Identity Crisis (3)
Some responses to the practice of Children's Church would be:
"We have an opportunity to teach our children spiritual truths that can be communicated to them at their level. Many are too young to understand the message brought in the auditorium"
"How is children's Church different from an attended Nursery?"
"When children are in the assembly they tend to be disruptive. We can teach them how to have better behavior in a separate assembly"
I think that one would have to agree that, depending on the age, there could always be a lack of understanding, no matter how old the person is. Should we then remove older folks from the assembly because we feel that they probably do not understand the majority of the lesson? Should we provide a special class for the elderly during the worship assembly? Some would assume that all learning is a verbal, cognitive experience. It is not!
The purpose of an attended Nursery is to provide a place to assist parents in addressing the correction of accidents due to bodily functions of young children and in disciplining our children and reasoning with them concerning their behavior. Obviously you can't reason with an infant. An infant who may need feeding is satisfied and then returned to the assembly.
To address the third objection one needs to realize that children can learn respect, courtesy, decorum, manners and obedience when their parents discipline them if they become disruptive during worship. If every time our children disobeyed us and we opted for a class to teach them obedience and cooperation, we will have abrogated our responsibility in rearing our children.
The Bible authorizes us to assemble on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2, Acts 20:7). There simply is no authority for dividing the assembly into age-based classes. That is what our Bible classes are for.
Paul