Should we segregate our children from parents during church services?
In this video, Toby Logsdon addresses the practice of separating children from parents during church services and questions whether it has a biblical basis. He expresses the view that children are primarily discipled by their parents, as evident in the biblical scriptures. He encourages parents to take on the role of the 'youth pastor' for their children, emphasizing the importance of parental guidance in the spiritual upbringing of their kids.
Logsdon further explains that children can be easily discipled with the right guidance and conversations. He suggests that parents should have ongoing conversations about the church and spiritual matters throughout the week, fostering an environment conducive for their kids to learn and understand. He asserts that children do learn to behave and participate in church when guided by their parents, debunking the need for segregation.
Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV): "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
The scriptures show us and tell us very explicitly how kids are to be brought up. The only reason that we segregate our children from the adults in our services is because that's what maybe we were brought up doing or that's what we've been told we're supposed to do. But if you take the Bible at face value and look at what the Bible's testimony is about children, you see that parents are the primary disciple makers of their own children. I tell the parents in my church, you are the youth pastor. You are your child's youth pastor.
So you need to be the one investing in your child. Don't try to put that responsibility on the shoulders of somebody who doesn't love your child as much as you do. You love your children more than anybody else does, more than any youth pastor. You have a different love for them than anybody else does. So you have to be the one, you need to be the one, discipling your kids.
And so with that in mind, the biblical testimony is clear, and if we follow it, what we find is that kids are very, very easily discipled. They do listen to their parents. They do learn to sit still in church. They do learn to quiet down in church, but mom and dad need to be having those conversations about what we do in church throughout the week as they're talking about other spiritual matters as well.