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My wife and I attended a FIC church for three years. The first year was painfully difficult, because we had a two year old and a newborn infant. A few months ago, we decided to stop attending. Even though several of the families with small children had managed to get their children to sit still for a 3 Hr+ service (they had to have "practice church" during the week, with spankings if they left their chairs), my wife and I struggled tremendously, and eventually left the church for a PCA church with a nursery after we found out that our third child would be here soon. The FIC model is very difficult to follow with a newborn, a two year old and a four year old. Ultimately, my wife was bending under the weight of the stress and dreaded going to church each week. That's no way to worship, even if you love the community you're in.
My respect to those who do it.
As to the insulation mentioned, my experience with this church was that the teaching was rock-solid exposition, but the church had zero outreach, though it did give to missions. Anybody who came to our services would be immediately frustrated at finding out that their kids would have to sit and scream through a very long service. When I spoke to the elders about how helpful a nursery would be for us, they stated that they were very committed to the FIC model. They ultimately felt it better to see my family and I leave than to give up that model, which I was never committed to in the first place.
What I did learn by attending there, however, was the importance of raising my own children in the Lord and not leaving it to a sunday school teacher. I was thankful for my experience there, but it was frustrating for me to know that the elders saw our family's struggle and to consider the model more important than looking out for sheep who were set to leave the fold over this issue.
Aaron,
My objection to some extreme FIC views has little to do with the worship service. My church does not have age segregated Sunday school or children's church. Families are together for both functions. I become concerned when the family usurps the role of the church. You ask for examples? I believe they have been given. Don't allow the discussion to get stuck on peripheral details such as whether a church should have a youth group or not. Be more concerned that there is not a blurring of the line of distinction between the function of the church and the family unit. If that distinction remains then a church can decide for itself whether or not to have age integration in the worship service or have/not have a youth group.
I grew up in a church that was FIC and it slowly moved towards this model of the father being a "mini-priest." (My family left for that reason among others)
Another problem I've seen is the way the church treats singles, particularly younger singles. (elderly widows and widowers are generally exempt from poor treatment since they've been part of a family). This is certainly a peripheral issue, but it can be disheartening for a single to feel the pressure to marry "because that's what a committed Christian does" or to be in some manner blamed for their single status. Even if the church doesn't go out of its way to belittle you, there's really just no place for a "one person family" in many FICs. I know this isn't the case in all FICs, but it was rampant in the one we attended when I was a child and I've seen it in ones I've visited more recently as well. I've been very grateful to attend a church where I'm not looked down upon because I'm still unmarried.
Can you define "age appropriate"? Where does this derive from?"It is educational term, and a category that is actually wise to keep in mind. You wouldn’t teach a two year old the same way as a 12 year old, or even 17 year old. It considers the mental growth and ability of the child in question to meet obtainable, and realistic objectives for educational growth. It derived from educational research and psychology in the last 100 years of children education and can be quite productive if used wisely. It is not anti-biblical, and can/should be considered in a child’s Christian education; particularly with the application of how the Christian language and the Law are used. And yes we have our own language in the sense of how we use terms.
And in regards to Christian education, it should be a joint effort between the parent and the church in equal harmony. It is not just the parents’ responsibility alone to educate children. The church does have a role to play in the training up of fathers and assisting parents by providing solid theological education to children with consideration to the child’s age and background as they are brought near to Christ. However this is not to negate the parents responsibility, but to cooperative effort to lead one in the tradition of the church with the scriptures as the foundation. We do not want parents to teach contrary to what the church teaches in relation to scripture. And it can happen if we start to raise parents educational role higher then that of the church. In some cases parents do not know at times what their talking about on certain issues and have not thought about it critically.
I have seen some good home schooling in the secular sense and I seen more often poor home-schooling in the secular sense. If parents cannot always be trusted to properly teach standardized objective subjects like math, should we always trust them in the teaching of their children the Bible and theology. Proverbs 32 comes to mind, “God helps those who help themselves.” Some parents actually believe that statement comes from scripture and we know here in this board that such a statement is not in scripture. "
Age appropriate? That is left to the parent.Parents do not always know what their child is capable of. Particularly with the first born. Their not always wise, particularly fathers, in what appropriate for the child’s education, but that why God gave parents grandparents, and I would also include wise gray-haired elders of the church, so that the parents could be guided along with what best for their children.
