Do children or families get converted

[Reuben]

After years of doing work with non-churched children our church is rethinking its strategy. How can a 6 year old become a Christian in a holiday club if their parents don't believe? Why does the whole youth group put their hands up and give their life to Christ - but we then see no impact on their lifestyles? Re-reading Acts it is families that seemed to believe and be baptised. If a young non churched child becomes a Christian how can we support them if we only see them for an hour every week (except holidays) and then lose contact with them when they turn 10? Many of our Evangelical church families see their children as being covered by their parents' faith until they are old enough to choose for themselves (with infant baptism paralleling circumcision and confirmation bar mitsvah) does this not also apply to non christian families lack of faith? This question is genuinely theological but is also practical (I found it really hard to explain to a non churched dad why her daughter had given her life to Christ yet we had not talked to him about it at all). I am wondering if we should run credible (deep church) groups for non churched families instead of our holiday clubs. Perhaps with a focus on building relationships and sharing spiritual experiences rather than being too preachy. Am I heretical? I'm an evangelical(ish) episcopalian from a pentecostal background.

[Linda Mill]

I think there are a couple of issues here and not knowing everything about this I'll just comment from what Reuben has said here...

Firstly I know that children on their own do find it difficult to be Christians when there is no one else who is a Christian, but it does happen. The question is what is your follow up like? By that I mean when a child makes a decision to follow Jesus in a program like that how do you help them to continue that journey? Is there regular contact made with the child? What are the relationships with the leaders and the other children in that group like? Don't get me wrong here I'm not saying that reaching whole families is not the key because I actually think it is. But I also think that when we do run programs that target children there are ways to connect them into the discipleship process that will help them to develop despite the lack of faith in their parents - I have literally dozens of stories where this has happened and even better - where children have been the springboard for bringing their whole family to faith.

I also think that we need to be thinking more strategically about connecting families into our programs whenever possible. It's interesting that Reuben talks about focussing on building relationships and sharing spiritual experiences - for me that would always be the focus of any program we run. It's always about the relationships - how can we connect with the parent's? how can we connect with the children? How can we meet needs in our families communities? Maybe that's because my denomination comes from that background but for us that's where it's at first and foremost. The spiritual experiences and conversations develop out of those relationshps and connections.

That's my two cents worth anyway.

[Reuben]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'd love to hear how you have developed effective ways of discipling children from non churched families. It really upset all of us that we could not sustain contact with children we knew well and had become Christians. Another church near us recently stopped their children's work after a couple of years - and most of the children and families have no other point of contact with any church.

I understand doing follow up with teenagers- they have some choice over who they spend time with and parents expect them to have their own ideas. I have seen churches trying their youth work model with young children and it not working. Most of out local churches only run uniformed clubs for non-churched children (brownies or boys brigade) and don't even try to be evangelistic. I've not seen any church doing effective discipleship with young children from non churched families.

The practical problems we had were:
That young children can only come to stuff if their parents are motivated to bring them and a holiday club is useful - whereas another midweek activity is just hassle. Parents are also, rightly, protective of young children. I find it hard to envisage most non-churched parents making the effort to take their young children to something that is explicitly evangelistic (aimed at making their children Christians). We did try to build bridges (we phoned, wrote letters, and chatted at pick up time) but never really got to know the families. When we ran a holiday club the parents saw it as a church club (like brownies) and I don't think we were explicit enough about our aims. Some parents were, understandably, shocked when their children became Christian's! and this made it very hard to do the follow up.

Even when children do become Christians, and are able to keep coming to our groups I don't know how you lead them into a sustained nurtured faith without any other input from their family or from church friends. Even if it was appropriate the 8 year old does not want to be spending lots of 1:1 time (or even 2:1 time) with their leader while their friends are all doing games. There are those nurturing conversations over snack time or in buzz groups - but it is not a lot of input especially when you take holidays etc into account. We also had some contact with the children in the local school (assemblies PSE etc) but contact with parents or following up interest was even harder in this context!

