New Church has a Pastoral Candidate coming next Sunday. There are several Meet-n-Greets set up over the weekend to get to know him and hear what he has to say. I can't make any of them but the Sunday morning time. I already feel bad for the Pastoral Candidate because as he walks into the church there are expectations in place that he will be, well, the savior of the church. The hope, by some, is that he will be younger and will attract younger families to the church, which is a lovely thought. I'm afraid the reality is something those who are hoping for younger families don't really want to face.
For, as I see it, the reality is that to attract younger families, the church needs to be family friendly and family friendly, these days, means that children are welcome. Not just welcome in their own building or rooms but welcome in the whole church building. Children are welcome, not just to their own programs but in the main church service.
One of the things that was attractive to me about New Church, before getting there, was the way they included children in the service. They have tables along the sides of the church that have craft supplies set up so that the children can color or create expressions of worship as they listen and participate in the service alongside the adults. Before I started attending, those expressions of worship were then brought up to the front of the sanctuary and pinned on a board, creating a place for the children in the service. They also had children's time. Now, I'm not a huge fan of children's time...sometimes I think it's more for the adults to be entertained by the children but at least it's a small opportunity for children to have a presence in church.
New Church had a parting of ways (in the most polite terms) with the Pastor who had instigated all of those things in church a couple of months before I started attending. I heard that within a week or two the boards came off the wall in the front of the sanctuary and children's time ceased to exist within the service. The tables have remained but slowly more chairs are being introduced into the sanctuary, in a passive-aggressive attempt to push out the tables maybe? What's happening more and more is that children are being pushed out of the service...to me that is the opposite of being family friendly.
What do people mean, then, when they say they want younger families in church? Do they really want the children that come along with the parents? Do they really want the changes that will need to occur for families to feel welcome? Do they really want younger families? Or do they just want someone who has a more flexible income and a checkbook?
