Parenting in the Pew
I grew up in the Catholic Church. Now, I know when I say that there are several different responses elicited. There are usually people who hear me say that and I get the sense they have a story too of growing up Catholic. It’s a prevalent experience, especially in the midwest I think. Every time I tell my story of how I came to know Jesus Christ in a personal way, how he opened my eyes and put in my heart a desire for God, I share how I grew up attending a Catholic Church. I would sit next to my mom and dad throughout the entire mass. But it wasn’t just sitting–we stood, we recited, we kneeled, we sat, we kneeled again, etc., etc. The repetition of it all, the religion of it all, never fully connected with me. I think I knew Jesus existed but I wouldn’t say I knew Him at that point.
Everything would change for me when some friends invited me to a Bible camp in northern Minnesota when I was 13. In a week God drastically changed me and the trajectory of my life. Through a worship experience in a campfire setting, I met Jesus. I remember hearing words in songs that told me the gospel message–that Jesus had died for me and rose from the dead and was giving me the gift of eternal life in Him. My chest felt an unnatural warmth come over me and this sense of joy I had never experienced before told me that God was more real than I could imagine and that He was here meeting with me, calling me to Himself. I was born again, I was made a new person, I was saved that night.
I came back from the camp and switched churches to an evangelical protestant church. This was pretty life-changing and my experience of the church in high school would be drastically different from my younger years in the Catholic Church. I joined the youth group at the church, had a couple of great mentors who helped me grow in my faith and began to sense God’s call toward pastoral ministry. I ended up pursuing a degree in Biblical Studies at Bethel University, which is affiliated with Converge (formerly the Baptist General Conference). Again, God changed my life through putting people in my path who shaped the way I understood God, the Bible, and faith. I ended up attending Denver Seminary for my Master of Divinity degree which is another evangelical school along with Bethel. I am deeply thankful for these institutions which taught me to love the Bible and to seek out God’s truth in its pages.
Something the evangelical church, generally speaking, has chosen to do over the last 200 years is to separate children from adults in the worship service in various forms. It has become common for parents to drop off their kids with a loving volunteer before they enter the worship service. Where did separate children’s ministry come from? Much of this was started because churches wanted a way to disciple kids who did not have parents present in the home such as the orphaned. It’s not that specific catechisms and doctrinal statements hadn’t been adapted to language children could understand–John Calvin instituted children’s catechism in Geneva in the 16th century. But a separate church program where children are taught apart from their parents has only been around for a couple of centuries.
In all my seminary training and church experience, children’s church and youth group were programs that were assumed and normalized. But how are these programs working at discipling the next generation? Around 60-66% of youth who graduate from church youth groups leave the church and no longer attend a church (Barna; Life Way). That’s a shocking statistic. Why are over half of our youth abandoning the church? Answers to that question can run the gamut from bad experiences in youth groups, secularization, cultural reasons, and more. But, as Christians we have to ask ourselves if there’s a better way to train up our children in the way they should go.
Bri and I recently made the commitment that we would bring our son(7) and daughter(4) into the main service with us. We were both convinced that it is our God-given responsibility to disciple our kids and we were entrusting their theological education and their experience of church to someone we didn’t know. While we certainly trusted the volunteers, it seemed like we were missing out on a great opportunity with our kids. There have been challenges with this for sure. More than once our kids have bemoaned how long the pastor’s sermon was taking. Some Sundays they struggle to sit still (snacks help!) But, at the end of the service, we have something we can talk about together. We shared the same experience, sang the same songs, heard the same Scripture preached, and we have good discussions on the way home. If we had dropped our kids off in kids church, we wouldn’t have had those conversations about what God was saying to us through the Scripture.
As we think toward the culture of kids’ discipleship and family ministry we want to establish at Harvest City, we want to see kids integrated into the worship service. We believe this is best for the church, for kids, parents and families. The Bible bestows the calling upon parents (fathers in particular) to train up children in the way they should go. We are prepared to navigate the potential discomfort this may bring as kids be kids in our service. We embrace kids in all their uniqueness because we think they bring important qualities to a church service that is lacking with they are absent. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Matthew 19:14) Paul reaffirms the calling of fathers to train up their children: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4). Let’s take God at his word in how we structure our church gatherings.