Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts that resonate so much! We currently listen to our church sermon online (found our church during the pandemic and have continued 'attending' online), attend small groups, but we do all of our discipleship for our young kids at home right now. We miss some aspects about going to church in-person; we feel so so similarly to you all about kids church and haven't quite pinpointed what our ideal is about in-person church. Your video is SO very refreshing and insightful! I have a few questions: 1) How do you handle the situation when your kids may see other kids going to play and go to children's church? How did you all not feel left out when you were growing up? How do help your kids not feel left out when they may be some of the only kids in the corporate service? I wouldn't want my two kids to feel left out or restricted from being with other kids. 2) How do you all handle comments/questions from other church members who may be confused about why you don't send your kids to children's church? Does it feel awkward? What is your typical response? Thank you in advance for your thoughts! :)
Part of what made us fall in love with our home church is the multi-generational corporate worship, there was not an option for children's church any "Sunday School" was an hour before our corporate worship which was specifically a time for those type of teachings and studies. A lot of families were drawn into our church due to the nature of having the whole family worshipping together. It is challenging at first as all things that require diligence and discipline are, but it is so fruitful from our experience. Our pastor has changed and now we do have a nursery for younger kiddos but our convictions align with what you folks are talking about so we still keep our little ones with us and having all of them (5, 4, 2, and 6mos old) in the service at once especially if my husband cannot sit with me due to church responsibilities can feel exhausting, somedays I really struggle, but all the work I am putting in I know will come back to me. Helping to shape my children's hearts in corporate worship and understanding our faith and even just taking potty breaks, correcting, and changing diapers will go a long way. There is nothing more special than singing hymns together and taking communion all together and before we know it the season of this work will be over. Thanks for sharing!
You brought up some great points. I found your channel a few weeks ago and I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to your content. You guys give a lot of food for thought. Thank you!
Haven’t heard of this before! Our kids service is before the adults service so we all sit together for the main service. I grew up doing the same. We go to church on Sabbath day so maybe that’s the difference.
I will say I work in the nursery and started working there so I could see what was going on. They thankfully do background checks bon everyone and you aren’t allowed to work the nursery with any close friends or spouses. I do want to keep my child in service. We tried, he’s 2 and soooo wild! We’ll probably try again
Yikes, in the UK I believe it’s standard practise that everyone has a criminal record check for kids work, there is a register for safeguarding of who are the adults in the children’s rooms and I would hope that would be standard practise worldwide 😬 I value your perspective, two thoughts (my opinions having engaged with a fair bit of your content recently and as a fellow video editor) …I feel adding in the text isn’t adding greatly to your video, it’s nice when it’s just listening in to a chat with some mates who are more thought through on a number of topics than our peers. The text breaks that for me and it feels more soundbite-leaning compared to your nicely nuanced and chatty style. For the time ratio of fiddling with spelling and punchy editing of text, I’d say a nicely framed and 2 distinct angle-set-up would be a better use of your time. Emphasis that this is just my opinion here, but I value your content enough to want it to be as good as it can be. Happy to chat about other ways you could up the production value without burning fuel in the edit suite! The other thought was a question, please don’t take it as a crit - just wondering if using ‘conviction’ could be expanded on for the weaker Christian, I know you guys are great with sensitive caveats etc and I don’t enjoy it either when it’s one big ‘what I’m not saying is’, but - maybe it was just me - I felt there could have been a misunderstanding that this was a sin-thing, rather than a Biblically informed leaning/preference/ideal that you are convinced of… it’s semantics really but to steer clear of legalism I wonder if a clarification could help in the future. Again what I think you said isn’t ‘wrong’ but could be probably pulled a bit more than I believe you would want it to be? I don’t think you need to do anything other than bear in mind that the word ‘convicted’ can use good careful handling. Maybe I missed something clear when listening so it could be a moot point but know I’m listening wanting the best for you and your global listeners, I hope this is received in the spirit it was sent. Many blessings :)xx
Id love to know if your kids play with other kids? If theyre not in the childrens service and you dont do any mommy and me or womens groups with childcare how do your kids get interaction? I agree with all this and felt convicted after watching a Voddie Baucham sermon but personally my 4 year old really wants to be with other kids to play with/other people aside from our family at times. I do have him in class beause of that reason only since i dont do any extra "side interaction" with them.
