Kids & Parents Together?

Some churches have become passionate about including kids in the entire service. But there are problems with this (we tried it in the first member-driven church we started). You basically have two options. 1: train your kids to be quiet (much easier for some personality types than others) while running an adult-oriented service; or 2: alter at least of portion of the service so kids can learn something.

Bottom line: kids don't learn the same way adults do. There's so much research and evidence supporting this that no one questions this. It's not just that adults are more disciplined, they literally have different brain structures. Teaching kids and adults like they're the same is at best naiveté and at worst indifference to the spiritual growth of children.

I even know some families that have had to stop attending their church because their kids were too rambunctious to sit in the service. They didn't have bad kids and they weren't bad parents. They simply had kids with very extroverted personalities (who think by talking) who probably also have a kinesthetic learning style (learning best by doing, not hearing or seeing). Oh, and by the way, I was totally that kid. I still can't sit quiet and still for more than a few minutes!

But, proponents say, kids benefit greatly from seeing their parents exercise their faith. (I'll refrain from going off about how typical church services leave little room for regular members to exercise their faith.) Doing church separately, they argue, doesn't build the family and can even promote an isolating spiritual mentality.

And they're right.

So we include our kids in the meal--the whole family together. We sometimes include kids when we have a worship music set (more on how we do music in other posts). But when it's time for the bible study or open ministry, we give the kids a separate space and a customized lesson to help them learn more about God and practice interacting with Him.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And we certainly don't include our kids only to make them sit still. We don't want to teach them that good Christianity is being quiet and motionless. We show them a church engaging each other and God--a church in motion.

Oh, and the Bible doesn't say anything about how kids are supposed to be organized (together/separate). This is a practical strategy matter--not a spiritual rule. There's great danger in making a "spiritual rule" out of something the Bible is silent on.