Presbyterians affirm that a local congregation, adults and children, are a covenant community.
As I was prompted to remember, if you’re asked what the attendance is at church on Sunday and you only nominate number of adults, you’re not consistently biblical, let alone Presbyterian.
They also affirm that corporate gathering on the Lord’s Day is an act of obedience, not a discretionary choice about what edifies us.
So, what ground exists for excluding some of the covenant community from the corporate gathering, or for removing them from significant portions of it?
This is a matter that the leadership at mgpc is hoping to lead our church into a more consistent practice.
R. Scott Clark addresses the ‘Mystery Of Children’s Church’.
An article by Paul Gibbs in the January/February Briefing (not available online) has also been helpful.
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And why should they not take the Lords Supper?
Firstly, I did know what I was asking for when I posted this.
So, this post is about a practice (children present for corporate gathering) that can be discerned from Scripture.
I’d prefer to deal with the subject of who should take communion in a separate post (or thesis), but in short:
Our understanding of sacraments and children incorporates some degree of direct teaching and some degree of applied principle, and is grounded in an interpretation of Scripture which identifies continuity between the covenant community in Old and New Testament terms.
An imperative for infant children of believers eating the supper cannot be discerned from Scripture.
(In contrast to the way in which infant children of believers being baptised, for instance, can be discerned.)
There is no reason to think that both sacraments, which signify and seal aspects of Christ’s work on our behalf, have to be available to the infant children of believing parents.
They are baptised (recognised as part of the visible covenant community on the basis of their parent’s faith). The faith by which they were baptised is nourished and witnessed as their parent/s partake communion. The infant children witness this expression of obedience and faith as part of their being raised in the ‘fear and admonition of the Lord’.
In terms of discerning the body and blood of Christ, a child (and I have no particular age in mind) should demonstrate a consistent and age appropriate personal profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, as should any adult.
(Curiously, and this is not a diversion, I’ve been perplexed that some folk are comfortable feeding their unbaptised children communion, a practice that I can’t understand from any sort of biblical foundation.)
I’m curious as to why we’re assuming that leaving a room for another room is exclusion from community.
Not from community, from corporate gathering for corporate worship.
Community entails all we share together in Christ.
This is dealing with a particular aspect of our obedience as that community.
Thanks Gary. My mind is not yet made up on all of this. I’ve got a week to come to a view about it;) When we were in Sydney, it was the practice of a number of Presbyterian churches to include all children in the meal. And they’d never heard of Federal Vision Theology. So having had 3 years there and then coming back to a church where it is not the norm has meant that I’m having to have a good think about it.
If I may, I’ll just think out loud for a moment. (Dangerous I know. But, as I say, I don’t have a strong view either way).
Clarke, in one of his comments, says that children can take communion after they’ve made a profession of faith. I’m not sure what he means by that. It could mean that their profession needs to be a public one in a church gathering. If that’s what he means then I begin to feel uneasy. If he means that the profession can be a tacit or less obvious one (such as when at home) then I might have more sympathy.
I am uneasy about public professions of faith being the gate to the Communion Table because the profession becomes the functional equivalent of an adult baptism. It’s as though they become “proper” members of the church. And that implies that prior to their profession they were not.
If a child is baptised into the family of God, and if we as parents assume that as we pray for them and teach them scripture and model Christ to them, they will continue to grow up in the fear of the Lord, then we should not expect that there will be any need to make a public profession of faith. “I’ve always believed” might be their profession.
But if there is an expectation that children need to make a public profession of their faith before they take communion, I wonder if they might feel and be treated as though they are in limbo. And they might even feel like they need to experience some spiritual awakening that, in actual fact, they need not experience.
In my own case, I felt under pressure at 16 to make my profession and did so hastily. But I felt vindicated when everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief afterwards. In truth, I was saying what I thought they wanted to hear.
My children (3, 5 and 7) all make professions of faith whenever they pray. They believe that God is their God and that it is through Jesus that they are able to have their prayers heard. I believe them to be Christian.
There are some, like Kuiper (and even Chappo), who believe that children of believers opt out rather than into the kingdom. Perhaps (and I’m not settled on this yet) treating them like full members of the covenant community and having them partake in communion helps them to know that in spite of their smallness and youngness, they are equal members with big people in a big family.
Clarke recommends a book by Cornelis Venema on Paedocommunion. I’ll have to check it out.
BTW. Nathan’s question is a good one. But I think that the answer to it will take us back to the “corporate worship” question.
“But I think that the answer to it will take us back to the “corporate worship” question.”
Which I thought was the point of the post… my mistake…
“Not from community, from corporate gathering for corporate worship.
Community entails all we share together in Christ.
This is dealing with a particular aspect of our obedience as that community.”
Let me rephrase my question then – why do we see being in different rooms as being removed from “corporate worship” – especially if they’re only in different rooms for the “teaching” component – I fail to see how forcing children to sit through 25-60 minutes of instruction aimed at adults is “teaching” – Paul seems to think that contextualisation is important, and there seems to be a place for members of the church community to “instruct” children.
I don’t read anything in the Bible that says children are to remain in the congregation for the entirety of the service – in fact, I think the story of Eutychus is a telling reminder that we probably shouldn’t bore our children to death…
Well, this is about obedience, not what seems to us to be the most fruitful way of doing things.
It seems to me that calling two groups in discrete locations receiving instruction a ‘corporate’ activity is the similar to having a ‘family movie night’ where the boys in the family all watch ‘The Dirty Dozen’ while the girls all watch ‘An Affair To Remember’. The family were all home, they all saw a movie and they all enjoyed it, but is that a family activity?
