Fundies/Fundie Lites not allowing children in worship?

[Katiebug]

An acquaintance of mine could be characterized as fundie lite - he went to Liberty University, he is vocal about women being SAHMs (including his own wife), yet he drinks alcohol and has tattoos. Anyways, he mentioned a church that they've started attending now that their son is approaching 8-9 months old. The church in question is "seeker sensitive" but very much a fundie lite nondenominational sort of place. I went to this church's website and was somewhat shocked to read that children between 6 months and 5th grade are absolutely NOT allowed in the worship service under any circumstances. The pastor says it's because they discuss "adult" topics like sex, parenting, and finances that are not appropriate for children, that kids get bored, and that the mere presence of young children is a distraction to adults who are trying to listen to the message. He feels that the children are better suited for the children's program where they can run around, make noise, and learn about Jesus in an age-appropriate way. This pastor says, "We're asking parents to lay down their preferences for one hour a week for the benefit of everyone else in the room." :? This applies to visitors as well. Quite frankly if I walked into a church that required me to leave our 1 year old with total strangers even on a first visit, we would walk right out and never return. I was shocked that this acquaintance of ours is apparently OK with leaving their little one alone.

Do other fundie and fundie lite groups go to the extent of making 6 month olds be separate from their parents? A brief Google indicates that this may be a growing phenomenon. Didn't Jesus make it a point to welcome children ("bring the little children unto me")? There were no Noah's Ark bounce houses in the early Church, that's for sure. :lol: And I have to wonder that if they find kids so disruptive and distracting, what would this church's reaction be to a developmentally disabled older child or adult daring to "disrupt" their adult-only worship service?

I admit I see the potential for a more sinister motive for separating kids and parents...it's about control and imparting the message THEY choose to impart to sensitive and impressionable children.

Our Lutheran church has a staffed nursery for 3-and-under on Sundays but parents are never pressured to use it. There's also an optional kids' activity that runs for about 20 minutes between the children's sermon and communion; the kids can go out and do age-appropriate activities in the Sunday School wing. Little Bug is 1 and stays with us in church for now, but once she's walking on her own she can go to the kids' activity.

[keen23]

That's actually an opposing viewpoint from many fundie and fundie lite churches where children are expected to be at the worship service and are expected to BEHAVE through the whole thing.

[PBrooke]

Yeah, this is not common in the fundie circles we tend to follow. In fact most fundies are vehemently opposed to segregating kids by age for anything, including school, recreation, etc - that's partly where home churches come from.

[Mompom]

That seems to be more of a megachurch/seeker sensitive church thing to do these days. That's increasingly common, and honestly the Family Integrated Church movement has my sympathy on that. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with Sunday School in the slightest (unless it's freakishly indoctrinating), but I think it's great for churches to be welcoming of kids.

The freaky part with the FIC is that some of the people think the kids should not only be in there, but should behave like miniature adults and be blanket trained and all that. I know all FICs aren't that way, but it certainly is pretty popular it seems. Hence, you hear the moms who do "sitting training", "quiet training", and "blanket training".

Both ends of the spectrum are weird I think.

[jenny_islander]

It seems as though in these churches children are either separated from their parents and put into approved, regimented classes, completed with corporal punishment, or expected to be seated, silent, and unnaturally still during the entire service--again, complete with corporal punishment.

I like my wishy-washy lukewarm spit-em-out Anglican church better. We have Sunday school during the preaching and teaching part of the service, but all ages join together for Eucharist. Really little kids who have the wigglies can wander around if they're quiet and stay off the altar and the piano; if they can't stand being in the sanctuary at all, there's a playroom.

An Anglican church on the mainland has a row of rocking chairs just ahead of the front pew because babies on shoulders are quieter if they can look at faces, not the backs of heads. Some of the pew seating near the aisle has been replaced with playpens so that wiggly toddlers can mess around while their parents listen to the sermon.

An aside: No parent has ever taken a disruptive child out to the hall to beat him. We would hear it. The building is simply too small to hide that kind of behavior. When I read about people matter-of-factly hitting a child in a church, I get sick at my stomach. This is how they honor the Prince of Peace?

[maybeizfundie]

Yeah, a good many of the folks discussed here are all about kids in worship/no age segregation.

