Children's Church: Pros & Cons

Hi Lindsey,

Here is an old discussion, but a great one. It starts out with youth groups but goes into discussion on childrens church as well. Sonya mentions her sister-site article Church and Home Teaching which I’m sure you’ll find helpful. We prefer to have the boys with us for many of the reasons stated.

God Bless You!

Heather

Sonya brings up some great points. I’m in church nursery during the worship hour and my own sunday school class during our children’s sunday school. Our class would frown on me bringing my kids. The one point I really agree and wish our church would change is giving the kids CANDY to get them to come to church!! We have a huge bowl full of candy by the end of the year, it’s ridiculous! We just give it out at Halloween with a bible tract. But still, church isn’t about candy/sticker rewards but having the wisdom of God in our hearts!

If we ever decided to only have family worship we’d be better off worshipping at home. I don’t know of a single church that we would go to (We attend Independent Fundamentalist Baptist) that would worship this way.

But to answer your question Lindsey, I think their are more cons to children’s church than pro. I do like having a message tailored to their age group and attention span and their being with other children. But that’s it. We don’t celebrate the holidays so this also goes against our beliefs when they throw xmas and v-day parties. I’m glad they focus on Jesus and not on Easter eggs.

Tara

At our church the whole family goes to the main worship service together, then the kids are split up by age for Sunday School. I love how this teaches the kids about being reverent and worshipping together. That’s probably the main “pro” I would have for services with the kids. They really learn how to go to church.

In case you need help with their behavior during church: when my kids were little and they would get disruptive, I took them out and held them on my lap (restrained) so it was more comfortable in the Chapel than in the hall. I have seen parents let kids run around in the hall (I mean really little) and they learn to whine to get some freedom. My oldest son sat up front for a few years because he was the organist for congregational hymns, and he said we were the most reverent family there because of this training technique. My kids learned to be reverent and attentive at an extremely young age–almost when they were really babies.

Also, we don’t give treats during church and we make sure the kids have real food with protein and not sugar before church. What a difference it makes. And no one is going to dehydrate from needing a drink or wet themselves because we go before church starts. There is no reason short of sickness or a nosebleed or something that we let them leave during services. We feel this distracts others and creates bad habits.

I know I answered more than your original question. But in case these issues have any bearing on your decision, I thought I’d mention that they can learn to be very attentive.

I think Mamasnow and Sony’a article covered most of what I would consider pros and cons for the exception of two areas as cons; mainly related to a youth group.

I think the youth group inhibits spiritual growth in a what should be a maturing young adult. We don’t use the term ‘teenager’ with our children but young adult. I think the youth group set-up perpetuates and elongates adolescence, stifling their maturity; spiritually, emotionally and mentally (growing in wisdom under the influence of G-dly adults and meaty Bible study, for example).

Secondly, the youth group leader can easily become a ‘replacement parent’, creating an unintentional wedge between the parents and the child. In the sense that one’s child begins to bring vital issues to the youth teacher that really should be handled by the parents during these critical years.

I think the aspect of worldly influence, esp. the ‘teen culture’ that I don’t want my children involved in, has been stated.

Rachel

Okay, I knew I would jump in on this thread somewhere, because….

….I am the director of the children’s ministry at our church.

Our congregation is rather small, so most Sundays we have 4 or 5 kids in the class I teach–and 2 of them are mine.  Other kids attend, but only when their parents decide church is necessary.  This class is for 5- to 11-year old children, and we also offer a preschool class–normally 3 or 4 kids there.  We have a nursery room available, but we don’t staff it because no one really wants to leave their babies if they’re not fussy.  I don’t blame them….I hardly ever did.

We have an extended time of worship music first, then communion and offering, all of which is considered as worship.  The kids all stay in the sanctuary for that.  It was once said in our church that children do not have a “junior Holy Spirit.”  Our kids sing, kneel, wave banners, raise their hands, sometimes dance–whatever the adults are doing in worship, that’s what the kids have seen modeled, so they are all comfortable participating as the Spirit moves them.  If a young toddler breaks free and runs off making noise unexpectedly, so be it.  There’s grace.

Our class time takes place the second hour of the service while the adults are listening to the pastor’s message, but children are welcome to stay with their parents if desired.  However, except for the babies, most parents opt to send their kids to class.  I hadn’t noticed before, but since I have been acquainted with Charlotte Mason’s education methods and philosophy, I have dropped our curriculum’s Bible “story” techniques of presenting skits, ‘news’ interviews, and cutesy poems in favor of simply reading the passages (hold onto your seat here) FROM THE BIBLE!  Oh, my–I guess I won’t win any children’s ministry awards this year, lol!  Not so surprisingly, I’ve been fielding more questions from the kids now–good questions–and they seem to have a lot to comment about what we’re reading.

