One of the great joys of being a Christian is to worship with our church family on the first day of every week. The opportunity to spend a couple hours with some of the greatest people is priceless! The diversity of the people in the audience only adds to the experience. From the youngest to the oldest, a congregation worshipping together is beautiful.

So why have we changed it?

At some point in the service, usually before the sermon, the kids are dismissed from the auditorium to attend their own special “church” in a classroom. Why? Perhaps it’s because adults do not want to hear a child in the auditorium. Having stood in front of a group of people that include children, I can speak from first hand knowledge that sometimes I’ve got to be louder than a crying baby… but is that a good reason to exclude them from the sermon?

I’m not sure where or when this practice started. Dr. Ken Matto has an interesting observation:

“Children’s Church is normally for those between the ages of 5-13, which are the most critical years of spiritual formation. When we take a child out of the worship service just before God’s Word is preached and put them in a classroom to draw pictures of Noah’s Ark or David and Goliath and others, we eliminate our children’s defenses against the world. They are never exposed to different teachings of the Bible on a decent spiritual level. They remain spiritual dwarfs as all they learn about are the narratives like Samson, David and Goliath but never get into the spiritual and practical lessons behind these stories.

So what happens when you pluck a child from the worship service? While that child’s spiritual learning is cut off or greatly diminished, simultaneously in the public schools they are being bombarded with all kinds of secular and satanic trash. They are soaking up the secular garbage, because they have no spiritual roots or foundations to defend against these teachings, they will eventually fall prey to them. Then when a young girl comes home pregnant or a boy comes home and says “I got a girl pregnant,” we wonder how can this happen in an evangelical family? Very simple, your children were given nothing to combat these teachings except Children’s church cartoon videos or flannelgraphs. Their whole spiritual training was relegated to the crayon instead of the Bible where it belongs. The sermon is what should be the catalyst for spiritual discussions at home. God is the one who gives understanding in spiritual matters. Where did we ever get the ridiculous notion that children can’t understand spiritual things? Have you ever seen some children with computers? There are some who can program at 8 years old. Children are much smarter than we give them credit for. They are a sponge, will we allow them to soak up the world’s filth or the Word of God to combat those teachings? After all, how can they put on the Full Armor of God? The Full armor is not found in Focus on the Family Videos!

Then when a child hits their teens and wants to leave church because they are bored with it, we throw our hands up in the air and ask why? Here’s why!! Because for almost 10 years you trained that child that the worship service is not for them and now they are only doing what you trained them to do. TO LEAVE THE SERVICE!!” (http://www.scionofzion.com/childchurch.htm).

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6).

This goes both ways, what are we training our children to do?

By: Justin Odom