Paul writes a letter to the saints in Ephesus.
He addresses them directly, so I’m assuming he’s expecting the letter to be read out aloud when they’re gathered together.
I suppose you can argue that a corporate worship setting is not mandated.
In chapters five and six he applies the outworkings of his teaching to various people that he expects will be listening.
When he makes the statements that we refer to as chapter 6:1-4, he does not tell parents to instruct their children, he doesn’t tell someone to run into the adjoining room and read this part to the children, he directly addresses the children.
He applies the Gospel principles directly to them, as are appropriate in their circumstance of life.
It doesn’t seem that he expected they’d be anywhere else than with the others.
If this wasn’t taking place in a corporate worship situation it only means that their were other times when everyone gathered and children were present.
Totally agree with your comments on Eutychus.
That’s why it’s a good thing to be looking at people when you’re preaching.
Otherwise you have to wait for them to start snoring to know that you’ve lost them.
(Get Chris Perona to tell you about the first time someone went to sleep during one of his sermons.)
Nathan, go easy on the sarcasm. “The corporate worship question” that I am referring to is the perennial question of what we are doing as we meet/gather/congregate/assemble together on Sunday. I was pointing out that there is a question behind the question, i.e. why do we meet together?
Those who follow Clarke and those who follow a Knox/Robinson view of gathering will find little common ground in the answer to that question.
That wasn’t meant to be framed as sarcasm. It was tongue in cheek, I have no problem with this discussion being broader.
Thanks Nathan. My mistake. Sorry.
“I have no problem with this discussion being broader.”
Not that it’s up to me though…
I think we make a grave mistake in terms of reaching non-Christians if we see separating children and adults to be taught at appropriate levels.
I don’t see any theological imperative, or Biblical injunction, to keep children in the same room as the adults for teaching – even if that was the first century practice it seems to me to be a cultural rather than theological norm. Children in the first century were to be seen and not heard. Education was conducted largely in the home, with the parents (or a slave/tutor). I think this is a horses for courses issue.
I have no problem with an all age Sunday School with adults and children receiving instruction in separate classes. I’m not putting a case for what produces the best outcome, but rather what accords with the example and applied principle of corporate worship as described in Scripture.
Corporate worship is not primarily a teaching time, though every element is rich in instruction. As something God commands, and as something we do in continuity with God’s people through history.
(And preaching is not teaching, as you’re most interestingly discussing back on your blog. Preaching is a unique form of communication which God particularly uses as a means by which His grace is given to the church.)
Corporate worship is directed toward God. It is not for us, and care needs to be applied when thinking about how we can get more out of worship.
If everyone together in biblical times was a cultural norm, it was because their culture was shaped by striving to be obedient to Scripture.
The gathering together of the whole Christian community, male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, adult and child, equal before God in Christ while still in their station of life was counter cultural.
Non-believers were far more likely to be repelled by what the constitution of those in Christian worship in biblical times than by the types of churches that you and I frequent.
Hot topic, Gaz.
We had some passionate disagreement over this question amongst the people at our church back in 2008. After six months of consultation & debate, the session put in place a new model that won approval from both sides and seeks to better express what is happening when we gather together to worship God.
I’m not clever enough to know if I am Smith-Robinson or Knox-Granville, but I figure that if we believe in the holy catholic church (ie. Heb 12:22-23), and if we as a local family are gathered around Jesus, joining in with the hosts of heaven and with the people of God past, present & future, then the argument over the kids doing the same thing as us (liturgically) in the next room at the same time seems to be a bit pedantic.
I agree that “the corporate gathering on the Lord’s Day is an act of obedience”, our Reformed confessions & hyper-calvinst brethren will agree with it also, but from a biblical perspective, why is it an act of obedience, and how can we best express our submission and conformity to the principle or law that we are seeking to obey? It was the resolution of that question that helped us come to a Kids’ Church model that is alot like our gathered worship – imperfect and completely unworthy of the One to whom we offer it. In practice, however, it engages and teaches our kids about corporate worship, and is consistent with our theological convictions – one of which is the mediation of our risen & glorified Lord Jesus, in whose Name our worship is offered.
So for me, the biggest problem in this area is a pastoral one: kids are taken out during the “adult bit” when they are 5, we bring them back when they are 15, tell them to sit still & listen to the sermon for 30 minutes and wonder why they are not interested!
As if I haven’t said enough already…
I thought I’d also chip in the point that we miss the essence of what is happening when we come together if we focus on what we are doing for God rather than what He is providing in and through us as He gathers us to Himself. The whole event is God powered, God ordained & God centred, so I worry about obsessive self examination in corporate worship. I hope I’m not reading into the Scriptures too much when I see gathered worship as celebration of Who God is and what He has done?
Anyway, for our part, a good portion of NT teaching on gathered worship talks about our attitude & conduct towards one another & the impact that our encounter with God and with one another ought to have on us as a people (eg. 1 Cor 14).
It’s how the points that you’ve made come together consistently that is the issue.
If everyone’s not together it’s not corporate.
If it is obedience then what you get out of it is that you’ve been obedient.
What our children get out of it is that they learn obedience.
There are other blessings, but they are by-products of obedience, not the central aim of worship, which is directed toward God.
At it’s best, worship is a gathering of the covenant people, obediently engaging in actions that God has required, in a pattern which reinforms us about His and our natures and His triune work of redeeming us. Check out Bryan Chapell’s new book on worship.
Knox-Robinson sees all of life as worship except for the two hours on sunday morning when we gather in a meeting to hear a talk.
(Or so it seems)