Family Integration can be positive experience for a family, but I have seen what I consider things of a negative nature. One example is during communion, where the heads of the family went up and grabbed individuals glasses and plates for their family individually take communion together, instead of the entire church taking it at once. I don’t think the heads of families are personally qualified to pass out the elements and must be instituted and guided by the Pastor/Elder for the entire church to take the right together. What would prevents such families to not take communion at home? In a sense it turns the family into a small little church with the father as pastor. It can neglect single men, whereby they are forced to pray and partake of communion alone. I don’t think anyone should take communion alone. Now these people that I saw doing this, were nice people. The problem is that the families take priority over everyone else in the church.
I knew one family that visited with me was uncomfortable with the church because all the women dressed as if they were from “Little House of the Prairie” (my friend’s wife’s words, that was visiting with me, not mine)and there was little attempt to get ease the feeling of uneasiness of the family through visitation. Neither I nor my friend was personally visited at my home. Between the dress, the application of the sacraments, and the children citing catechism questions and bible verses (which I liked the children involvement in the service), without any instruction why any of this was going on, could create a cultic feeling. Now they were not a cult, but they could still create that feeling and scare off people that could hear the gospel. Now there are ways that I think this can be remedied, through visitation of visitors to explain why they do what they do, that they don’t bind a type of dress on their women folk, that you don’t have to home-school your child to attend or be active there, and creating something in place were single people are not neglected and actually used in the church, instead of ignored or scared off.
Learning how to sit still in a pew and not make noise, to listen to the pastor while he is preaching, and to sing the Lord's praises, is appropriate for any age. I want my children to drink in godliness from the time they are nursing infants, to be accustomed to the rhythm and practice of attending the public worship of God. There is a place for Sunday School, and it is not during the worship of God's covenant people as an alternative. How are they going to learn to sit and listen to preaching, to get used to seeing the bread and wine of communion being distributed, to sing psalms and hymns to God, to hear and learn to recite the creed and the Lord's prayer, if they are not in the worship service? Psalm 8:2
Kathleen,
There is an old lady in our church named Yenta. Perhaps I should have her call on you?
Learning how to sit still in a pew and not make noise, to listen to the pastor while he is preaching, and to sing the Lord's praises, is appropriate for any age. I want my children to drink in godliness from the time they are nursing infants, to be accustomed to the rhythm and practice of attending the public worship of God. There is a place for Sunday School, and it is not during the worship of God's covenant people as an alternative. How are they going to learn to sit and listen to preaching, to get used to seeing the bread and wine of communion being distributed, to sing psalms and hymns to God, to hear and learn to recite the creed and the Lord's prayer, if they are not in the worship service? Psalm 8:2
Are you really expecting a one or two year old to listen and understand the sermon? Or even sing the praises of God with their mouth verbally with the rest of the church? Not if were being honest about a child’s natural intellectual development, which is the point of the term age appropriate. That takes time, maturity, and discipline. In the mean time giving them things like gram crackers or coloring books to keep them quite and occupied briefly during the service isn’t bad. I am not a fan of children’s church, for various reasons, but realistically we should consider under practical terms what a child can and cannot understand in the pew. There is only so much they can absorb and understand at such a little age. And they can absorb a ton, but understanding is a different issue. A child’s understanding is proportional to their attention span; which to expand requires engagement for the child. Listening to a sermon for an hour to 45 minutes is very hard for a young child; particularly if they do not understand what is going on in the sermon and is being said. If you want a young child to understand the sermon, realistically you need to be the one to explain it and on their terms and categories of understanding. Not to have them figure it out by themselves. If they cannot grasp the categories then they need more time and you need to be patient with him. Also they can learn the creeds, and the Lord’s prayer at home through memorization, even though they may not understand it. They do not need to go to a service week after week to hear it to absorb it and will probably absorb it better if it is regularly taught by a parent anyway; which is typically the case with small children. Getting them use to the bread and wine should not even be an issue, since their not going to partake of it until the church recognizes the developed maturity of the child in the gospel; which should not be a rush to begin with within most of our traditions unless your paedocommunionist; in which case I am in agreement with John Calvin’s response to the notion. Also within my own educational experience, parents can be pushy and lead children to a place that they are not ready for; which is why I think Elders of a church or some other governing body must decide if a particular child ready is ready for communion, since it is a guarded sacrament of the church, not of the localized family.
Riley,Will you please clarify what exactly you mean when you say that a man is a priest of his family? Am personally slightly concerned there from a theological perspective. And what role do you see the church in relation to the man and his family exactly? Do you think the church’s only influence should be in the preaching and that it?
