There is a movement growing very rapidly, commonly coined the “Family Integrated Church” movement.
Before I offer some constructive criticism of this movement, let me say first of all, that at Reformation Baptist Church, we are a “family integrated church”… sort of.
At RBC, we believe that the family should worship together, whenever possible. There are families however, with babies and sometimes, small children who are simply not ready for the challenges of having their children in the service. Do we condemn them for this? By no means.
In fact, there is a passage in Nehemiah 8 that is very helpful in trying to understand this matter. In Neh. 8:1-3 it says:
And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2 So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand (emphasis mine).
We believe it is good for fathers (and mothers) to teach their children to sit still and learn how to worship God. To insist on this however is going too far and really creates a law that is extra-biblical (think: legalism).
To use passages such as Deut. 6 to create complex arguments for mandatory integration in all things is going way beyond what the text actually says.
What we are calling the “Family Integration Movement” seeks to go beyond what we believe is good and encouraging (families worshiping together) and really define the church with family integrated categories (rather than Law, Gospel and Worship). We believe that this movement is unsound and moves our emphasis from Christ as the center to the family as the center.
Brian Borgman has posted a helpful critique of this movement on his blog. You can read it here:
http://gracenevada.blogspot.com/2010/01/critique-of-family-integrated-church.html
I would add to his critique that not only does the FIC movement misunderstand the purpose of the church and the gospel, they also do not convey (at least in any of the literature I have read) a Biblical understanding of the Sabbath and worship.
The FIC encourages father’s roles in the church, to be involved in teaching their children on the Lord’s Day, etc. But this confuses the roles of fathers as priests and elders as priests. While we are all priests, we do not all share the same function and roles.
You can understand this if you just think about it for a minute. Are not children who are saved also priests in God’s temple (the priesthood of ALL believers)? Yet, the FIC recognizes a difference in roles between fathers and children (that fathers should teach children).
But, the FIC wants to downplay the difference between the roles of teaching elders and fathers!
The biggest problem we have with this is that fathers are not encourage to “rest in the gospel” on the Lord’s Day. This I believe is one of the most tragic consequences of the wrong-headed theology being taught by this movement.