Comments on: The Liturgical Gangstas 4: What About Children’s and Youth Ministries?

By: Ballard

Ballard — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:30:07 +0000

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By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:27:43 +0000

I’m a bit late to the game, Gangstas and friends, but I’m wondering about the role and statistics for men’s ministry. Yes, bringing the kiddies in is a great “outreach” to get the parents in the door.

But what about the father leading the family? There’s a more optimistic statistic (published by the religion department – don’t know where they got it – at the USA Today last spring/summer) on what happens when Dad goes to church and comes to faith in Jesus Christ. What about that?

By: Walt

Walt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:09:35 +0000

Just a few more thoughts, I wish our church would provide more, or at least the same amount of resources into helping us disiple our kids as opposed to doing it for us. Teach us to teach our kids, give us the framework and support. Thanks

By: Walt

Walt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:04:31 +0000

As a parent of three boys who has been attending Evangelical Churches for the past 10 years, I can say I am real disappointed in “Age appropriate” ministry. It seems to have no rhyme or reason. In fact my 9 year old often prefers to go with us instead. I wish our church would have a type of catechism, with specifics objectives each year, devotions we could do with our kids to reinforce those things. Luckily, for now we have Awana, whih seems to do all that.

By: Brandon T. Milan

Brandon T. Milan — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:48:34 +0000

As a full-time Associate Pastor of Youth, I agree that the shallowness of the majority of North American church youth ministries is discouraging at best and damning at worst. Although some of my congregants expect me to entertain the youth with parties and bowling trips, my purpose is to disciple them as followers of Christ. Whereas most youth ministries/pastors are judged by group size, etc., I judge myself by the youth’s understanding of Christ and their allegiance to him. Some of my younger youth are upset about less games and more bible study, but I don’t particularly care.

By: o.h.

o.h. — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:42:42 +0000

Reading about “children’s ministry to unbelievers” makes my stomach tighten. I allowed a friend, whose little boy was a playmate of my daughter’s, to take my daughter to a kid’s program at her church. My friend assured me it was just learning some Bible verses, and mostly fun events like T-ball and other games. The kids went one way, we adults went another.

Turns out her little boy was getting points toward toys for having brought an “unsaved” friend to the children’s event–that was why he had invited her–and my little girl was pressured by adults running the ministry/activities (once while I was standing right there, and I objected, but other times, according to her, when I wasn’t there) to come back to their church services regularly, because it would be so much fun.

My (former) friend knew, and those adults knew–because my daughter *told* them–that she was Catholic, and already went to church every Sunday. But that left her in the “unsaved” category, it seemed. She wasn’t a guest, she was a target; and I consider the “fun and games” to have been a deception and a trap. The thought of those people trying to lure my child away from her faith behind my back still makes my blood boil.

Children’s ministry to “unbelievers” is the reason that I have never since attended a Protestant church with my children; no child of mine will ever again be separated from me and prosleytized. Yeah, I’m still mad.

By: Johnboy

Johnboy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:09:07 +0000

Having no credentials to commend me to such an elite group of thinkers/pastors/leaders/theologians/etc. I can only add a simple thought. If the fathers worshipped God freely all week long as a lifestyle and taught his wife and children to do the same as God would have him do then this “issue” in the church goes away. The heart of the issue centers on the heart of the father as he lives his faith and teaches it day by day, week to week, event to event so that Sunday is the culmination of a life of worship and instruction not the end goal or as
a separate need to be filled and feed upon for another 6 days or in other words it would be taken in stride and represent a time of joing a week of family worship with like minded families to the betterment of all. We have it almost backwards thanks to…perhaps modernity or just laziness. Oversimplistic? Jesus seemed simple to me and as far as I can tell He still wants us to be childlike which means simple among other things.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:14:19 +0000

Children understand much…much more than we give them credit for. I have a grandchild who when at church with her other grandmother…was encouraged to nap and doodle with paper and pen…at seven years old. The child had already aged out of ‘children’s church.’ When with me, I required she participate in the service and listen to the sermon. No problem. She did exactly as I asked…and enjoyed it. Concerning when a child is ready for ‘big’ church…I say…when they are too old for the nursery. Today..a third grade is basically yesterdays first grader. Children children of today are experiencing incidental learning every minute of every day….everywhere they go. Oh ya…they can understand messages from their Father.

By: John

John — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:51:28 +0000

Our church not only segregates youth by age, but also adults. We recently went to three services: one for the 20-somethings or so, one for the 35-50-year-olds or so, and one for the older crowd. This isn’t a huge church (total membership maybe 500 or so). This change is one of the reasons we are looking for a different church. Our kids weren’t challenged at all in the HS program; they got more out of the times they attended our adult SS class (before that was disbanded in favor of a new “program” — but that’s another story). I think a lot of the segregation was done to pacify people who don’t want to change or adapt. Everyone happy in their own little comfortable world. Ugh. That ain’t the gospel or the call of Jesus, folks. Sorry for the rant. I’m grumpy today.

By: Kat

Kat — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:58:39 +0000

Perhaps some of the problems with age-segregated churches lies in the size of the group. At least, in my experience, that has made some of the difference. In each of the new church plants I’ve been involved in, the “early days” tended to be much more family friendly. We had neither the manpower or resources to do multiple programs. As a result, the children and adults were more often mixed.
Our current church is small (45-50), but we do have several large families. The children are all present and part of the worship services. Often several take part in the open sharing time and their artwork is often displayed on a bulletin board. We do have multi-graded Sunday school classes, but in many cases, the parents & grandparents are the teachers. The benefit of a structured curriculum there is that we teach the Bible chronologically for the kids pre-school thru 6th grade. That gives them a better context for later life and study.
We also meet one Sunday a month for a shared meal…often with other fellowship activities, and sometimes do the Lord’s Supper as part of the meal. We encourage people to invite guests. Also, in the past couple of years we’ve worked with all ages (3-70) producing thousands of Gospel walking sticks for the outreach of Fellowship of Christian Farmers.
All this to say, our kids are as much a part of the church as the adults. I think we all benefit from that relationship. It would be pretty hard to do if we were a “mega”.