Hillary Clinton says it takes a village to raise a child. I’ve seen the village; and I don’t want it raising my child.
~unknown
So, we know we don’t want the village raising our children, but what about the church?
I received a very thoughtful email this week from a reader who asked how important the church body is in the raising of our children. Her questions were definitely worthy of a blog post on the subject, especially since it has been quite a while since I last posted on family integrated churches and what they have meant to us.
Her main questions were:
How important is the church body in the raising of your children?
Would you move to be closer to a family integrated church?
If you are not in a family integrated church, how can you encourage your church to move toward this model?
{I’m bathing this post in prayer because this is an issue that cannot be taken lightly, and an issue that can easily become emotional.}
So, is the church body important in the raising of your children?
My short answer is YES.
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
~Hebrews 10:24-25
Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
~Acts 2:44-47
Hebrews tells us that the gathering of believers is a place of encouragement. Acts tells us the believers of the first church were in “one accord.”
But how does this relate to our children?
When describing the fellowship of believers, the Bible does not say “just the adults” or “they left the kids at home.” It says the believers were “together,” and this would logically include their families.
Children are sponges. Just the simple act of seeing their parents and other adults engaged in serious Scriptural discussion influences their thought patterns about what church really is. It is our family’s belief that children should be included in adult conversations as they mature, but we have also seen first hand how much even small children can pick up just by being in the same room as the adults. The family integrated church model allows for children to mature within the church body, rather than separate from it.
At church, your child is {hopefully} surrounded by spiritually mature Christians. Christians who are no longer feeding on milk (1 Cor 3:2) They hear snipits of theological conversations and doctrinally sound teaching. The sermons are taken home as a family and can be expounded upon at home as a family because everyone heard the same thing.
But, let me be clear on one thing…
The church is NOT responsible for raising your child.
While the parent who sends their child to Sunday School and Children’s Church and Youth Group looks as if they are asking the church to raise their child, parents churching within a family-integrated setting can be even more consciously hoping for the church to raise their child.
It is not uncommon for parents looking for a family-integrated church to deeply desire a place where they can let their guard down and allow their children to be mentored by everyone within the church body, taking the responsibility off their backs for a few hours.
But, that isn’t the church’s job.
So, while church life is important to the raising of children, it is not responsible for the raising of children.
Second question:
Would I move to be closer to a family integrated church?
I have heard of people moving to gain the church influence they believe will “save” their family, only to find that the church cannot save anyone, and their family remains in shambles.
But what if your family is on the right track spiritually and you are simply looking to fellowship with other like-minded believers? Should you move to be closer to believers who feel the family integrated model is important?
I asked my husband what he thought, since ultimately moving decisions are based upon his leading. He said he would first consider driving. An hour to an hour and a half, in his opinion, is worth the drive. If that is not a feasible option, then he would look to start something in our home, rather than move.
But what if you decide to stay in your current UN-family integrated church? That, my friends, is another blog post…
abba12 says
Family intergrated churches are yet to even begin cropping up here in australia, and most the teachings in the churches we have attended need a little ‘sidenoteing’ or ‘touching up’ as they are usually to some extent different to our own beliefs. There is nowhere near the range of churches here that america has, we have spent 18 months looking and decided right now, in australia, everyone is just working from the same image of ‘church’, no one is breaking the mould, and no matter where we go we won’t be happy with all aspects, so we will just have to settle and supplement for ourselves. Our choices are between old churches like the presbyterians, where the teaching is usually pretty spot on, but the congregation really dosen’t care, they show up on sunday and half of them sleep through the sermon, or a modern church like the charismatic movement where the congregation really does act like a church family, but you have to dodge between the teachings of ‘do what you like because grace will cover it’ and ‘humans are naturally good, every sin is caused by a demon inside you’ (I believe in demons, I know they’re very real, and it drives me batty when someone gets up there and says the whole church is possessed by various demons of sin. He has no idea how light he makes of such a serious topic)
My husband is only 22 and does not feel spiritually mature enough to begin a homechurch, though I feel he may be called to ministry down the track. So how can we raise the children in church biblically when we consistently have to correct what we believe to be incorrect doctrine and explain to them why the others believe differently, or when the church dosen’t care enough and sees children as an added annoyance to their already ruined sleep-in who should be outside or in sunday school, not ‘bothering the adults’?
I feel like it’s such a hopeless situation, even though it’s one I don’t have to concern myself with fully for a couple more years yet.
Amy says
I hope to give our family’s take on some of the issues you mentioned in the next portion of this post. I’ve been where you are and it is utterly exhausting.
Laura says
Abba12 – where are you in Australia? I might be able to recommend a couple churches you could visit, if you are in the Melbourne area.
If you’d like to email me, feel free – homemakingjoyfully@gmail.com
abba12 says
Thank you, but we are in Brisbane. If you happen to hear of any recomended churches up here I’d be very interested though!
