Post by debbiehigginbotham on Sept 28, 2005 13:14:44 GMT -5
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Heather asked me what a family-integrated church is, so I thought I would address that. The whole family worships/attends services together rather than having a children's church, separate Sunday school, youth groups, etc. We have felt convicted for a while about that. There are so many bad influences on our children and other people to take their hearts away from us and the Lord, even in the churches of today. We found this church from going to the National Center for Family Integrated Churches web site. This is a ministry of Vision Forum (a homeschool supplier). We also read a book they sell titled, "A Critique of Modern Youth Ministry." I grew up house churching until recently so we did not have this problem. But a couple of years ago we allowed our boys to attend a Word of Life club on Wed. nights at a neighbor's church. It was awful
. 90% of these children were home educated, and the church was a conservative Baptist church. I was shocked to see the behavior of the children (rude) and how entertainment-minded they were (2 Tim. 2:22). Everything had to be "fun," and there was not much serious study (2 Tim. 2:15, 16). They also gave our oldest an inappropriate "Christian" book to read about the facts of life without asking us. This whole philosophy of youth ministry seems to bond the children to a youth pastor and splits up the family instead of drawing the family together around the father's headship. So we discontinued going.
Your sister in Christ,
Debbie
Heather asked me what a family-integrated church is, so I thought I would address that. The whole family worships/attends services together rather than having a children's church, separate Sunday school, youth groups, etc. We have felt convicted for a while about that. There are so many bad influences on our children and other people to take their hearts away from us and the Lord, even in the churches of today. We found this church from going to the National Center for Family Integrated Churches web site. This is a ministry of Vision Forum (a homeschool supplier). We also read a book they sell titled, "A Critique of Modern Youth Ministry." I grew up house churching until recently so we did not have this problem. But a couple of years ago we allowed our boys to attend a Word of Life club on Wed. nights at a neighbor's church. It was awful
. 90% of these children were home educated, and the church was a conservative Baptist church. I was shocked to see the behavior of the children (rude) and how entertainment-minded they were (2 Tim. 2:22). Everything had to be "fun," and there was not much serious study (2 Tim. 2:15, 16). They also gave our oldest an inappropriate "Christian" book to read about the facts of life without asking us. This whole philosophy of youth ministry seems to bond the children to a youth pastor and splits up the family instead of drawing the family together around the father's headship. So we discontinued going. Your sister in Christ,
Debbie
