On Labels: Family Integrated Church

This one's quite simple, really.  A Family Integrated Church:

Has no youth group
Has no Sunday School (or Crusaders or Kidzone or Kids Church or...)
Keeps families together and minimises any activity that separates families.
Teaches parents to disciple their own children.

Simple really.  And yet... some pulses have already started racing.  Sweaty palms.  You have no... no... children's work!  You What?!?!?!  Are you out of your mind?

A Family Integrated Church believes that it is the job of parents to disciple their own children, not that of the church.

Well, lots of churches believe that... but why does that mean we have to do away with the children's ministries?

1. Because children's ministries give parents a false impression that the church is discipling their children so that they don't have to.
2. Because it gives the church better control over the quality of the teaching.  All too often it is the desperate [i.e. the church leadership] pressing the reluctant [i.e. children's leaders] to teach the disengaged [the young people].  Not a good place to be when we consider that teachers (surely this includes those teaching the kids) are judged more strictly (see James 3:1).
3. Because it is (arguably) more Biblical.  I know of no hint that children were separated from adults when people gathered together in the Bible.  However, it is both stated and implied that children were with adults in some instances.  See Nehemiah 8.  Also, Deuteronomy 31:9-13, which I quote below.  See also Ephesians 1:1 then 6:1-3 or Colossians 1:1-2, then 3:20. 
4. Because when families are kept together, the family members all hear the same teaching, giving parents an opportunity to explain the teaching to their children and answer questions.
5. Because it allows children to see mature adults worshipping and participating.  They learn by observing as well as by hearing teaching.
6. Because when children spend plenty of time with older people they themselves learn good habits and grow up more quickly.

Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel.  And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.  Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”
Deuteronomy 31:9-13

The following are not hard and fast rules.  But there are characteristics of these churches that are common:

• They tend to have a high proportion of 'homeschoolers' - i.e. parents who educate their children at home rather than in the school system.
• A high proportion of the families are large, with, say, five children or more.
• They tend to have male leaders/elders and have traditional roles for men and women.
• They do not tend to have a plethora of 'church ministries', such as soup kitchens, debt counselling, day centres and so on.  The emphasis is more on ministering from a home setting.   So, for example, churches members may provide a home for widows and orphans, are more likely to adopt children and share their homes with students and single young people and share meals in each others homes.

These are not hard and fast rules.  It is simply the case that where there is a strong emphasis on family life and when the theology of the family is fully appreciated, certain other things flow from that.

It needs to be said that there are pitfalls to this approach and nobody is criticising dedicated, faithful people who work hard with young people in churches.  However, churches that don't go lock stock and barrel down the Family Integrated route need to (in my view) think very carefully about how they disciple parents and teach them to be responsible and help young people to have good adult role models and involvement in the church.

So what was the story all about in the previous post?  It was simply a way of showing how, if someone does something for someone all the time (in this case, giving Lucy a lift to school) when it is not actually their responsibility, we end up with irresponsible people who do not grow up.

We see this all the time in our society of course, but our churches need to be different!

Men for God: Our Responsibilities in the World

Another thing, fellas.

We need to take responsibility for our churches.

This is not a discussion over what offices men and women should have – interesting though that is. Don't leave it all to your pastor or elders. You'll make their job so much easier if you find some brothers and start fellowshipping with them. Tell them your news, how the week has gone, what the family is up to. Find out how they are. How are they doing at discipling their family? And ask pointed questions about their walk with the Lord. Offer to pray with them. Discuss what scriptures you are reading and what the Lord is saying to you through them.

Finally:

We need to take responsibility for the world around us

We can do that by learning a skill. Find something to do, preferably with your hands, that will be of practical benefit to society. Do you notice how so many of the heroes of scripture were called when they were doing a job of work? They were shepherds, fishermen, government officials, students, tent makers, fig tree growers. Jesus, of course, spent most of his adult life as a carpenter (although the Greek 'Tekton' may actually mean stone mason or builder). If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us! Your day job is your sacred calling. Pastors and missionaries are not on some higher spiritual plain. God would rather have a good, faithful, diligent cleaner, accountant, farmer, mechanic or nurse than a bad minister, vicar or missionary.

Greed is wrong, but it isn't wrong to earn a good living so that you can support the Lord's work, or support a wife and some children. Try and earn enough so that your family can be well cared for and educated, so that your wife can focus on bringing up the children without too much stress and distraction.

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
1Thessalonians 4:10b-12

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Ephesians 4:28

Do you see a man skilful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men.
Proverbs 22:29

Be a man. Take responsibility.