Why Raising Our Kids in the Local Church Matters
Editor’s Note: While we affirm with Scripture the good and necessary gift of Christian fellowship for our spiritual growth, we also acknowledge that, in a fallen world, church experiences can be hard—and even hurtful. If you’re navigating a difficult church relationship today, we hope you’ll be encouraged to keep trusting the Lord and seeking the blessing of a healthy body of believers, whether by persevering through a tough season or pursuing a change. God is faithful to lead you as you lead your family!
As a mom of three young kids, Sundays can often feel overwhelming for me. What is supposed to be a day of Sabbath rest can often begin with an early morning, bowls of half-eaten cereal, and every shoe we own strewn across the entryway. I know I am not unique in this, but after a week of school and sports schedules and playdates and missed nap times for my youngest, sometimes church on a Sunday morning can feel more like a duty than a joy.
I was thinking this a few Sundays ago, as I tried to wipe down my counters with one hand and hand out toast with the other—when we were late (again) and I was trying to hurry everyone through their morning routines. As we were packing up, an old hymn played over my Bluetooth speaker. Without thinking, I began to sing the words.
“How did you learn those words, Mommy?” my daughter asked.
In my mind’s memory, I heard my grandad singing it in the pew in his smooth baritone voice, chest puffed out and hands around a hymnal. I heard my brother playing it on the cello while we sang along. I heard other kids around me singing it on a Sunday night at a youth group.
“I know the words because I was taught,” I answered. Because on a Sunday morning when there was always too much to do, grown-ups in my life made the effort to raise me in the local church.
In his gentle, patient way, the Lord has been reminding me of the ways he has used the church to draw me toward him my whole life, even when I wasn’t looking.
My education in the church came by way of a hard-backed pew and floors of plush red carpet, old hymnals with taped spines, and stacks of books that filled the church library with their earthy smell. It came by way of a church basement, transformed every summer through copious amounts of cardboard and paint into a stage for Vacation Bible School, where my mom led the kids’ worship songs with her ’90s haircut and old guitar.
My early understanding of the church was formed by ornate coffee hours, run by an army of women who, at the end of the service, rushed into the fellowship hall piled high with enormous carafes and beautifully decorated pastries. It was formed through hymn sings around a dusty piano, potluck dinners, and secondhand sofas in a youth room, where men and women in their twenties taught me how to study and ask questions of the Bible. It came by way of my dad, who can barely say the name Jesus without tearing up—who spent years praying over and for me the beautiful words of Ephesians 3, that I would come to know how wide and high, how long and deep is the love of Christ.
I was surrounded, before I even knew what to call it, by men and women who rehearsed the gospel to me, week after week, year after year. The hymns, the Bible verses, the prayers, and the hospitality they passed down to me are today like precious jewels I carry close to my heart.
The more I get to know and love Jesus, the more those men and women who raised me in the church become to me. It is the Spirit who brings us to love him, but often, he will do it through the people in our lives who love him too. Before I ever loved Jesus myself, I experienced his love in the form of the local church.
In an age where church is an increasingly consumer-centered experience, where it can often feel easier for parents to keep their children home and watch church online, the hymns over my Bluetooth reminded me what a precious gift I’ve been given by being raised in a thriving local church.
It is through the weekly gathering and ordinary activities that we get to know and love one another. The physical, tangible local church is where we teach ourselves and our children what it looks like to walk through life as a family, carrying one another’s joys and burdens.
Getting my family out the door on a Sunday morning might not be the most convenient option, but it is arguably the better one. Week after week, my children are navigating the throngs of coffee hour. They are learning about Elijah and John the Baptist alongside Dixie cups of Cheerios in brightly painted Sunday school rooms. They are resting their heads on our shoulders as we carry them in our arms, tears in our eyes while we look towards heaven in worship. Fellow church members have brought us meals, sat with us in grief and joy, prayed with us in our living room, and then have been there to greet my children by name with a hug on a Sunday morning. Sunday by Sunday, my children are learning what it means to be formed by a community of believers.
As we worship, eat, study, live, and serve together, we are learning to grasp how wide and high, how long and deep is the love of Christ. Weekly, we have the opportunity to rehearse the gospel alongside the brothers and sisters in our church, with whom we are walking this bumpy and beautiful road of sanctification.
