Are churches unintentionally taking on a role that should primarily belong to parents?

In this video, Jason Dohm discusses two ways in which churches may be engaging in unhelpful discipleship methods. Firstly, he points out that although local churches play a crucial role in making disciples of Jesus, they should not be seen as the primary disciple makers, especially when it comes to children. The responsibility of a child's discipleship primarily lies with the parents. When a church invests in creating structures for children's discipleship and centers its activities around it, it gives the impression that it has been bestowed the primary role, which is not the case. This could potentially disempower parents.

Secondly, Dohm emphasizes that discipleship programs for children should not be narrowly age-focused. Often, in many churches, adults lead a group of children of the same age, which results in the children becoming the primary disciple makers. This is not the biblical model of discipleship. Biblically speaking, discipleship should involve a mixture of different ages for optimal growth and development.

Deuteronomy 6:7 (NKJV): 'You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.'

Let me give you two ways that I think the church has gone about disciple making in unhelpful ways. The first is to set up structures that make the church seem like the primary disciple making. So the church definitely has a role in making disciples of Jesus, of course we do in the local church. But in the disciple making of children, the primary role is given to parents. And the problem with spending just so much time and treasure of local churches, setting up structures for the discipleship of children and centering so many things in a local church around that is it makes it seem like the church has been given the primary role for that.

So should churches being doing things to help children become disciples of Jesus? Of course churches should. But should they give the impression that the church has been given the primary role? Absolutely not. In fact, that actually disempowers parents in ways I don't think churches have really appreciated.

And secondly, when churches set up things for the discipleship of children that are so narrowly age-focused, What ends up is there are a couple of adults and 20 12-year-olds, 20 14-year-olds and when you set something up like that the disciple makers overwhelmingly end up being the 12 year olds and the 14 year olds. This is not what we need. This is really not what you see about discipleship in the Bible. It's much more a mixture of ages and that's healthy for all the obvious reasons.