I’ve never been very fond of the “twaddley craft thingys” as someone mentioned, and I would love to do away with them altogether, but I always thought that I was the only sentimentally-challenged parent who never saves those, um, ‘precious?’ little paper plate Lion of Judah creations….

I suppose my biggest challenge lies with the fact that not all families in church are teaching their children what they should at home, and in fact, the children would be bored during the pastor’s message.  Furthermore, there are often families where the father is not stepping up as the spiritual leader he is called to be to his wife and children.  My own family is an example of that, but Bible teaching, prayer, and memorization is a regular part of our homeschool day.  That is not the case in some families.  As children’s ministry director, I have been pondering what to do for those children.  I (and the other teachers) cannot take the place of what their parents–especially the dad–should be doing, but I feel so very led to reach out to those kids and give them at least a taste of the goodness of God’s Word.  I also pray that, without a bored and fidgety child to deal with, perhaps the parent(s) will be filled with the Word during the pastor’s message and their spiritual lives might begin to see change.

So, we provide Sunday School classes.  And I pray for God’s wisdom in ministry.

Sue

Sue, I think you hit on a very important fact that churches are missing–not all families in church are teaching their children what they should at home and that churches and pastors need to be addressing and training parents to teach their children the meat and potatoes at home and holding them responsible for it.  As churches have gotten larger, I think there has been less accountability and parents are slacking.

We haven’t sent the girls into class since before Christmas and I feel it is the best thing we could ever have done.  Our whole family sits together and worships and prays together.  To look down and see them worhsipping…Oh my!  Probably sounds silly,  but it makes me cry to think how I could be missing this.  Last week, my 13 year old boy actually raised his hands in worhip–totally blew me away!!!  (Today, I printed out a couple of scriptures on love to have the girls copy while listening.  Worked great!)

Pros of keeping children with us in worship–I know what they are learning, they see us worshipping and humbling ourselves, we talk about the sermon throughout the week and it brings us closer, no twaddly crafty things to have to deal with at home!  LOL

Cons of sending to children’s ministry at our church–candy, manufactured curriculum and dumbed down lessons with too much entertainment factor.  Sort of a catch 22 here, but the age range at our church is 6-12, so almost too broad, but I don’t necessarily want my children around kids just there age.  (I like how Rachel addressed it above about inhibiting spiritual growth)….so we keep them with us!

GREAT thread, always encouraging to hear others hashing it out in their lives too.  THANKS! 

Great thread! About 2 years ago, we decided that our kids would not be attending Sunday School or children’s church. I just read Sonya’s post about her family’s decision, and seriously, I could have written it! (although not so eloquently, to be sure!).  But, we did so for the very same reasons.

That said, I think the point has been well made that everything that goes under the term “Children’s Ministry” is not the same. The posts by Sue Mom and My3Boys really demonstrate that. And, I truly appreciate the desire to feed children who are not being fed at home. 

However, that is NOT the way children’s ministry currently looks in our church. In many ways, it is haphazard, without vision, and a great example of the “default” kind of parenting Sonya describes.  It has copied the worldly model of what is apealing and appropriate to kids by focusing on making Bible instruction fun and entertaining.  

I think Sonya explained well the important things to keep in mind as you consider how your family will worship corporately. We need to think Biblically and act intentionally regarding our parenting (and everything else for that matter!). Does your church’s children’s ministry reinforce what the Bible requires of parents and children? Does is foster and encourage the Biblical model of the older generation passing along the faith to the next? Does it seek to turn children’s hearts towards their parents, and parents’ hearts towards their children? Or, is it an instrument that can reinforce separation and “survival” or “default” style parenting?

In our case, sadly, we found that our church’s model of children’s ministry did not affirm what we firmly believe God was calling us to do as parents. It was hard to “go agaist the flow”, and for over a year, I questioned myself. Why were we the only parents, in a church of nearly 400 people, who saw things this way?

But rarely does wholeheartedly following God lead us to look like the norm…sometimes even in church. We have grown as a family as a result, particularly because we have HAD to pick up the ball, so to speak, when it comes to teaching the Bible at home. If they aren’t getting it at church (and they really never were), then we’d better be giving it to them at home!