nasty atmosphere in the place. And I don’t want my daughters learning that behavior or thinking it’s cool.
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3 comments:
I totally agree. When did the children's church thing start anyway. In the olden days kids always sat with parents. What makes us any different?
I am wondering if children's church is partly why a lot of teens have issues sitting in regular church.
Billy Sunday the evangelist came up with nurseries for mothers in his tent meetings. It was a brand new "great" idea for helping them, so they could hear the gospel without distraction....maybe the whole thing stemmed from that?
Taking out the very young children who are more prone to cry makes sense and isn't bad, but that crossover where it's not about noise, it's about convenience is subtle.
Yeah, I've told Jared for awhile now that our kids only go to church to play with kids and play video games and I don't like it. But he thinks they are fine. They can always tell us what video games they played, but never remember what they learned from the Bible. It irritates me and it is one of many reasons I can't wait until we move and find a new church.
We used to attend a church where the pastor practically forced people to put their kids in nursery.children's church. He would do that to brand new visitors too.
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