I'm under the conviction that, as much as is possible and prudent, families need to be together for corporate worship. Some churches utilize "children's church" (a misnomer if there ever was one -- they are being taken out of church) but thankfully cut this off at an early age. Others encourage children to be a part of worship as early as possible.
For NewSpring Church (the one that formerly just broke my heart -- now it makes me angry) in Anderson, SC, the idea of dividing up families takes on a whole new meaning. They actually use bouncers (their word) to split up families attending worship. I'm not kidding. From their own website:
I comment more about this on my blog here.Q9: How do you handle confrontations that occur because you do not allow children to go into the service?
A9: We let them know that we want a distraction free service not just for the people around them, but so the PARENT can get the most out of the service. We also let them know that we care so much about their child that we want them to have the most age-appropriate learning about Christ. First-time greeters are very intentional about if they see a family with a child to go ahead and be talking up the children’s service and how much fun they are going to have. This also lets the parents know that they will not be with them in the service. We have children bouncers that are especially trained for the confrontational conversations. If these bouncers are volunteers are parents themselves, they can give a personal testimony of how much their children love the service. And you just have to know that sometimes people leave. The ultimate thing to remember is that God is sovereign.
Obviously, this is awful. But I would be interested in knowing if there are other churches (mega/giga churches) that employ similar antics.


LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks








)
(not that I haven't already done that

Bookmarks