In addition to all these problems we also had a longer term issue about what we did when they got older. Despite our planning and efforts it was just too big a transition to move up to the youth groups, and the non churched kids all stopped coming aged 10 or 11 because they felt there was nothing that they felt comfortable moving up to. The next group up was mainly church kids, and I think this was also part of the issue. It's really hard to link non-churched kids into church groups and the two groups of children didn't mix. (When we ran joint events the churched children did not attend!). If you don't know anyone and don't have a church background sunday school or the church picnic were just scary places to be. If you can't make this transition then it is hard to see how we can offer effective and sustained followup as you get older.

I don't know how you get around these problems unless you first do a lot of work with parents / families before you run the holiday club. I don't want to put God in a box (people become Christians at all different ages and in all different ways - and God leads churches to work in different ways) but generally I find it hard to see how you can lead a 8 year old into a sustained and nurtured faith if all their family are agnostic or even anti-christian. We seem to stop working effectively with non churched families when they leave the parents and toddlers group. I wondered if it would be more productive for children's workers to put their evangelistic efforts into developing groups for these families to move up into as their children got older. Perhaps storytelling groups, or family craft stuff with the option of moving into to an exploring bible stories, or singing spiritual songs group? - I don't know but I just feel we need to try a fresh approach.

For me this isn't just a practical issue (what technique works best). I come from a Christian family and became a Christian in a thoughtful way over a period of time, and at times felt uncomfortable at some of the "alter calls" I've seen in kids meetings. I don't have a clear theology on "spiritual formation" but, perhaps because of my own testimony, am instinctively drawn to a belong and then believe model. I am also aware of the anxiety a lot of people have about Christians and I really want what we do as a church to be honest and don't like the football club with an epilogue approach.

For a non-Christian perspective See the film Jesus Camp (2006) which bits of are on youtube. I've had conversations about brainwashing with parents who have read Richard Dawkins and the anger in the creation / evolution debate.

I guess some of this is specific to our (middle class) area, but do you face similar problems? Have you found a way forward?

[Linda Mill]

Hi again
you've made some great points here. For our discipleship stuff we have material that our denomination produces that we can use as part of a weekly program. I don't like to call it a program because discipleship is a journey so I guess it's material to help children understand the Christian faith, issues of being a Christian in the everyday and learning how to participate in the life of the church. It's not perfect but it is helpful. Aside from the teaching material there are age appropriate 'tasks' the children complete over the year - they can be simple things like praying or reading their Bible to helping out at an outreach event in some way - they are designed to help children develop spiritual disciplines as well as be involved in activities that develop their faith. Each child also has a prayer partner who's responsibility is to pray for that child each week and to take an interest in their spiritual development. The children may choose this person themselves or the leader may do that for them. This is with both non-churched and churched children. All parents are contacted before they become involved and given the information about what will happen at the weekly (or however often they meet, it's not always weekly) program. We have found most parents are happy for their children to receive 'good moral teaching' as they put it or to receive 'values'. That's not how we describe it but that's what they think.

I really like Ruth Thomas suggestion too about people in the church adopting non-churched children. For some of the adults I've spoken to who became Christians in a non-churched family this was what made the difference for them too.

I don't think there is any definitive solution here. I wish there was. It comes down to finding out what works in your church and local community.

We also have uniformed clubs but they are evangelistic in nature and they have been quite successful in certain parts of our country. Again, its about community and culture but they have worked. The children are doing all the lifestyle, camping and fun stuff but there is a spiritual component built into the badgework and the activities the children are involved in. The trick is of course connecting children and their families to the church. Where there are churched children attending this does work well. Also when the church takes an interest in the children -we have 'church parades' where the children & their families are asked to attend 4 times per year. the service is designed to connect particularly with these children & families and it is a time to build relationships between church & non-church.

Some of these things may work for you they may not. I hope it's helpful.

[Dave Roberts]

This debate was at the root of many churches moving away from unchurched work in the seventies. Some would argue that the main task when working with the unchurched is to give them the story so that it can be part of their spiritual formation and that some input is better than none. Another nuance to the discussion relates to whether the unchurched family is part of the fringe of the church with some existing friendships there or relative strangers.

