More church advice needed.....

[KristineIN]

Ok, some of you know that my small church recently joined another small church and now we have two congregations with about 60-80 members that have become one.

Background, our former congregation is made up of mostly homeschooling families, ranging from 10 children family(ages 21-2), 6 children family(ages 18-2) and our 3 children (6-10) family. Their former church has about five families (ages mostly all under 5), but with only 2 children max each.

We always had family worship and Children's church or a nursery was never an issue. Heck we didn't even have Sunday School.

Now yesterday one mom said to me right away, we need to get a children's church up and going so I don't have to deal with _______ during church.

I'm not opposed to childrens church although we would never use it. These families are all fairly new Christians and so I know they need to get the most out of the sermon as they can, there really is no right or wrong answer here. I think next week I'm just going to ask for prayer for direction concerning the children in the church.

I know for me personally, it has been dh's consistency that has helped our children learn to sit and be quiet. We have another family that is very good with quiet activities that she gives her children and she could be useful. This mom that approached me said that "this way the children get something out of it too" Well I know my children might day dream some, but I am amazed what has soaked in over the years. I will ask them questions before I'm going to talk about something at home and my son will answer like it's nothing. I never grew up in a church, so he is far beyond where I was as a child. I do think these younger children could benefit from Sunday School, and I'm not saying that they can't benefit from a Children's Church, but how do you go about talking about it and seeing what other options are out there.

Our pastor is usually oblivious to all that is going on when it comes to worship and sermon time and the children. Yesterday a little boy was opening and slamming doors the WHOLE time and pastor didn't even realize it. I'm just not sure where to go, I think just asking for prayer in general, but I would really like to share out background as a church when it comes to our children, but I think I might be opening a can of worms....

Any advice? Dh is in agreement with me on this and I can have him bring up the subject too, but if I say anything I wanted to be able to point out that the only reason my children are where they are is because of his consistency and build him up some.

As I posted before, Wednesday nights are a whole other issue, but it's mainly with in our former group. It's mainly children's bible time with the pastor and then the children are just let loose and run around and play unsupervised. They are loud and dh & I feel it's disruptive. I think if we want to see anything done, we're going to have to try and get something going ourselves. But it shouldn't be as hard to deal with as Sunday mornings.

Thanks for listening if you made it this far. Please don't flame me here. I know opinions vary on this topic, we don't want people to feel ignored about their requests in the church, which can sometimes happen. We might wait a while and see what else is said and brought up.
Thanks,
Kristine

[PariSarah]

. . . that church is the place where God graciously allows us to learn how to put up with ________. And where God graciously reminds us that other people are putting up with ___________ from us.

So, I've never really liked the "so I don't have to put up with it" justification for anything.

If it were me, and if I were on my best behavior, I would be gently advocating for ways to keep children in church, putting up with mild "kids will be kids" behavior, but providing space and babysitting for kids who are truly unable to sit through church (and parents who are truly unable to manage them). A cry room, with a speaker system maybe? Highlighting books with good strategies for helping kids understand the service? "Keeping them occupied" bags that parents can borrow for the length of the service?

Hope you (all of you) figure something out--it's so hard to merge two churches. I hope you can figure out a way to make everyone feel like their opinion matters.

[Ellie]

I'm not a big fan of "children's church." An age-appropriate Sunday school can be a good thing, but I think the children can be in with their parents during the service. I also think this can be a good opportunity for you (and others of you who agree) to be a Titus 2 woman and help those parents who are new to the concept.

Yes, even though this woman is a young Christian, I don't think she should set aside her parenting responsibilities. If the Holy Spirit can speak to the wiggly children, surely He can speak to the parents who are teaching the dc to be still :-)

[Sue G in PA]

These are some things to consider:

You are used to no Children's church and your kids have been trained to "behave". Many families who are church shopping will say that a good Children's Ministry/Children's Church is the most important thing to them in deciding on a church. It can make or break their decision. IF your pastor truly want this church to grow...he must take these things into consideration. The majority of families w/ small children WANT something for the children during a service. Our old church did something like this: Children in nursery/toddler class went to their "class" for the entire service. PreK - grade 8 started out in the service for worship and then after worship they went to class (as offering was taken). No program for high school. ALSO, the first Sunday of each month was "Family Service" where all children remained in service w/ parents except babies, toddlers and 3/4 yo. That gave the teacher's a break each month, cut down on volunteers needed and gave the children a chance to experience a real service. If you do this...make sure your pastor plans ahead for the family service and doesn't preach on controversial topics. I remember one Sunday where our pastor preached on all the different, heinous ways the disciples/martyrs were all killed, giving gruesome facts for each. I was so put-off that he didn't plan this better!

My humble opinion is that a Children's Church is necessary for church growth. Seasoned Christians with children who have been in church since birth might be able to go w/out a Children's Church, but newbies are looking for that in a church...trust me! Yes, it takes work to start one, but the payoff will be great. A good Children's Ministry will grow a church faster than anything else.

[DollyM]

We struggled with this as our small church grew into a big church over the past 20 years. What we do now is Optional Children's Church.

