Does faith formation come from sitting with parents in a worship service or from understanding aspects of worship from a perspective that complements one's developmental stage in life? Of course you can give a child crayons and a piece of paper to keep them preoccupied and out of your hair while the pastor preaches, and they may draw something that has to do with the sermon. But does doodling mean they learned a thing? They can color on the children's menu at the restaurant after church, too — no spiritual reinforcement there. What 6- or 7-year-old could possibly care about the parsing of a Greek verb, or get much out of examples employing lofty metaphors? Most high school graduates are lucky not to fall asleep! Would not more “faith formation” (since that is the buzz word) take place if at least the sermon time was supplemented with something the children could actually relate to and learn from?
Additionally, the BGCT's Diane Lane is wrong. Teachers on a monthly rotation are no more sporadic than the VBS teachers children have for four days of the 365 in a year. God still moved in our church's VBS this year. How much do we limit the Spirit (and insult the laity) by automatically assuming the worst about the children and teachers in these situations? The teachers at our church do a wonderful job with the children and rarely have any problems. Lane, who was heavily quoted, seems to only point out potential problems in children's church, giving only as a token afterthought to those ignorant congregations advice on how congregants may meaningfully practice children's church … if they have to.
Our congregation is autonomous (as every Baptist church should be) in its decision to have children's church during the second half of Sunday services. It is a blessing to our congregation and to our families in the way of children's faith formation. I implore Virginia Baptist churches to reasonably consider children's church in their congregations, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater as Henson did in his highly one-sided article.
Jonathan Davis, Sandston Baptist Church, Sandston