{"id":55458,"date":"2022-12-12T15:23:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T21:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=55458"},"modified":"2022-12-15T13:33:23","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:33:23","slug":"childrens-ministry-is-not-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=55458","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s Ministry Is NOT the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you and your children join the church for worship last Sunday? It\u2019s possible you were both at the same address, but you gathered <em>with <\/em>the church while your children went to a ministry <em>of<\/em> the church<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Churches often betray their own convictions about the church, confusing parents and children along the way. Putting children\u2019s ministry in its proper place is not only a matter of ecclesiological preference; it influences how we affirm the salvation of our children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>CHILDREN\u2019S MINISTRY IS A CHURCH\u2019S MISSION FIELD<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jonathan Leeman helpfully defines the local church this way:<\/p>\n<p>  a regular gathering or assembly of people who mutually affirm one another as Christians through preaching the gospel and participating in baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper.  <\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notice the church is not <em>merely <\/em>defined by those who gather for worship. Non-Christians and unaffirmed professors of Christ will be gathered there too. Rather, a church is made up of those affirmed in their faith who gather around the Word and ordinances.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Might there be children of varying ages counted in church? Sure. It depends on the church. However, it\u2019s best not to think of children\u2019s ministry as part of the church. Instead, think of it as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s best not to think of children\u2019s ministry as part of the church. Instead, think of it as a mission field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":572,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[328],"class_list":["post-55458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-discipleship","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55460,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458\/revisions\/55460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}