We have a room downstairs, staffed with folks prepared to lead children's church. It's a short period of time during the regular worship. It starts AFTER the opening hymns and AFTER offering is taken, and it's OVER at the same time the pastor's sermon upstairs is over.

So the kids who OPT IN to "Children's Church" start out in adult worship with their parents, and finish up in adult worship with their parents ... but they do not have to "sit thru the long adult sermon." And the "sermon" they get downstairs is more "age appropriate."

My "quotes" above are due to the fact that I'm not a big CC fan, and my kids only attended a few times (one not at all...) but I've come to realize and affirm that a modified CC option for some is a good way to go.

After the offering is taken, we have a PowerPoint Slide that comes onto the overhead screen. It says, "Children ages 4 thru Second Grade are invited at this time to join the Children's Worship downstairs." Every week various families sit tight, and various other families send their kids to the back of the sanctuary where they meet the CC Leader. Then they all go down together.

Sometime during the closing hymn those same kids (who went) quietly rejoin their families back in the main worship room. It works for us.

[Mx5]

Ok, some of you know that my small church recently joined another small church and now we have two congregations with about 60-80 members that have become one.


Kristine

I think it's of critical importance that you work within the authority structure of any church. Are you in charge of children's ministries, either officially or unofficially? I know the church is small, and you will be dealing with a lot of structural issues as you walk in this new direction. It's important for you and your dh to sit down with the pastor & elders and just share your ideas & concerns & see what they've been thinking about along these lines.

It's my firm belief that churches need to have elders... trusted mature men in Christ who work alongside the pastor in ministering to those in their charge. If you don't have an elder board yet, it may be difficult to get anything done. Working with consensus may be easy at this early stage, but it will get much more difficult should the church grow numerically.

As for the children's church option, what we've done is made available a nursery for kids who really have a hard time sitting quietly. This is for babies through age 5. I am not a fan of nurseries, but it is unrealistic for some kids to sit so long quietly. Unless you've had a more active spirited child, you would not know the struggles parents go through with church services ;) regardless of how they've been trained at home.

I speak of this as someone whose hubby is a pastor. He took on the pastorate of a smaller church a few year back, and at the time the only children were our 5. We've since grown quite a bit numerically and have had to deal with these types of issues. Again, I think it's important to not bypass the pastor thinking he doesn't care about such things. He may not notice anything at all when preaching... I know my hubby doesn't. So pray yourselves up & meet with him to do a little brainstorming, or find out who might be the one in charge (officially or unofficially) to help them figure out what to do.

[lynn]

This sounds like it's not something you want to be involved in. The parents that do want childrens church should get together and do a quarterly rotation and organize it amongst themselves. I found that once I volunteered for children's church I was trapped however, I do believe that if your child does participate in nursery to youth group parents should do their part of assist on a rotating basis if they don't want it full time. There will come a time when your children are grown and you can enjoy the church service full time if you'd like or give the young parents a break from time to time and help in the nursery or children's church etc. It's just seems so wrong to me that a children's church director only gets to enjoy a church service with their family a couple times a year.

[strider]

It's called Parenting in the Pew, and it revolutionized the way I approach church with my children.

My son does go to children's church, though he stays in the service for worship. My daughter, however, sits with us for the whole service. Ds is 6yo, and dd is 11yo. I do allow dd to knit or do some sort of handiwork (I do cross-stitch myself) because it does really help both of us pay better attention when our hands are occupied.

Separating the kids from the adults is not the only way to bring order and rest to a church service. I do like the idea of a nursery for the really young but tend to think that older kids can do well in the service. My personal druthers would be to offer children's church only through first grade.

I was really impressed with how a friend handled it. She gave her daughter a bag equipped with colored pencils, a blank artist's sketch book, and a ruler. Her dd would draw on the bottom half of the page and write the main idea of the sermon on the top half. As she grew older she eventually just wrote notes or an outline of the sermon.

One option for the kids could be providing them with a sheet or questionnaire to fill in from the sermon. Another option might be to encourage them to draw and write the main idea as my friend's dd did, and then post those pages on the church walls for display. If a display is not an option, another idea is for someone to put "Good job!" stickers on those pages after church.

There are also ways to train the kids and the parents to appropriate church behavior. The pastor could give very friendly instructions from the pulpit, like, "Kids, I want you to sit very quietly while we learn about the Bible." Then afterwards he can tell them they did well listening. Another option might be for the pastor to ask the kids a couple follow-up questions after the sermon, just for 2-3 minutes. The kids will learn quickly that this is what happens on a Sunday and will start paying attention in the specific hope of answering well.

Just some ideas. Children's programs are good too, in the right proportion. I directed Sunday School programs at two different churches for many years, and I really appreciate the learning and growth that comes from focused study for children. However, I dislike the separation and strict age-grading that is so prevalent in church. There needs to be a balance.