Liz says
I read this and then realized I had no idea what the Family Oriented Church was. I looked it up and found a stack of op ed pieces about them, but no real definition of what the church was. Would you please share a resource with a definition that is acceptable to you?
Amy says
Liz,
I would consider any church that promotes families worshiping together (ie no segregated by age Sunday School classes, Children’s Church, Youth Group, etc) to be a family-integrated church. You can find listings for some of these churches here:
http://www.ncfic.org/
We don’t see a precedent in the Bible for families being divided up to worship the Lord. In fact, the idea of separating everyone by age is a fairly new concept and one that, I think, has hurt the family rather than help it.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Liz says
Thanks Amy for the explanation! I have never heard of this type of church, but we have one in our town according to the directory.
I hope when you move you are able to find a church close to you that works for you and your family.
Corrie says
Thank you, Amy. 😉
Katie says
We finally found a family integrated church an hour away from us that just started this year, I can’t wait to go check it out when my husband returns from his deployment. (I’m a little nervous to go by myself since it’s so far away) But, if we like it, it will be an answer to prayer and well worth the drive, I believe. It’s been such a battle every Sunday to have to keep telling people no, my 3 year old is okay sitting here with me, not going over to children’s church.
Michelle G says
Amy,
Thank you for this article! My husband is in the role of youth pastor right now while he goes through the training to become a Calvary Chapel Pastor. I personally am over the Childrens Church. What has this taught us? We are really against segregated church and if God blesses us with our own church, it will not be divided. We have learned that Pastors of churches are to be in love with children as Jesus was and not see them as a nuisance. I see how parents see Children’s Church as free babysitting. We are working hard to become more like Christ but sometimes the road to get there is incredibly difficult.
Michelle
Suanna says
While I agree with the idea that children should go to church with their families, I have nothing against Sunday School. I believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to teach and be directly involved in their children’s learning. We allow our little ones to go to the church nursery as a very little one with no understanding about “shh” is a distraction to those around and to the parents who would otherwise gain from the sermon. Around 16-18 months we begin taking them with us occasionally to begin getting them used to the idea of church and by the time they are two to three they attend every service with us sitting quietly most of the time and without needing to leave the service. Our church has a church service and a Sunday School hour at both 9 and 11 am, so we do allow our children to go to Sunday School after church. We also try to stay on top of what they are learning and reinforce and teach deeper at home. We volunteer regularly in their Sunday School classes as helpers and can be involved in other ministries that we may be interested in. We also try to get our whole family involved in different ministries throughout the year. I certainly believe that by age 2-4 a child should be going to church with their family regularly and not just be put into Sunday School, because a parent is unwilling to teach their children that there is a time to be still and quiet and listen.
Maman A Droit says
I used to be an active United Methodist and went to the nursery/Sunday School while my parents went to the “real” service-thank goodness for choir, because I basically only attended the worship service on weeks I had to sing!
Anyway, one of my biggest surprises upon becoming Catholic and then having my first baby is that the Catholic churches I’ve been to don’t seperate families. They don’t even have nurseries or cry rooms or Sunday School. And I like it! I’m glad to hear that there are Protestant churches with a similar view towards kids.
One verse you didn’t mention but which I always think of in light of this discussion is the one about “let the children come to me”. I don’t claim to be a great theologian, but that verse sure makes me think God wouldn’t be a fan of shooing our kids out of worship so they don’t bother the adults. How can kids worship if they aren’t even allowed in the sanctuary?
Anita says
Amy thank you so much for your post, I can’t wait to read tomorrow’s… Right now I am closer to God than I have ever been, learning more and more about his love for me and the freedom and grace that is available and there is so much joy and peace in it!
But weirdly (or maybe not) I have never been so dissatisfied with our church. I feel so tired, just WEARY of the squabbles, the religious mindsets, the unforgiveness. Right now we are struggling as a church body to go where we think God is leading us, but every time someone suggests we change something, the PLT (pastoral leadership team) says “No, we can’t do that, there are people who would be offended by it”… not that it’s a wrong thing to do or that God isn’t leading us to that, but that people wouldn’t like it…
I have been in this church since I was a young child and am now married with my own children… who we have recently decided to keep in with us during the service. I think if I was really, really honest, I don’t want the church we attend raising our children and I’m not even happy with the example the service sets!
I really feel that it is time to move on, but am waiting for my husband to decide it’s the right time… I don’t know where we will go from here though, I don’t know of any churches near us that encourage the children as part of the service.
Amy says
My husband and I would love to attend a family integrated church – something like Voddie Baucham’s would be perfect :o) But, when I look in the directory there are an entire TWO churches in Canada and they are both on the other side of the country!!
