family, ecclesiology, and programming

I recently read a book entitled Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, Jr. Baucham spends the first eight chapters discussing a Biblical view of the family and the obligation of mothers and fathers to disciple their children. In the last two chapters of the book, Baucham offers several suggestions to churches — suggestions that he believes grow out of a Biblical view of the church and the family. He demonstrates that their is clearly a problem with the way that children are being spiritually guided, since an overwhelming majority abandon their faith after leaving their parents’ keeping. Baucham’s thesis is that the family is the primary institution in which faith is passed from generation to generation, and the church should do everything in its power to encourage the family’s transmission of faith.

This book, and the “family integrated church” movement of which it is a part, has stirred up a good deal of controversy in the Christian community. If you look the book up on Amazon.com, you will find several reviewers who find Baucham and his suggestions unwise, impractical, and even cultic. The primary controvery surrounds the idea of minimizing age-specific programming (read: young children’s ministry, jr. high youth group, high school youth group, college and career group, young married group, etc.) and maximizing the amount of teaching that the entire family is exposed to. The family, says Baucham, should (ideally) go to the same church, be exposed to the same teaching, and discuss the message among themselves afterward to ensure that the children understand. It is not the duty of an age-specialized pastor to contextualize God’s Word to make it relevent the the age group in question.

Imagine a “family-integrated” church that meets for a majority of the day every Sunday. There is a sermon, several times of prayer, catechism, a shared meal, and discipleship that takes place in a small group of perhaps two or three families. I wonder why many of us would look at a church like that and immediately label it cultic — or just plain weird. I cannot find anything in Scripture that would indicate that this is a bad way to “do church.” In fact, I believe that this model is closer to the New Testament model than is a highly programmed and smoothly professional church.

The question: Does the Scriptural view of the church exalt family integration over programming (or vice-versa), or are both family integration and age-specific programming viable options? I would like to see a little dialogue because, honestly, this is an issue that I have been thinking a lot about recently and have not landed on yet. So please, share your thoughts!

Celia Jolley Says:

21 April, 2009 at 4.56 pm

Andrew, thanks for asking. (By the way, my E-mail address is the name you gave our first weiner dog). This has been around for many years. A charismatic church in Weaverville (nearly 30 yrs ago) tried this approach in that lessons were sent home for families to do together and families worshipped together. Not all families found it workable. Some children can sit in church for a long period of time and some can’t which I can attest to (I told Al in Yreka that I was going to nail my disertation on the front door of the church with the thirteen reasons why we should have a nursery during church. While all other children sat quietly with their parents, Jay was rolling under the pews, his own version of Quaker fanatisism. After taking him out for the ?th time for a spanking, he was walking back in front of me bent over chewing his belt: he missed our pew and was heading up to the platform. I even remember you liked the “toy church” yourself.
Different children’s learning styles I believe are best met by parents employing the Deuternomy instructions, “When you rise up…when you lie down and everything in between using life’s learning moments. I know as a children’s teacher for years, I work hard to give the Scripture lesson and a relevant application and try to make it more enjoyable than when I was a kid so that they will say, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” I think of Jesus cleansing the temple in front of the children who followed Him with their “Hosanna’s” to the irritation of the powers that be. Church that day was a live drama.
(I remember as a three year old begging to go to Sunday School and finding it totally boring with the ugly picture board lesson. All that to say that many parents who are equipped to give the daily passing on of faith are not equipped to be good teachers with memorable lessons. Face it, they can’t all be Gayle Merediths. But perhaps the biggest drawback is the evangelistic outreach: nothing makes me happier than to share the Gospel with children who don’t have Christian families, usually coming with their friends. We do not live in a Christian culture so that the basics of Christianity are totally brand new to most children who did not grow up in church, like the 11 year old boy after hearing about heaven said, “Really? That’s true? Cool!” His family is in church now after a lifetime of praying by his 94 yr. old great-grandmother. They are Christians now, but no faith had been shared prior to that. Right now we have all or part of five neighborhood families coming to church. My boys are good inviters because God is so real to them and thus, everyone should go to church! The type of church this suggests would probably short change this sharing the Good News. Remember, Uncle Bud became a Christian in large part seeing a family in private devotions; yet, that was not something that he could implement in the same way in his home. Our Dad also was invited to church by someone willing to literally cross the tracks to a bad part of town, yet this type of church would probably have left them out. Our teen group led by Jimmy, Robin, and Laura averages 20-35 youth most of whom have no other Christian contact: they have built relationships instead of big programming and are authentically received in sharing the Gospel.
I’m late for Ladies’ Bible Study now, but those are my initial thoughts.
Thanks for asking. Aunt Celia