So, Laura and I (me especially) really enjoy visiting churches and seeing what they are doing to reach people and help them take next steps with God (Laura, with her 8 years of leading kids ministry, also enjoys checking out the kids stuff). One of our things though, is that we like to keep Bo with us. Introducing him to a totally new environment by just dropping him off and leaving is really tough on him at this age. One of the things Laura and I have agreed upon is that we will always sit in the back, close to the doors. We don’t think it’s ok to be a distraction in the service, so Laura sacrifices being in the service for me, to take our son out of the service if needed. Usually he just falls asleep ’cause we go around his naptime. If she does need to take him out of the service, she usually just strolls/walks him around, or some churches have a cry room, or even a family viewing area with a live video/audio feed.
Sunday morning, we walked into a church service, and some volunteers showed us where to go — over to this table by the kids area. We smiled and said that we were just visiting this one time from michigan and didn’t plan on checking him in, but were just going to sit close to the doors at the back of the worship center. They responded and said they had a really good kids program where the Bo would have a great time. We said that sounded pretty great, but we were just going to keep him with us. The smile dropped from the volunteers face and they said “he’s not allowed to go in the service with you, it’s our policy.” We walked away a little confused, we’d never heard this type of policy, didn’t see it on their website, and didn’t know what we did to make this person unfriendly to us. As we were walking towards the doors to the service, a greeter stepped in front of us, smiled, and said “hey, are you new here?” we responded that yeah, we were just visiting from michigan. The greeter said to us “how old is your son? we have a great children’s program for him.” Laura responded “he’s 14 months, but we’re just visiting and going to sit in the back here, close to the doors, just in case he starts fussing.” Just like the last person, the smile instantly dropped and the volunteer said to us with a stern look “it’s our policy not to let kids into the service.” At this point, we were pretty offended because we had two people who were fairly rude to us and gave us no explanation of anything, except that they were very serious about banning kids from the adult service.
We were standing around, talking about what to do, and the Director of Kids Ministry came up to us and had a chat with Laura. She seemed friendly and asked if there was anything she could do for us. Laura explained her experience in leading kids ministry, explained that she understood that there had to be policies in place in kids ministry, and then explained how we were treated by the 2 volunteers. The kids ministry director then responded to Laura with the same attitude that we received twice before and said that keeping kids out of the service was their policy and they would not bend it for anyone, then turned and walked away.
Laura, who is an awesome wife, told me to go into the service anyways and she would hang out with Bo in the lobby so I could check out the church. While I was sitting there in the service, i felt awful that my wife and child were not allowed to come in the service with me, and really started pondering the policy and why it would be there, i even posed the question on twitter.
We chose this church because a friend of mine goes there, so we weren’t going to leave, even though both of us wanted to. We gave everything else a fair shot. Laura said, while walking around most of the volunteers were super nice and really friendly to her and Bo and some even gave him some stickers! The 2 people who initially talked to us were not friendly after that, even as she was walking around. I really enjoyed the service, and would totally recommend it (except, of course, letting you know what to expect on the kids front). The sound was mixed well, the production was done well, transitions were done well, media was ran well, musicians were outstanding (DEFINITELY on par with the band at my church!), and the speaker was great. They did a lot of cool things for being in a conference center with low ceilings too.
After the service, we spoke with my friend and his wife. They explained the policy a little bit, and felt really bad about how we were treated. He also let me know that he and his wife disapproved of the attitude that policy comes with and were apologetic to us that we had to experience it.
I asked the question on twitter about kids in church and got a TON of responses from people. Most people were extremely supportive of having kids in church. I know kids learn better when it is spoken in a manner that they understand, using words they understand, and stories they understand. I agree that it is better for a child to be in the kids service, and everything should be done to encourage parents to put the kids in their service, because that, overall, is best for the kids AND the parents in most situations. It helps for a distraction free environment too.
Couple thoughts there…
- Distraction free environment: If you’re going to provide a distraction free environment by not allowing kids in the service, then the adults shouldn’t be getting up and moving around and going in and out of the service. In other words, take the distraction thing all the way, don’t just pick on the kids.
- Adult service is designed for adults: Kids will not understand what’s going on in the service because it is content designed for adults, but what the kids do see is their parent participating in corporate worship with other parents.
This brings me to the thought that it’s really not best to have kids in the adult service… After spending some time pondering that, I have come to the conclusion that it is ok for a church to ask parents to participate in the service at a different venue — family/other viewing area, or a cry room, and have a distraction free environment (including kid-free environment) in the main worship service. Where my issue comes in for a church that has a “no-kids-allowed” adult service, is when the policy comes along stated with a degrading attitude towards the parents. I also have an issue when the church basically says to the parent with child that they cannot participate in the service at all, by not allowing an alternative venue for that parent with child.
What are your thoughts? Am I missing something? Do you agree with me? Am I crazy?
Dave,
I don’t think you’re crazy for thinking that there should be a way to have your child in the worship gathering with you. Actually, I would push back on the thought that it is best for parents and children to have separate gatherings at all. I have had the best conversations with my own children in light of communion. Communion led to my son affirming his faith in Christ. This would not have happened apart from him being with me, asking me questions, talking me in and after the service.
It’s interesting that as you look through the story of the Scriptures we see that there is a constant reminder to us that children are the parent’s responsibility. It’s interesting, it’s as if God knew at some point American Evangelicalism would try to split and fragment his church along the lines of age and “station of life”.