We are part of a fairly new church plant that is not family integrated, though we do keep our children with us in the service and the other members are very supportive of this. My husband is very involved in leadership – organising pulpit supply and preaching regularly (we currently don’t have a full-time pastor). We just watched the new DVD “Divided” last week. It was excellent! And now we’re trying to figure out how to broach these topics with the rest of our church family…
Youth group age is not far off for our two oldest, and I know it is going to cause strife with some family when we say, “no youth group”. My husband and I were youth group leaders for several years…we grew up in youth groups…and the verdict is no way, our children will not go to youth group (long story and this comment is to long already!).
Anita says
Amy I think the “no youth group” thing spins off from the “no sunday school” thing and is a wise thing to do… I think the absolute best things we have done in our church in the past have been whole church trips and camps…going bowling “oldies (anyone over 30!!) versus youngies”, tug of wars, picnics, etc… anything that promotes fellowship within the whole church is excellent, in my humble opinion 🙂
Jamie (@va_grown) says
This is such an interesting conversation to me. Thanks for posting (look forward to more). Our church is not “officially” family-integrated, but I think we’re lucky to have a hybrid of sorts that really works for us–probably partly because our pastor has such a heart for children.
We have age-segregated Sunday School before the morning service each week, but all classes are teaching the same verse/or study at an age-appropriate level so we’re able to all talk about the same lessons at home. We have a separate “children’s church” service for 10 and under on Sunday mornings after Sunday School while everyone else goes to regular service–which would not meet the definition of family-integrated.
However, for our Sunday evening service there is no nursery, etc. so that service is completely family integrated and the children learn to behave and listen in the service no problem (although I don’t think they absorb the message as much as the atmosphere).
The goal is that by 10 yr old the children are mature enough in behavior and bible study to be integrated into the regular church service. Our youth group meets as a teen Sunday School class, but all the youth come to the regular church services.
Jenn says
Great conversation! We currently attend the non-integrated church we both grew up in and love! We have chosen to “integrate” on our own and keep our children with us during the worship service even though we are just about the only ones (a few others try it now and then some want to start but are afraid of how their kids will do). We have found our church family incredibly respectful of this and have had several older people comment that they appreciate our sacrifice on behalf of our children(ages 4, 2.5, 1.5, newborn). It’s been great to have such support even though it is not the norm for our local church body. It is a Bible believing and teaching body and I don’t think we would be able to make the case from scripture that we should/could leave a church body over something that is pretty similar to the worship style issue(consumerism mindset -what does this church give me/my family vs. what can I add to this body of believers). Obviously if our church forbid children in the service that would be a MUCH different issue but the choice is ours to make as parents and we have looked at Scripture and Church history and made ours.
Amy says
Excellent attitude! So much of what you are saying here is what I’m going to touch on in the next post.
Ginger says
I don’t understand driving an hour or more to church. How can you possibly get plugged into any relationships outside of Sunday morning if you have to drive that far for them?
We are blessed to be 10 min from our family-integrated church, but we’ve had several members who have, at some point, driven that far. And I just don’t get it. Now, I am a city girl at heart, so that may have something to do with it. I don’t really drive far for much of anything. 😉
Amy says
Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you are a city girl! 😉 We grew up driving EVERYWHERE, and we continue to drive places so we can see family and connect with them. Also, the home church that we drove to would involve an entire day of activities. You are VERY plugged in when you spend a whole day with your church family!
Ginger says
Ok, not trying to be snarky, just exploring this topic. Even spending all day Sunday with people– that’s lots of fun and you get to know each other, but are they going to drive 90 min to bring you food after your baby is born? Are you going to drive that far to babysit their kids while your friend’s hubby has surgery? Drive that far in the middle of the week to go evangelize the lost together at the womens’ shelter?
These are all the things that practically we would miss if we lived so far away from our church.
People move for a job, but don’t even think about moving for a church family. I think we should be very willing to move to be close to a church body that is biblical. They are so few and far between! FIC or not, a biblical church home is worth sacrificing for.
Amy says
Yes, we did drive for all those things. Nowhere was more than about 45 mins. (we rotated the meeting between houses) Maybe we’ve just been blessed by people who are committed to “one-anothering,” despite the miles or perhaps we are just used to driving and don’t consider that a long way.
I do agree a biblical church is worth sacrificing for, but not everyone can make the sacrifice of moving, whereas, they might be able to make the sacrifice of driving. Currently, in the church we are in there are 2 families who drive 1 hr to get to church. It is a sacrifice for them, but they do it because they desire the fellowship of a like-minded body.
Also, FICs are a bit different in their ministries. There are very few “formal” ministries. Most ministries are done by families individually.
Great questions! I hope I am answering them sufficiently.
