Children in Church - Is it beneficial?

Be sure to check out my first post in this series here.

Recently,  I discussed the argument that children in church are a distraction. Today, I'd like to talk about whether or not children being in church is beneficial for them. Many churches offer children's church in an attempt to teach them about God in a child-friendly manner. They want the church experience to be 'fun' so that the child will associate pleasure with going to church.

There is nothing wrong with having fun, and there is definately nothing wrong with having fun at church.  I do believe that children's church can be beneficial to certain people at certain times. However, I believe that the most beneficial way for a child to learn about Christ and His church is beside his parents, and that the children's church is often a product of the modern entertainment mindset of most churches.

My parents tooks us to church from the very beginning. I loved going to church. I love the people, the smell, the singing, all of it. It felt like home. Church never was an obligation, until I got older. As a child, I recall both attending children's church and staying in big church with my parents. Even though I would sometimes fall asleep, I have fond memories of watching my mom and dad sing together in front of the church, and of watching my mom lift her arms as she sang next to me. I even remember telling God that I would try really hard to keep my eyes closed the entire prayer. It rarely happened, but I was sure proud when it did!

When we refuse to allow children to worship besides their parents, we are robbing them of these early experiences of learning how to worship through watching the adults around them. Children learn mostly by watching and observing. What do they learn, through observation, when we send them away to their own "specialized" worship service.

We teach them that big church is boring, that they need to be entertained and have fun in order to enjoy the word of God.

I believe this can lead to some of the emergent church ideas that are going around right now. Young adults are tired of "their parent's church". They don't know why they are rebelling, but they know they don't want what their parents had. And who should blame them, their parents taught them from an early age that they didn't want them either...by shuffling them off to another room to be taught by another adult.

This has led to a huge growth of young churches filled with nothing but 20 somethings and 30 somethings. The generational gap is getting larger, and our young people are simply not comfortable interacting with people of different ages.  TItus 2 is very clear that the older members of the church are to disciple the younger. A man isn't considered an elder until he has successfully raised a family. Yet many churches have unmarried men, men with no children, and men with young children as elders. I don't believe these men truly fit the description of "elder".

I think this is a big reason that the modern church is failing. When we seperate everyone, there is no teaching and no learning. Older christians refuse to mentor and disciple younger Christians, because they expect the church to offer some program to do it in their place. The younger generation wants to be entertained, they reject the "old paths", and they don't serve and respect their elders.

Is taking children to church benefical to them? No. Its beneficial to the entire church. Doing this one thing can lead to a major change in our modern churches. If you are interested in getting your little ones out of children's church, then stay tuned for another post that has some practical ideas on how to do it...without too much stress.

12:47 PM - May. 23, 2008 - post comment

Untitled Comment

this was great.... do you mind if I link to it?

noahsmom - 12:32 PM - May. 23, 2008

---