Certainly not that. A man is a priest of his family in the sense that he intercedes for his wife and children in prayer, leads them in and teaches them to pray, disciples them in their walk with God, and has a duty to ensure that they will become members in the true church of Jesus Christ, which is his covenant people. The role of the church is not the same. They are not conflicting roles. They are symbiotic.
Learning how to sit still in a pew and not make noise, to listen to the pastor while he is preaching, and to sing the Lord's praises, is appropriate for any age. I want my children to drink in godliness from the time they are nursing infants, to be accustomed to the rhythm and practice of attending the public worship of God. There is a place for Sunday School, and it is not during the worship of God's covenant people as an alternative. How are they going to learn to sit and listen to preaching, to get used to seeing the bread and wine of communion being distributed, to sing psalms and hymns to God, to hear and learn to recite the creed and the Lord's prayer, if they are not in the worship service? Psalm 8:2
Are you really expecting a one or two year old to listen and understand the sermon? Or even sing the praises of God with their mouth verbally with the rest of the church?
Go back and read what I wrote, please. I said they would learn to sit still and take part. The understanding may be infantile at that point, but it is the patterns of godliness that I want them to learn to get used at that age. If they can sit still and listen, recite the Lord's prayer (as my 2-year old does in worship), and sing even largely without understanding, this discipline will later allow him or her to learn and be a means to their later believing. Plus, I tend to think that children grasp much more than I think, at a younger age, than we think. I remember learning lots of things from sermons when I was five years old, and I couldn't figure out why adults acted so surprised that I had learned those things.
Lastly am a bit confused with your use of Psalm 8:2, because it deals with the clear undeniable nature, against the speechless enemies of God, of the glory of God as spoken through the infant compared to the stars of heaven; which some will scoff at. It does not deal with the issue at hand with an infant’s involvement within a church service. It does not address a child’s level of understanding within a worship service. It does not even address the need of a parent to teach the child, which is scriptural; just not this passage.
This passage is clearly given and intended to be used in the corporate worship of God's people. "A Psalm of David. Upon Gittith." On the surface I believe it is describing the infants who were praising God among his covenant people as the Psalm is being sung in public worship, and then pointing out that this strength for which they are praising him is manifest in their weakness, in their childness. It starts with what was commonly taking place on the surface and makes a deeper theological point. That is how I understand it.
Whatever your church practiced, I think you might be going a bit to far to ref Psalm 8:2 as a reason why infants should be in worship.
Whatever your church practiced, I think you might be going a bit to far to ref Psalm 8:2 as a reason why infants should be in worship.
Isn't that the picture, though? Infants in Psalm 8:2 are described as being a part of the corporate worship of Israel, as I read it in context.
By the way, Jesus confirms this, at least in principle, when he applies this verse to himself, as he was in the temple--meanwhile young children were praising him in the temple.
Whatever your church practiced, I think you might be going a bit to far to ref Psalm 8:2 as a reason why infants should be in worship.
Isn't that the picture, though? Infants in Psalm 8:2 are described as being a part of the corporate worship of Israel, as I read it in context.
By the way, Jesus confirms this, at least in principle, when he applies this verse to himself, as he was in the temple--meanwhile young children were praising him in the temple.
For one thing, if children were praising Jesus with their mouths in the temple they would have been cognizant. Second, I do not believe Psalm 8:2 is describing a specific for the Regulative Principle of Worship and a cooperate worship service as prescribed. Third, just to make a point concerning inferences, do you want to go so far as including paedocommunion in the worship as others might by inference. You seem to be drawing inferences that I believe are going way past reformation interpretations on Psalm 8?
Just because Worship and an activity is mentioned together in the Psalms does not necessarily mean that the Regulative Principle in Corporate worship is being addressed. For instance, Psalm 149 and 150 discuss dancing in worship. Psalm 149 mentions worship with an article of war (a literal sword) is to be held in our hands for executing Judgment.
I believe you are going farther than Psalm 8 infers.
Just think about brother. I personally think you have gone too far.
This isn't really pertaining to Psalm 8, but when does one have the ability to determine if a child is "cognizant" or not?For one thing, if children were praising Jesus with their mouths in the temple they would have been cognizant.
But the text doesn't say "sucklings who are four years old and can speak intelligibly as we understand it." Again, I'm not even trying to speak to Psalm 8; rather, I'm asking how it is that we're able to determine when an infant or child is "cognizant" for the singing of praise, etc.
But the text doesn't say "sucklings who are four years old and can speak intelligibly as we understand it." Again, I'm not even trying to speak to Psalm 8; rather, I'm asking how it is that we're able to determine when an infant or child is "cognizant" for the singing of praise, etc.