In the last article, we looked at what the Bible says about children being present in corporate worship. Here we address the unintended consequences, along with a brief history of how children’s church was developed. Again, I want to reiterate, I am not seeking to insult people who serve in children’s church, and I do not think this is a tier one issue. However, there are unintended consequences in an approach to children’s church.

Whenever we see things that are “inventions” in corporate worship, we must see if they are permissible in the Bible before giving approval to them. The evidence of history is that for the first almost 1800 years of the church, there was no age-segregated worship.

The great Bible commentator Matthew Henry ends his commentary on 1 Samuel 1:19-28 by saying, “Note, Little children should learn betimes to worship God. Their parents should instruct them in his worship and bring them to it, put them upon engaging in it as well as they can, and God will graciously accept them and teach them to do better.”  

This was the accepted norm but according to the Michael’s in Children and the Worship Service, there were four major things that converged that led to children’s church as we know it. However, we will only address two.  

A Brief History of Children’s Church 

The seeds of the children’s church model can be traced to the Sunday school movement of the 18th and 19th century. Many do not realize that for the first almost 1800 years of the church, we did not have Sunday School.  

In the 1700’s, an Englishman by the name of Robert Raikes saw the need for literacy and morality among the boys of his nation. At the time, children were working some 12 hours a day and their only day off was Sunday. Their behavior was less than stellar on their days off due to their harsh working environments at such an early age. This was coupled with a lack of moral training at home. Recognizing this problem, Raikes established the first Sunday school in London in 1790 and the movement exploded. Since that day, Sunday school has been a training time for kids. And it has blessed the church!

With all the good that Sunday school has provided for teaching and training children, it has brought about a church-centered program discipleship orientation instead of a family-discipleship orientation.  

The Michaels make the point, “Sunday school should complement, reinforce, and support – but not replace – parental instruction and the corporate gathering of God’s people in worship.” The point that they are making and I am seeking to advocate as well is that age-segregated times of instruction are good and acceptable. Yet, the unintended consequence of them is that it often causes parents to disengage from discipleship because they took their kids to Sunday school. There is certainly a space for program discipleship in church but it should only complement what is going on at home, not detract from it. Age segregated worship services are clearly not the Biblical example as we noted last time.  

 A point in the book that I think is of key interest is the rise of contemporary worship in the church. In the 1980’s, a significant movement took place to get baby boomers back into the churches they had abandoned. The churches asked “what can we do to get you back?” Some churches like Willow Creek even polled the community to see what could get that audience back. Shorter sermons, louder music, less-focused liturgy, and more of a “positive experience” were the answers. So-called “contemporary churches” agreed this was a practice to take in the name of evangelism and reaching people for Jesus.

What were the results and consequences of this shift? One positive result is that many people came back to church and followed Jesus Christ. For this we praise God. However, the unintended consequence is if you ask people what they want when they come to church, you are starting them off on a customer/client relationship with the church. Meaning, there will always be other things that you have to do to keep them happy. More or less, this led to having a service uninterrupted by kids. The “what do you want approach” develops a consumer model to church instead of a discipleship model. When pastors approach worship with what do people want instead of what do people need, we have already lost a major battle.

More or less, this is the history of how kids were introduced into a secondary and separate service away from mom and dad. It was something they could get on “their level” while mom and dad could stay in “big church” and get something more on “their level.” 

The Issues with Children’s Church

What are the problems with this? Let’s address four key factors. 

1. Having a children’s church divides children from their parents in worship. There is no question that the parents are the chief disciple-makers of Christian children. Both Old and New Testaments lay this out clearly. The father is to take the most active role in the process.

Notice Moses’s words to Israel. ⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” The words found in this text are just as relevant today as they were 3,000 years ago. 

Ephesians 6:4 states, ⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This means that the call of Christan fatherhood is to not incite your children to anger but bring them up understanding and knowing God.

As parents, we teach our kids two ways. By lip and by life. Meaning we teach them by what we say and what we do. 

Children’s church, Sunday school, AWANA and any other kids program by nature can lead parents to thinking they are discipling their children by dropping them off and making sure they are in a program. I am not saying all the above ministries are wrong- because they are not. They are good assistants to family discipleship but they are poor leaders of family discipleship. If parents are not the ones doing the most teaching in the lives of their kids, these programs are wrong or at least accomplishing the wrong goals. 

Two of the primary means you will use to disciple your kids are teaching them with your own lips what happens during the worship service and by actively engaging yourself in the worship service. The idea that “kids need something more on their level” is overplayed. Certainly, there are some things in a service/sermon that will be over their heads. Pastors must work hard to remember children are a major part of their audience. I think what children miss being in the service is much more significant than what they gain in having a lesson at the moment they can more easily put their hands on. Primarily what they will miss is you. They will miss seeing you engage in worship. 

