You Are the Children's Program. Stop Asking If We Have One!

Deprogramming from the cult of Americanity can be a challenging and painful process. One of the things of which many evangelicals have a hard time letting go is that of the concept of separate children's ministries. These programs range in anything from Children's Church, youth group, age-segregated Sunday School, etc. It's a very valuable time when kids can learn how to color and paste their favorite Bible characters onto paper and figure out whether Coke or Sprite tastes better with pizza.

All kidding aside, there is a more sinister side to this practice that goes beyond the superficial nonsense that is often done in the name of educating children about Christ, and that is that it assumes that the pastors are the ministry and the ones who must disciple your children. They must do it themselves, hire special pastors to do it, or get volunteers to do it, but perish the thought that parents actually have the obligation to raise up their own children in the Lord.

The church's role in the life of children, in most people's minds, is to instruct them through these programs where parents aren't even involved. They can, and often do, simply drop off their child or teen at the door and pick up their shiny new kid in an hour when he can tell them about all the crafts he made and girls he flirted with for Jesus.

But I would say this same thing even if these programs were robust centers of catechizing children in the Confessions and Word of God. The church, as God's people, should not have separate children's programs because the church is the children's program.

My point of the previous post entitled, "Who Is the Ministry" was meant to argue that the responsibility of the pastors is to teach the mature of the congregation who are then to take what is taught and do ministry themselves in their family and within the larger body of Christ by teaching one another, reminding one another, counseling and encouraging one another in that teaching. This means that husbands are to wash their wives in the Word (Eph 5:25-28) rather than abdicating their responsibility to the pastors. Fathers (and by extension, mothers) are to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (6:4). The men and older women are instructed by the pastors (Titus 2:1-3) so that they can teach the younger women of the Body (2:4-5) and their families.

The job of the pastors is to teach truth to the community in line with what the apostles have taught so that they equip the people of God to do their ministries (Eph 4:11-15) to their families and to the rest of the church by speaking the truth in love to one another (vv. 15, 25; 5:8-16).

What this means is that you are the youth group. You are the children's program that God has set in place.

What this does is not only cause husbands and parents, but every member to be involved in the raising of our covenant children. It also then causes children to have a deeper relationship with their parents and with fellow Christians in the community, not just their separate church or class. This not only binds the hearts of fathers and mothers to their children but children to their parents and the extended family of the community that is lost when this is assigned to one person in the church.

It also might be the answer to the problem of children leaving the church when they get to that magical age of 18 and realize that their church is over because they associated church with their program and not the larger Body of Christ.

When families worship together the children hear and see their parents and other adults worship and thus learn worship by being immersed in it. They learn how they are to worship with their families one day when they are grown up. Most of all, they learn that the church is not only made up of every race, color, language, and nation but of every age as well, coming together as one and serving one another in the truth. That's just not something you can learn from a coloring book.