Children’s Church
by: Dalton Gilreath

Over the past few decades many new fads have been spreading among churches of Christ. Some these include praise teams, clapping in worship, life groups, building gymnasiums and more. But perhaps none of them is more common than the one Christians have entitled “children’s church”. Children’s church normally takes place on Sunday evenings. Younger children are taken out of the assembly for all or part of the service to participate in their own “parallel worship”. While the intentions behind the invention of children’s church are noble, the practice is not in accordance with God’s will.

First, the churches of Christ are normally good about avoiding inventions when it comes to God’s worship. Yet for some reason congregations make an exception for children’s church. There is no command or example in all the scriptures of children ever being taken out of an assembly. In fact, Joshua saw fit to mention that even in readings of the law all the little ones were in the assembly (Jos 8:35).

Secondly, children’s church violates Hebrews 10:25. Bible classes and youth devotionals do not take place during worship nor do they take the place of worship. If we teach that willfully missing the Sunday evening worship assembly violates Hebrews 10:25, then so does staying out for children’s church. While some might argue this is not true for the children, we must remember that some adults will be supervising the kids during this time. Those adults are missing the service to participate in an event not sanctioned by God’s Word. Would you be comfortable being that adult?

Any manmade invention in worship is dangerous territory. Instead of justifying an addition to the worship with our own logic let’s stick with what we know for a fact to be pleasing to God.