Children in Chicago
If we were to take a survey of the top concerns for families considering city-center church planting, “The welfare of my children” would make a list of the top three. The welfare of children in Chicago is a non-trivial topic. The combination of skyrocketing rents, a deeply troubled school system, and a seemingly endless stream of violence amongst Chicago teens has most families fleeing to the nearest suburban strip-mall paradise before their moving truck is half-empty.
Given these difficulties, a critical question to ask is whether the whole family is, in fact, a central part of the witness of Christ to the world? If it is, then our strategies for city-center church planting must include a plan for children. In fact, I would argue that in order to have the strongest possible witness for Christ in the city, we shouldn’t be planning for our children simply to survive in it, but to thrive.
Popular Methods
Church plants typically deal with children in three ways:
1. Children’s Programs
Try this if you live in America: Pick a random church building in your city that you haven’t visited before. On a Sunday, walk inside with your children, wearing a blindfold. Begin counting the seconds from the moment you step in the door. If more than three seconds transpire before you are told where to drop off your children, take your blindfold off and congratulate yourself for finding a non-Caucasian church in your neighborhood. (Note: If the walls are covered with full bookshelves, you may have accidentally walked into a library.)
The plan on paper for children in most church plants is weekly training through accessible and fun activities and teachers (Sunday School, Children’s Ministry, etc.). The real strategy for children in many churches, however, is simply to make sure they don’t bother the adults during the Sunday service. There is a certain logic in this: If the parents aren’t able to concentrate in the Sunday service, how are they to be equipped? One might ask in return: Given the shocking number of children who leave the church and Christianity as soon as they can legally buy cigarettes, isn’t it time to question the effectiveness of this “train and if necessary, entertain” method?
2. Place the Responsibility on the Parents
Many churches utilize Children’s Programs, but also insist on the Biblical principle that father or parents are responsible for teaching their children about God. The church hosts periodic parenting seminars, and the role of the parent is frequently emphasized in sermons and teaching.
The father, however, may find himself at loss when the time comes to actually teach his children. Has he thought about the gospel in their language? Has he learned how to keep their attention? Is his life arranged in a way that provides natural opportunities for teaching his family? If not, who will help him develop a plan for these things?
An additional problem arises when the church plant tries to recruit volunteers for the Children’s Program after making such an emphasis. The program is still necessary, since the father still needs to be equipped in the Sunday Service, but it is now seen as less important. The question inevitably arises, “If daddy is responsible for training his children, why am I chasing them around the Sunday School classroom?”
3. Children in the Service
An alternative to the Children’s Program approach is to have the children actually participate in the Sunday gathering with the adults. In this model, children learn quietly alongside their parents, receiving theological training earlier and thus maturing as believers earlier. While this method certainly has been effective in certain historical and cultural contexts, it’s difficult to imaging the 21st century child enduring an entire sermon when he can’t sit still long enough to watch Sponge-Bob belch the alphabet.
Why Try?
Despite the difficulties, what is clear from Scripture from Eden to Ephesus is that children play a critical role in the mission of God in the world.
A few examples might include the teenage believer who saved much of the world population from starvation because of his faith in the God of the Bible (Genesis 41), or the one who won a decisive battle with a national enemy (1 Samuel 17). Consider the group of teenage friends who were taken to a foreign land and forced to learn witchcraft. If their parents were around to worry about whether they were called to be ministers or not, would they have had the chance to preach the gospel to the despotic world ruler of their age (Daniel 2:31-45; 3:19-30)?
In addition, parents, and especially fathers, are charged with the responsibility of not just disciplining, but instructing their their children in a way that will cause them to love and depend on Jesus (Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Psalm 78; Colossians 3:21). As a church seeks to practically equip its members for the work of ministry, surely it must use every opportunity to restore the God-given relationship between children and parents. Paul thinks this is so important that he addresses the children in Ephesus and Colossae directly (Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20), thus recording their place in these churches for the eyes of history.
Finally, our children may be our best hope for the future of the gospel in Chicago. Large cities are seldom transformed by outsiders. Surely, the best missionaries to the city — an environment where transience is the norm, where people groups in a neighborhood change within a decade — will be its native sons and daughters.
Our Plan For Children
The critical role of parents and children in the mission of Christ will be supported by members of the Line in at least three ways:
1. Training the Trainers
Rather than filling a children’s ministry with volunteers who feel “called” to minister to and train up children, members of the Line acknowledge that as a church we are all called to minister to and train up children. In addition, we recognize that many of us will be responsible for children of our own. As such, each member commits to learn to teach and train children.
Much of this training occurs on Sunday morning. Members rotate through a schedule of teaching teams and are mentored by a seasoned pastor. After meeting briefly with the pastor to discuss the lesson for that day, the team teaches the children of the church the lesson for that day, and is observed by the pastor. After the children leave, the pastor again meets with the team for critique, encouragement, and support. The emphasis of the entire exercise is to train the parent or future parent to train children.
2. Teaching Accompaniment
As Elders of The Line preach through Biblical texts and topics, they supplement their notes and material with ideas for teaching the same topics to children. Hence, teaching about the Scriptures as Sustenance might include…
- An encouragement: “Parents, the Bible here is helping you understand how not to starve your children. Raising healthy children will require you to know and daily tell God’s story, as well as how the gospel has affected your own life (Psa. 78). Just as you are careful to feed your children 3-5 times per day, you must be continually planning out how you will feed your Children with God’s word. Don’t worry, we’re here to help!”
- Evaluation helps: “Does my child think that our Bible time is boring? If so, am I earnestly pleading with them for it’s importance? Do I show them with my actions that I think God’s word is critical for my survival? Have I bought them their own Bible?”
- Ideas for activities: “Bake Bible-shaped cookies. Let the children smell, but not taste them. Dress up with them and go on a long ‘journey through the wilderness’ in your home. Make the journey last as long as possible. At the end of the journey, eat the Bible cookies. Be sure to explicitly tie your actions to love of God’s Word at each stage of the journey.” or “Start to use the phrase ‘hungry for the Bible’ in your home.”
- A narrative summary: “God wanted to teach His children (who he loved very much) an important lesson! He made them walk in the desert for years and years with no food anywhere except some special bread that He gave them from the sky! etc.”
3. Use of Narrative
As adult members of The Line learn and treasure God’s revelation of Himself in the narrative of history, they find themselves equipped with one of the most natural tools for training their children: story. As such, The Line uses any and all opportunities to immerse its members in the historical narrative of the Bible.
But we can’t confuse the loss that Paul speaks of as something similar to the way that other life-paradigms work (i.e., I will focus on Christ, at the expense of loving my children). The good news of the cross is transcendent over such distinctions. Whereas ordinary purpose gains momentum at the expense of other aspects of life, a Christ-centered life gains momentum in the alignment of all aspects of life with it. So Paul says,
Things could have been a lot rougher when Kayla and I got assessed as church planters at the 