Apr. 9, 2008 - We Do It For Them
There are things we'd change about our church home, but several that we really appreciate. One of the things we appreciate is the leadership's willingness to let us train our children the way that God has convicted us. That means no children's Sunday School classes for them. They stay in the adult class with us. Now, that oftentimes means that they don't get much out of what is said. Sometimes I don't get much out of what is said. One of the men that teaches gets well above my head and wants to be so thorough that I miss the point, so I'm sure the children do also.
I have often thought that it would be so much easier to attend a bigger church where we could get involved more in the everyday goings on of the body. We have heard of and know of a couple that have sound Bible teaching and people are growing in the Lord. It would be even easier if we just attended a church in the little town that we live in. But the small town churches here would not understand us. In addition, we would have some doctrinal differences to overcome. We have never been pre-mellenial and most of the baptist churches around here are. We have always fallen in the amellenial camp. This is too big of a theological difference to have to explain to our children. Our change in our view of Baptism has been a big enough hurdle to overcome for the time being. (Bubba esp. is having a hard time believing a "believer's baptism" as opposed to the baptismal regeneration belief that he had been taught since the day he was born).
We made the mistake of putting our children in SS a few years ago, after Shane was preaching at the family integrated church and we were deflated... we gave in. It was not a wise choice. It took some time for the children to understand not going to children's Bible class. We had to convince them. Bubba has since told me he never got anything Biblical out of them, but they sure were fun.
Honestly, it was so much easier before we had children. We could overlook things we disagreed with. We loved our church home when we were first married. But I can be pretty sure that now that we have children, it would not fit our desire for a church home. There are several other churches where we would grow and learn, but to attend there we'd have to sacrifice our children on the altar of programs and we're not willing to do that. So we'll go forward, appreciating what our church home offers and filling in the rest at home.
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