Babies and Young Children In Church Services

Parents retain responsibility for and authority over their children. There is nothing wrong with cry rooms or utilizing a nursery. If a child is acting up, and the parent cannot bring them under control, then it is prudent for a parent to remove the child from the worship service. If the parents have their children under control then they should not be pressured to put their children in the nursery, Sunday school, or children's church.

P.S. Besides the fact that there is no warrant in Scripture to separate ages in worship.

 

No. We are not family integrated. I do not support the Family Integrated Church Movement, the NCFIC, or Vision Forum. It is my opinion that they go beyond scriptural warrant in many areas. That said, where there is scriptural warrant on an issue related to family, I accept it. There is no scriptural warrant for separating ages in worship. For that reason our church does not separate families in worship.

 

Do you separate them in Sunday School? Do you separate them in Bible Study? If so, do you see a scriptural warrant for that separation?

 

We have one Sunday school class for all ages. Our mid-week Bible study and prayer meeting is for all ages.

 

We have a nursery if a parent would rather leave their child there, but we encourage families to stay together during the service.

We believe in an age-integrated church and do not segregate by age. We believe that the Biblical model is for children to be around the older saints to observe them and to learn from them.

 

Parents can keep their children if they desire. That is their choice. We cannot tell people what to do. However we make children's church and nursery available. That is what is best it lets the children be taught at an age appropriate level and allows them to actually enjoy learning about the Lord.

 

EWF, don't the Primitives separate the family in seating at worship?
Used to be, most everybody did:



P.E. Burroughs, The Baptist People, p. 45:

Robert J. Dinkin, "Seating the Meeting House in Early Massachusetts," New England Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Sep., 1970), p. 457:

The History of the European Family: Family life in the Long Nineteenth Century 1789-1913, p. 215:

19th Century Southern Methodist Bishop George Foster Pierce decried family seating as a modern and unwelcome innovation:

 

At our church we require the parents to leave their children in their respective cars and then, assign one to serve as the Parking Lot Attendant.

...that's just how we do it in Hicksville seeing as how we're so ignorant in the back woods.


JUST KIDDING FOLKS - JUST KIDDING. No parking lot attendant! No requirement to leave said kids in the car! JUST KIDDING!!!

Everyone of all ages are welcome in our church. If a baby goes to screaming the mother simply gets up and retreats or the Stiff Necks are shown the door.

 

We have a secure nursery, licensed, with security background checks done for all volunteers. Anyone should feel safe leaving their children there, and are encouraged to do so. Older children, from perhaps four on up, are "optional" -- there's a place for them, but if the parents want them in the service, they should be there. For that matter, if they want to bring the infants in, no one is going to stop them. I've seen babies sleep through our entire service. Not sure how Pastor Derrick feels about that, but I'm sure he's fine with it, much more so than if one of the adults does the same.

Same as ours, and at most, I would venture to guess.

 

Wow....thats purdy good. Ive not seen that in quite some time.

 

That hasn't been my experience.

 

Our church is very small in number - but we've had children's church for many years. We let them go to children's church - generally till they are old enough to understand what is going on in regular church.

 

I know of a church that the pastor insisted that every child under four years old be in the nursery. I have seen the pastors wife go to visitors with children under four and tell them she would take their child to the nursery. Guess what ? all this changed when the pastor and his wife became grand parents.

 

...all this changed when the pastor and his wife became grand parents.

salzer mtn, isn't it strange when one finds themselves walking in another's shoes?