Train Up a Child

During a recent church visit the pastor justified his church model of not having children’s church or youth groups and keeping the membership together generationally. “The culture segregates by age and so does the church. Nothing in God’s Word says to separate by age. People say children can’t sit through a service…of course they can!” This pastor puts great emphasis on God’s call for us to live intergenerational and places the responsibility for training children on parents. Then, bemoaning the fact that less than one-half of one-percent of Millennials (18-23 years old) have a biblical world view, he said, “It’s about the fact that the church quit training children. God did not call the world to raise children.” From personal experience it was the church, not my parents, who was equipped to train and give me instruction in the Lord. “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6 NIV).