There are some fundamentalist churches that are extremely stringent about kids not being in the sanctuary. My kids go to Sunday School, and I don't have a problem with it. But if there were bouncers--er, ushers--at the door preventing me form bringing an infant or young child in, that would not be the church for me, and I have some friends who ran into that kind of thing. :(

I love the Anglican church's solution described above. That is awesome. :) In our church most people utilize the nursery but it's also OK to take a wiggly toddler out to run around in the foyer, if need be.

[loveandwar]

Woooow. I've never heard that before. My church offers nursery/kids' church on Sunday mornings but parents aren't pressured to send their kids. But then, my church is nowhere near fundie, has female pastors, youth group, rock music...

[emmiedahl]

A lot of fundies are against Sunday School. There's that whole "family integrated church" thing.

[ladypuglover]

That sounds weird, the church that the person you know goes to. Every church we attended has the option for children to go to the nursery if young enough or Sunday school if old enough. If the child needs to stay with the parent for any reason then that is fine too. I also don't like that the sermon would be something that children shouldn't hear because I don't feel that anything should be kept from children that is in the bible if the child wants to hear/read it. My kids may be odd men out being boys but they loved hearing all the war stories and so forth. This church almost sounds cultish... :?

[takers401]

My husband and I are currently looking into attending a different church than the one I grew up in (I'm Catholic, he's not). One church that we've gone to informed us that because our daughter is still such a young age (6 months) they would prefer us to attend service in their 'Connected' room. It's basically a room with comfy chairs and tables where you view the service on a projection screen. The other option is to put her into their childcare program (where all 'babysitters' have to be members of the church and go through background checks) and then the two of us go to the main worship hall. They also have another room for folks that prefer more traditional music (they have their own choir/band that sings before service but gets a projection of the pastor) as well as another room for teens with a full-out band performing desired worship songs and then a projection of the pastor talking.

Coming from a 'everyone in the sanctuary and take the kids out when they get too loud and go to the cry room for a bit' mass, the above described service seemed very, very weird. I've since gotten a little more comfortable with the idea but I still find it somewhat weird that children aren't 100% welcome in the main worship area.

[AnnoDomini]

Ha. I wonder what these 'no kids under 10' churches would like my sister. She's coming on eleven, but boy would she 'disrupt' the service if she felt like it. She has Down syndrome and is rather severely developmentally delayed and sometimes she is impossible to corral.

And speaking of punishment in church, my father pulled me out of a service when I was a bout four to spank me in the back hallway. I'm not sure what for, possibly because I was making runs in my tights.

[mystweaver]

Is he going to Driscoll's church?

There are quite a few fundie-lite churches that are into that. Most of the Calvary Chapel plants require it, and I think the SGM group might require that. Pre Family Integration Movement, I think it was pretty common.

If they have overtly sinister motives, I think it's less about brainwashing the children and more about brainwashing the parents--just another way the church can exert their control over their adults (especially over parenting).

[ladypuglover]

Ha. I wonder what these 'no kids under 10' churches would like my sister. She's coming on eleven, but boy would she 'disrupt' the service if she felt like it. She has Down syndrome and is rather severely developmentally delayed and sometimes she is impossible to corral.

And speaking of punishment in church, my father pulled me out of a service when I was a bout four to spank me in the back hallway. I'm not sure what for, possibly because I was making runs in my tights.

My church would say your sister was making a joyful noise unto the Lord, but we have more than just a few families that have special needs that still want and need to be part of the church family. In other words, it's all good.

[mythoughtis]

the moderate Christian churches I grew up in did the following

1. You were welcome to keep your kids with you the entire service, but were expected to be polite enough to take a crying child out of the Santuary

2. There was a Children's church that started just after the Children's story (a short story or discussion from the pastor). Any child that wanted could then follow the leader to the fellowship room for a child centered time, while the adults were listening to the sermon

3. Child care was also provided (the church ran a day care during the week) so younger children could be dropped there prior to the service.

4. Some churches actually had an intercom in the nursery so you could hear the service and take care of your crying child at the same time

Everyone was happy!

[GenerationCedarchip]

Both fundie and fundie-lite churches I've been to are quite the opposite. The Family Integrated bunch go pretty extreme with the insistence that the entire family pretty much be velcroed together upon entering the building (no nursery, no youth group, etc...), but most places I've been are more moderate. There's usually a nursery but you can bring your kids into service if you prefer. As long as they're not screaming at the top of their lungs, kids were welcome to stay the whole service or just parts of it.

