When Church Segregates Families

As a church leader, God has really been challenging me lately.  I feel like it is our responsibility to unite the family at church rather than segregate them.

The last verse in the Old Testament prophesies concerning the coming of the LORD. “And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and their hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction” (Mal 4:6). The significance of this verse concluding the Old Testament can not be overstated. The coming of Jesus was to usher in a time when families would be reunited.

Unfortunately, we are creating church cultures where we do the complete opposite and segregate families as soon as they hit the church campus parking lot.

 
Currently, we are reversing the trend at North Side and putting families back together. We still have age appropriate teaching and programs, but we are also focusing on getting families back together. We recently did away with some children’s services so that they could worship alongside their parents. We also removed different types of services so that multigenerational families could worship alongside each other.

It has been amazing to see, in some cases, four generations of one family singing God’s praises alongside each other. With these changes, our family worship guides have proven to draw these families back together. Whatever your ministry context is, evaluate whether or not your church is currently uniting families or segregating families.

Excerpt from Don’t Drop Your Kids Off at Church.