[Rhondabee]

wandering in the church foyer with my little boys, never getting any spiritual input at church other than, "You know, if you would spank those kids for being (insert so loud, so disruptive, so active), they would learn to behave in church." or "If you would have family worship with those kids, then they'd know how to sit still in church and be respectful." or "Your child is so loud, are you sure he isn't deaf?" (These were the same two little boys who were constantly praised for their manners and kindness, and Yes, they were even spanked occasionally!)

Anyway, when I read how "horrible" children's church and nursuries are, I *know* I am reacting to those remarks that hurt me *so* deeply; and to which I never made any reply other than a smile and a "thank you!" How I wish those people could have attended just *one* of my dh's family reunions!

And, No, we were not "new" Christians.

I am just *so* thankful for the children's ministry at our current church. There are still plenty of people who do keep their kids with them in church ~ and I don't begrudge them doing that at all. I guess I just caution you gently. Try not to look down on those who prefer children's church and nursuries as "those of less faith".

[Sue G in PA]

that offended! I really didn't mean to generalize. Personally, I PREFER a Children's Church b/c even my middle schooler has a hard time with our hour-long or longer services. And, I too, am a "seasoned Christian". So sorry if my comment was misconstrued! Many of my seasoned Christian friends prefer the Children's Church approach as well so they can actually listen to and HEAR a message w/out interruption and having to discipline every 10 minutes.

[Rhondabee]

However, I do think we all (as Christians) need to realize that there are some things that are not either "right" or "wrong". I think children's church is probably one of those things.

I'm sorry if all my past hurt was showing in my post!

[Carol in Cal.]

I would say that the place to start with this is to answer the question, "What is your combined church's theology of worship?"

Is the church service primarily a time to learn about God?
Is it primarily a time to celebrate Him?
What is it?

I am Lutheran, and our theology of worship is that GOD comes to US in worship. We differentiate church services from Bible study. Now, we always read at least 3-4 different Bible passages during the service, and the Pastor talks about at least one of them during his sermon, but that is not the primary thing that happens. The primary thing that happens is that God serves us through His Word and His Sacraments (Baptism and Holy Communion, which are not celebrated every week), and we mostly give rather than receive there.

It follows, then, for churches that believe and teach this strongly, that we are uneasy with excluding anyone, especially children, from worship. This plays out differently in different congregations. Some churches have a 'cry room' where parents can take noisy children and see the service through a window or on a screen, and hear it through a speaker. The intent is that parents have a little more comfortable environment in which to teach their children to participate and pay attention. Some churches let kids leave right before the sermon, and have their Sunday School classes start then. (Personally I would not attend a church that did this.) Some, frankly, are more judgemental than they should be about keeping the kids quiet.

My own church has a nursery for noisy children through age 4ish, that is staffed by rotating women from the congregation. Most of the time, member parents don't take their children there, except if they are really noisy during the sermon. But this is helpful for visitors for the first few times they are there. Once they have worshipped with us for a while, they notice that we mostly smile when children are a little noisy in church. We are so glad that they are there. We also have Bible class for adults, a high school class, and Sunday school for ages 3 through 8th grade. These don't overlap with church at all. We pay for someone to babysit children under 3 during the Sunday School hour, so that every one can participate in Christian education. I have noticed that that is rarely used, though.

Personally, I brought DD into church from the time she was born. I sang her liturgical bits to sooth her as a newborn, and I am positive that she recognized one of them from when she was in the womb because she had heard me sing it so many times before she was born. She has learned so much from being in church with us, and it has been so good. I quit our choir a couple of years ago so that we could sit in the pew together through the whole church service rather than the last 2/3. I would not trade our time in church together for anything, and I would not attend a church that did not provide both a joint church service for everyone, and a separate educational opportunity for children. I feel that both are crucial, and that the specific way to provide both is different from church to church.

[Chris in VA]

It sounds like you may be from a denomination (or non-denom, as it were!) that has a teaching-type sermon. I come from a different tradition (Episcopalian), and our service is set up in two parts--the first is the time we sing the opening hymn, read prayers, read scripture, have the sermon (about 12 minutes, based on the weekly scripture--"lectionary"--we read thru almost the whole bible in 3 years) and say the creed. The second part contains the Eucharist (aka Communion) and more singing. The Episcopal church is varied in its application of these two parts, but that's basically how it goes.
So, we have children's church for littles for the first part, so they can hear the Word in their own "language." Then they join us at halftime (it's not really called that, lol!) and participate in the Eucharist. All baptised Christians are able to receive the Host and Wine, even the littlest. Others may come forward for a blessing. It's quite a visual part of the service, and, although the liturgy is a little wordy for some, and long for some, most kids can appreciate it in some way, as it's movement and sound oriented.

I love knowing dd7 gets the Gospel on her level, and is learning the liturgy in an appropriate way. And I love that, when she reaches out her hands, they are filled with tangible expressions of Jesus' love.

Perhaps having a time for the littlest (say, up until 3rd grade?) to hear the Word, then a time when they can come in and sing, or whatever you do in your service after the sermon, might work. If you are non-denom, maybe your pastor can change the order of the service in order to include the youngest in a "doable" way, for those whose kids haven't learned to (or simply can't yet) be quiet and respectful.