[Feberin]

I always thought fundies kept their kids with them during church. We attend Catholic masses when we feel like it and it's always a struggle with my son. At 1 1/2 he's too young to sit quietly for an hour even with soem books, makers and quiet toys. We take him out when he gets loud but I still feel bad since we seem to be the only family with a child his age who attends mass except for one other family but they keep their kid eating during the whole mass. I don't want to do that though because I feel like that's teaching him to eat out of boredom.

[bananacat]

At all the Methodist churches I've been to, there is a voluntary nursery for kids under age 5. Parents would usually take infants to the service but go out into the lobby if the baby started to cry. From kindergarten through about 5th grade, kids would stay for the first part of the service, then there would be a children's time when the pastor would invite the kids up front for a few minutes, and after that they would go to a special children's church to have a more age-appropriate lesson instead of listening to the sermon. All of this was voluntary. It seems like with fundies it has to be all-or-nothing. Either kids always have to be at their parents' side, or they can never come to the service at all. Why not let each family decide?

[Kitty]

At the last church I went to, there were the nursery and children's church. My church was fairly typical Southern Baptist. I dunno if either was mandatory, but I don't recall seeing really young children in church except every now and then. At the same time, the preacher didn't consider anything 'inappropriate' for children, even when he pontificated about abortion and gays.

IMO I think there needs to be some sort of youth church in lieu of forcing kids to listen to a sermon. I could never sit through the sermons, even at 11-13 years old, probably because of my ADHD. Then again my dad could never even stay awake...

[mnb357]

At the Episcopal church I attend, babies stay with parents through the whole service, children who are old enough, (pre-school and up) CAN go to Sunday school during the service, where they will be brought in for confession and Eucharist, OR serve as acolytes if they choose to take the training. They are also welcome to sit with their parents for the entire service if that is what they prefer. Most kids don't! My kids LOVE Sunday school, as it's small, and encompasses kindergarten through 18. The older kids must like it too, because they choose to be there more often than in the service. I HAVE left the service for the parish hall with fussy babies out of courtesy, and actually receivied a lecture about the meaning of "sanctuary" from an older member once when I did so. He told me that if crying babies weren't welcome there, all hope was lost. As for hitting a child...IN CHURCH, no less? I envision my congeregation pulling a Monty Python-esque "Hitting? Hitting is right out!" ::SHUDDER:: Or else, hitting me back. You FJERS make me appreciate my church more and more each day!

[Joykins]

I've been to all kinds of churches, mostly evangelical and some mainline, and none of 'em forced you to do one thing or another with your kids. All of them provided some sort of Sunday School for the kids though.

I have heard megachurches are more dictatorial about things like that though.

[HowRude]

I've never heard of a church that was this way until now.At my church parents understood that they could have their children in the nursery or the children program but they were welcome in the main sanctuary as well. The only reason this was, was because the sermon was boring to kids.

[DistantStar]

My Episcopal church has a cry room, walled in glass and apparently equipped with speakers, in the back so that people can take their kids in there and still see and hear what's going on. And it gets used, too! I'm in the choir so am up front for the whole thing and have seen as well as heard families going in. I think it's brilliant. And as others have said, the older kids have Sunday school during a good part of the service but are there for the readings at the start and come back for Communion at the end. I think that's a good way to handle it; they are there for the really important parts and they know how it works, but nobody is forced to sit through a sermon if they don't want to. They are welcome to stay, of course, if they want.

I can't wrap my mind around "no children allowed ever" in a church. It doesn't make sense.

[dawn9476]

My Episcopal church has a cry room, walled in glass and apparently equipped with speakers, in the back so that people can take their kids in there and still see and hear what's going on. And it gets used, too! I'm in the choir so am up front for the whole thing and have seen as well as heard families going in. I think it's brilliant. And as others have said, the older kids have Sunday school during a good part of the service but are there for the readings at the start and come back for Communion at the end. I think that's a good way to handle it; they are there for the really important parts and they know how it works, but nobody is forced to sit through a sermon if they don't want to. They are welcome to stay, of course, if they want.

I can't wrap my mind around "no children allowed ever" in a church. It doesn't make sense.

Didn't the Duggars visit a church with a cry room and we saw Michelle take one of the little kids to it?

[QueenMother]

Is this the big church in MN, that also doesn't like people over 35 attending? Sounds like them.

The fundie crowd usually goes for the entire family worshipping together in a pew, and take pride in taking up the entire pew. Personally, I like a church that likes children in church.