[Ruth Thomas]

Reuben, thanks for raising this question! It's one that has fascinated me for some while, but it doesn't seem to be one that's often addressed by most of the stuff on child evangelism, which sort of assumes parental belief or at least support. What to do if that support is lacking isn't really considered.

For me it was an entirely practical question: I became a Christian aged eight, with a mum who was "deeply lapsed" (she rediscovered her faith a year or two later) and a dad who was (and remains) an ardent atheist. I became interested in Christianity via grandparents and schoolfriends, and discovered some local Sunday school teachers who lived opposite and were happy to take me along with them. The church never did quite work out how to cope with me, but the family who lived opposite, and later another local Christian family, were kind enough to go out of their way to include me in their Sunday patterns, and occasionally took me to midweek events too. These families also helped give me confidence to progress into a church youth group in due course.

It seems to me that this kind of "informal adoption" of non-churched children by church families is an excellent way of caring for them, although it's clearly important that the non-churched child's parents can meet and trust the Christian family. Could your church encourage the Christian families to look out for other children -- perhaps neighbours or schoolfriends of their own children -- and try to involve them?

It's great if the church can work with non-churched families, but I know that my dad would never have gone along to anything organised by the church, however relationally-based; weddings and funerals are his limit, though he never tried to stop me being involved. So working with the whole family isn't always possible.

My experience is that the "belong and then believe" model usually works for unchurched children too (perhaps not for unchurched teens or adults). But my experience was: interest in Christianity, attendance at Sunday school to find out more, a sense of belonging to the Sunday school and church community, followed (fairly soon) by belief and commitment. So making the unchurched children feel part of the community, even if they can only go along to activities once a week or less, is clearly very significant.

Hope some of this helps!

[Reuben]

Thanks, that's really helpful.
It's so good to hear that there is a way into the church for un-churched eight year olds! I guess for you it was your grandparent's and school friends who were trusted by your family and the bridge for you into the church community. Even so you did not "fit in" at church and only went to the occasional midweek group (though obviously still felt you belonged). We have just become God parents for a child who's mum came to church faithfully as a teenager (13+) even though no one talked to her for three years! She only became a Christian when she went to university. I don't know how to move the church from our friends experience to yours. As a group leader I can only be that bridge for my children's friends. I guess we need church structures that promote and value that "informal adoption" role for other families in the church. We will also need to make sure that there are regular events that children can bring their friends to. I guess sunday school with times to talk and make friends (not just packed with activities) and a midweek meeting with a similar space would be a good start.

I still wonder at running more groups for families (ie children with adults) even if this adult is an aunty or neighbour. Would something like this have made it easier for your neighbours to bring you, along with their own children, to a midweek meeting? It might also have allowed better communication with group leaders about how best to support you, or even been a way into the church for your mum.

It's late and I'm getting tired. I'll have to think some more about this.

Reuben

[Ruth Thomas]

One thing that's changed since I became a Christian is that way back then, nobody considered midweek activities to be very important (for any age group). A few such things ran, but Sunday events were where the emphasis was. The change of emphasis has both good and bad points -- just has to be taken into account.

Yes, I'd strongly recommend time at events to chat and relax; squash and biscuits are responsible for no end of spiritual development! Observant leaders who can spot and get alongside the child who is on their own in those times are very useful.

Not sure whether having groups for families, loosely interpreted, would have helped or hindered, but it certainly sounds worth a try. As Linda says, there isn't one definitive solution but you can try to find what works in your church and community. Paul's advice in 1 Cor 9:22 is worth remembering: use all means possible to save some.

Another consideration from my experience is not to underestimate the role of older people. My grandparents didn't take me along to church events since they lived 50 miles away! But they provided me with great role models of what godly lives could look like, and they prayed for me -- as did another retired couple who lived more locally. May God reward them for it.

[Dave and Sheri Gidney]

Have you considered using the retired couple approach to visiting the non-christian parents too ?
They are much less threatening than younger folk ... representing traditional respectable values ... which is where Christianity is still seen by many

Time and interest is the key isn't it ... these children, without that parental support will need bucket loads of it ... but it can happen ... and YEAH ! to the older guys here with more time ... they can be really key