Ginger says
I’m not sure what you mean by “formal” ministries. If you’re referring to the evangelism, that’s something we do as families of the church and it’s not formal. Somebody will just say: Hey, I’m planning to go evangelize in the long lines at BestBuy on Black Friday, anybody who wants to join me is welcome. And families go together to do just that. It’s been great for the kids to join us in evangelizing the lost. They learn compassion for the lost and boldness in sharing the gospel to save the perishing. In an nonFIC church, kids would have been expected to stay at home, while just the adults go out and minister. No thanks!
Liz says
this is a really interesting discussion. We are one of those families who are ‘integrating on our own’ as someone put it. The way we see it, God welcomes little children. I do see a need for age-appropriate teaching, but we felt that we wanted to worship as a family on Sunday mornings. Maybe our kids won’t understand every word they hear, but it’s amazing how much they do pick up. Besides, to keep them away would be like expecting our children to develop an adult vocabulary whilst reading only 1st grade phonics readers.
I have brought up our reasons for keeping the kids with us a few times with different people at the church, but everyone I have spoken to is pro-age segregation (or doesn’t seem to want to think about it!). There are so many reasons given, like, what about the kids who come without their parents? We don’t have many teenagers come, so we had a situation recently where a few kids had reached the oldest class of Sunday School, and there had to be a decision about what to do with them. I said why not encourage them to come to the main service, after all they are 11, surely old enough to participate. And the response was that that wasn’t a good idea, because they wanted the kids’ ‘first’ experience of church ‘to be a positive and enjoyable one’.
That made me kind of sad. Just like it makes me sad when I’m sitting in the cry room with the baby and the kids come back in from Sunday school, and all they get told is to be quiet, shhh you’ll disturb your parents. And if they’ve been told that for 9 years or so, well they already have a view of church, and it says ‘you’re not welcome here…you don’t belong….you’re a nuisance…’
And we supposedly attend a family-friendly church!
Carrie says
Great post! It is so frustrating when people (including me!) forget that it is still the parents’ job to raise children. I think the church is essential, and that it helps me to be a better parent, but it isn’t in charge of making sure my kids learn to love Jesus. If I haven’t told them, then I am the one who has to answer for it.
Sharon says
I lead the Kids’ Ministry at our church and I think this discussion is great and healthy! I truly believe that it is the role of the parents to raise up Godly kids. However, let’s not rule out how incredible these things are: 1) another person, with the spiritual gift of teaching, teaching Bible lessons to your kids that reinforce what you are doing at home; 2) Positive peer pressure and kids learning to discuss their faith with their peers; And 3) Bible teaching that is on their level. Our pastor goes out of his way to make the sermons relevant and interesting for adults – shouldn’t we try to teach our kids at church in the same way. So what if they can sit still and be quiet? Wouldn’t it be better for them to be engaged in the lesson and interact with it on their level. I’m all for going home to discuss and further teach – but we all have different learning styles and let’s make the most out of every opportunity and taylor things to their style, not ours as adults.
We do have our kids (elementary age) come in for the worship in song time, but then go to their classes for their lesson time. It seems to work really well, but we are always open to discussion and change.
Thanks for the dialogue!
Joe M says
It takes neither a village nor a church to raise a child. It takes TWO parents.
When we bring a child into the world, which ultimately requires a mother and father to do so, the parents voluntarily take on a job given by God to raise HIS children. There are no accidental pregnancies. So we are responsible for that pregnancy. And ultimately responsible for the child. The schools are not responsible. The church is not responsible. The PARENTS are responsible.
It is our job to keep them alive and to educate them to grow as GOD’s children. They are not ours to do with as we please. We are to NOT raise them of the world. We are not supposed to have children in our hearts. We have GOD in our heart. Remember, the Bible says the heart is deceitful and full of pride. We should not be “proud” of the children. We should always remain sober and in compliance with God’s way of living. This obviously includes humility and compassion and understanding, as Jesus so perfectly demonstrated. So, we can love our kids. But showing pride and heart is NOT love. If a village raises a child, that child becomes confused and without God. Hence the reason why God didn’t create two parents to raise them all. And also remember that children are born foolish. In other words, they are unguided. Fools should not be raised by fools. A fool should be raised with a wise person which ultimately you end up with two wise people. This translates to meaning that public schools are no good to God. Home school is exactly what He intended. Parents raising children.
I remember when I was a public school kid, and my parents were pretty much atheists. That’s how we lived. My truancy from school got me in trouble with the courts. So, I was sent to a halfway home for a month. The house parents were Christian. They had kids who were often there. It was the turning point of my life. For the first time I experienced what it was like to be in the care of very religious Christian parents. They loved me in ways I had never known. But they knew how to discipline and keep order. God was always at the front and center of all things. Something I have never forgotten. That was 25 years ago. The world has gotten far worse than it once was. But overall, people still behave the same. They either follow God or they don’t. The ones that don’t are lost. And that is why it takes PARENTS to raise a child, not a village or a church.