So I agree to several of your points: -the 'dumbing down' of teachings in sunday school is sad. -we should protect our kids against predatory people. -it's great to worship together, read the Bible together and have communion and receive the blessing at the end of the service. However, I appreciate how I grew up: we had the first part of the service together with all people: kids and adults. In this part we sang, heard scripture and the pastor would give a kind of summary of his sermon. Then, the kids would go to their own groups, the adults received a full sermon, the kids had their own programme (which was pretty solid and not too dumbed down, just involved more hands-on applications like making artwork). When communion rolled around, someone would come by the kids rooms to collect the kids who wanted to take communion, the rest stayed. At the end, everyone would go back to the main hall and we would sing a final song and receive the blessing. We would then go have coffee/tea/lemonade as a congregation. All children's workers had a criminal background check done every three years (specific to being able to work with kids). I love having made friends and having a space to ask questions and discover other ways of living christianity than I would see at home - both for better ánd worse. That made me see all the more clearly what is good. It broadened my view and allowed me to find my own path with God. For the church we currently attend: we have no option but let our kids sit with us, as there is no children's service. I have felt that lacking, as I loved my own time in children's groups so much, but this video has helped me see the beauty of it more, so thanks!
I agree. My kids go to Sunday school but only because their grandmother is teacher. On weds night My kids are the ONLY kids who don't go to class. We are studying what we believe right now and all three of my boys (ages 7, 12 and 17) were talking about it on way home. They ARE listening 🙌
This is so good, so so good and straightforward. I appreciate putting these convictions into action. We are at home worshipping again bc these life habits and convictions were so suddenly and reactively resisted. I’m still trying to comprehend why ministers and staff feel insulted and frustrated when faced with a family who sits together, period. families need to stay together and stop submitting to division. as a lifelong homeschooler and a believer, from my perspective the church has such a long way to go in waking up to what is actually truly healthy for the Body as a whole.
Maybe churches should do background checks. I attended a church in Norway where 1 parent seemed to go with the child to Sunday school esp. If young so there were more parents witnessing but then the church congregation got small.
How to find a church that believes this and or supports this. This is how we have always felt, and have received negative reactions to it. Our youngest are in their teens now and want fellowship but haven't found the support for this. We visit a church occasionally that our older son is associate pastor, but not in agreement with some things the head pastor allows. Want to find like minded so it doesn't conflict too much with our convictions. We realize no perfect church and everyone in different places of growth in different areas, including us, lol. But with their ages we feel some things are crucial.
LOVE this video you guys! My question to you guys is how do you handle it when a child wants to go play In Sunday school instead of sitting you with you during the service? Love this channel ❤
Something I struggle with is that the sermon we go to is not developmentally appropriate for my kids. Same as I’m not going to take my kids to my yoga class and make them sit still and sush them the whole time, I don’t view it as appropriate for them to have to sit through the sermon as still as possible with me nagging them the whole time to be quiet so everyone else can hear.
I grew up sitting in church with my parents, and I often didn't understand everything but I think you'd be surprised how much kids can understand and how quickly they can pick up big words and concepts when they're exposed to them consistently. Even with the shocking stories from the old testament, most kids just accept it when it's talked about openly. They don't know that it's embarrassing and will ask their parents more questions when it's developmentally appropriate
Sending my kids to sunday school, has been the biggest reason for us staying home amd doing online church together. Im not comfortable dropping them off with people I dont know either. Im homeschooling my kids also and they might stuggle with being dropped off also. I love the idea of just having our kids sit with us. I'll have to re-watch your video about training your kids to sit with you in church.