They will not see you singing with all your heart to Jesus. They will not see you actively entering into corporate prayer. They will not see you taking the Lord’s Supper. They will not see you responding to the Lord’s Supper and seeing people getting baptized. They will not see how you respond to the preaching of God’s Word. I believe without question, your children will get more out of watching you worship and you helping them learn to worship than being separated during worship. 

John Piper’s “Ask Pastor John” podcast entitled “Should Children Sit Through ‘Big Church’?” states the following: “the great stumbling block for children in worship is parents who don’t cherish doing that worship.” Directly after this he says, “children can feel the difference between duty and delight.” Parent, this is a heart-piercing question, but do you desire to actively teach your kids to worship Jesus, or do you want to put that into the hands of someone else?  The only two reasons I can think of for us not wanting to be the disciple-makers in our homes are either ignorance or indifference. One is fixable through training and encouragement in our churches. The other is in need of desperate repentance. 

2. A second need to address is that children’s church stunts kids' growth. If a tree is being planted as sapling, when is it most pliable? In its infancy or 15 years into its maturity?

After surveying the success of reaching many boomers through the contemporary church movement, one pastor wrote the following chilling statement. He states, “The largest unchurched generation in the history of our country” is this generation. Why? There are many reasons and blame cannot be laid at one party or practice. But I think it is without question that the church has sought to step in and disciple children and take the place that parents have in doing so.

One of the ways this has happened, I am convinced, is through kid-driven programs and one of them is kid’s church. Children are leaving the church in droves when pizza parties and the fun of the youth group is gone. We must equip parents to disciple their kids, and one way is by having the whole family be together in corporate worship.

3. A third thing is that often times, children are cut off from their church leaders. In many church contexts, there is a real downgrading of church leaders. I think this goes into the whole customer mentality we talked about a few paragraphs ago. Unfortunately, pastors are seen by many in the church today as the ultimate spiritual cheerleader. They are to be inspirational, motivating speakers but not real shepherds of the flock. Concessional leadership trumps convictional leadership in many contexts.

Hebrews 13:7 and 17 are passages that are not often appealed to, but Hebrews they tell us the relationship they are to have with the flock. To paraphrase it says things like, “Obey your leaders. Remember your leaders. Imitate their faith. They watch for your souls. They will give an account for you some day.” These truths indicate a very heavy responsibility for elders in the church and even a high measure of authority in the church. That does not mean elders are lords over the church, but it does mean they are leaders. 

If we want our kids to grow up understanding the importance of church in general, would we not want them to be around their church elders more and not less? Parents are always the front line question-takers for their kids, but kids should feel free to ask their elders Bible questions and why the church does what it does. They are “their” pastors too! Elders are watching for the souls of the kids in the church as much as the adults.

One of the great joys of my life as a pastor has been to have kids ask me questions or even correct me if I say something wrong in a service. Just the other day, one of our church’s little boys came up and told me what the name of a “baby tree” was because in a sermon, I did not know the answer. (Science has never been my strong subject by the way.) Or take the time recently, when a little girl asked me what would have happened if Adam and Eve would have never sinned. These are excellent questions and I think we do not give kids the credit they deserve in being able to think about God and His Word. 

The point is, I think it is a good thing, not a bad thing when children know their elders and their elders seek to encourage them to keep listening during the service and keep following Jesus.  

4. A fourth consideration is children should be exposed to the whole counsel of God. Here is one of the unintended consequences and dirty little secrets of much Sunday school and children’s curriculum used for the church. Because publishers are working with churches from a rather broad doctrinal perspective, much of the literature is “dumbed down” to scratch every theological itch. It is clear enough to be Evangelical but broad enough to allow a lot of churches to get the material.            

In Acts 20:26-27, Paul states to the Ephesian elders, ^26 “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, ²⁷ for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” The church needs exposure to all of God’s Word, not just a part here and a part there. This is why much material (especially Baptist) is so broad because being Baptist is not a monolithic term. Most children’s church material becomes narrative-driven because it is not controversial. Specificity on tongues, women pastors, and election is too controversial to sell books, so it is kept in a non-controversial category. 

I am not so naïve as to think that all our children are going to understand everything in an exposition from God’s Word. Some of it will be over them. They will feel bored and often express that to you as a parent. But, they are better served long term to hear doctrinal words and concepts than only hearing Bible stories.

We cannot fully judge a practice if it came in the history of the church at a later date. Scripture would allow flexibility in some areas. Yet, I think there are too many unintended consequences to ignore for children’s church. We are not merely talking about what color of carpet is best for a church or what version of the Bible we should use. The consequences laid out in this blog are eternal. They are not to be taken lightly and they should be evaluated in light of God’s Word and the consequences of such “inventions.” The next blog will go from philosophy and theory to practicality. How does a church approach this situation if by conviction it is received in the church?  

Until next time, Soli Deo Gloria. 

Read Part 3: Should Children Have Their Own Service? Developing a Family Culture in Corporate Worship