Wanted: more church invaders

A few years ago, our family of six left a congregation full of parents with young children, and joined a church made up mostly of university students.1 This wasn’t an ideological statement on our part: it was simply because my husband works in university ministry, and that’s where we needed to be at the time. But it’s made me aware of some of the benefits and costs of going to church with people from a different age and stage from your own.

It’s easy to spend your entire life going to church with people just like you. Many of us start out in our parent’s church: a place, perhaps, with lots of other kids and teenagers. We graduate to a university church (that’s what my husband and I did), to a worker’s service, to a family service (ditto), to a congregation full of empty-nesters and, finally, retirees. It’s not so simple for those who are single, childless, or divorced; but that’s how it works a lot of the time. Even churches with mixed-age congregations find they tend to become homogeneous: for example, families with young children often attend church in the morning, while young adults go in the evening.2

Then there are the ‘church invaders’, people who make a deliberate decision to go to church with people who aren’t like them. I’ve met some of them: an energetic lady in her 60s who goes along to the youth service so she can show an interest in young people. A woman in her early 20s who attends a church where she’s the only person under 40, because she believes older and younger Christians need each other. A childless woman great at relating to kids, who gives her time to reaching out to children and their parents. A couple with older children who feel a little out of place in a congregation full of younger families, but who go to provide encouragement, support and wisdom.

So what is it like, crossing the frontiers? I won’t deny that I found it hard at first, going to a university church. I worried about my children growing up without lots of Christian kids their own age. I worried that no-one would want to talk to me - after all, what 20-year-old wants to hang out with a 40-something woman surrounded by noisy children? My instinct was to retreat to the back of the church, serve supper, feed my kids, and talk to the few women my age: to leave the boundaries between age groups uncrossed and unchallenged.

I’d love to claim some great godliness that helped me overcome this self-absorption, but I can’t. What happened was that, one memorable morning, I prayed about my attitude to church, and God’s Spirit convicted me that I was acting like a spoiled child: self-centred, self-conscious, self-pitying. Too wrapped up in myself to love those around me. Too concerned about what people thought of me to be concerned about them. Too obsessed with my own needs to consider the needs of others. I wept, repented, and asked for God’s help to start again.

In God’s very good timing – how often he brings us to the end of ourselves before he brings about a change in our circumstances! – the women in our church got together the following week. Older, younger, student, graduate, mother, teenager: we laughed and ate and swapped our stories. We met again, and talked about how we could better encourage each other. We met again, read Titus 2:3-5, and saw how God wants older and younger women to be involved in each other’s lives. Soon, I’ll start meeting regularly with two younger women to read the Bible and pray. It’s no coincidence that, at the very point I stopped worrying about whether I belonged, I felt a sense of belonging.

I’m beginning to see how important it is that I’m here, right now, in this church, being encouraged by and encouraging these particular women. In a few years time, when they get married and have kids, or wonder if they’ll stay single, or start out in work and ministry, I hope I’ll be beside them, helping them find the way into mature Christian womanhood. I look back to when I was a student going to a university church, and I’m deeply grateful to the older single people, couples and families who came along, modelled the Christian life for us, and taught and trained us in godliness. There’s a richness of encouragement that happens between Christians of different ages and stages that’s beautiful to see.

What about our kids? Is it fair to them, going to a church with only a few other children and teenagers?3 Our two younger boys are loved and cared for by a bunch of enthusiastic young people who enjoy having them around, and who are learning to lead as they teach them in Sunday School. Our older son enjoys hanging out with the godly young men who surround him. Our teenage daughter is excited about being mentored by a lovely young Christian woman. Our marriage and family are a lived-out, messy, week-by-week example for many who never experienced a Christian family growing up. In the end, it’s not the patterns of church that matter to us and our children: what matters is that the gospel is taught, and they are loved and prayed for by the members of our church family.

Not everyone is built to be a church invader. We know many Christians – single workers, couples with young children, retirees – who do their best ministry loving and serving people in a similar situation to their own. We’ve advised others, who find it hard to get to church at all, to go to a church that’s designed for their needs. But even if you don’t invade a church, do invade people’s lives. Be aware of the unseen boundaries that cross churches: old and young, married and single, privileged and disadvantaged, we’re all part of the body of Christ (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11). Think about who might feel in the minority, even if they hide it well. Invest time in younger Christians, and seek out the wisdom of older Christians. Invite people who are different from you into your life.

But perhaps you are built to be a church invader. Maybe you’re an older person who’s good at relating to young people, a member of a family who would like to reach out to single workers, or a young person who’s never seen a Christian marriage in action. If that’s the case, why not choose a church where you don’t naturally belong? Why not choose a church, not because it meets your needs, but because it needs you? Why not make a home for others in a place that feels far from home? Why not become a church invader? We’d love to have you along!


1. Actually, there were a couple of moves along the way, but I’m simplifying the story for the sake of clarity. ↩
2. I don’t want to comment on which approach to church is best: homogeneous or heterogeneous. I think there are benefits to both approaches. ↩
3. I’m often questioned about this. I was recently helped by an alternate point of view, offered by Kathy Keller in Why the city is a wonderful place to raise children. ↩


This post was first published at The Briefing today.

image is by The Arches from flickr

what church and place should I raise my kids in?

How do you choose a church and place to raise your children? There was an interesting discussion on my Facebook wall about this quote, which came from an article about the benefits of raising kids in urban areas:

I have often said that the best thing you can do for your teenage children is not to have them in a great big youth group (of other teens as clueless and confused as themselves), but to have lots of young adult, cool, ardently believing friends. - Kathy Keller Why the city is a wonderful place to raise children

Here's what people said (with names removed). Please add your thoughts to the discussion.

M said, "Thanks for drawing my attention to this post. Encouraging at SO many levels."

T said, "Lots of cool, young adults the best thing you can do for your kids? As someone who has spent the majority of his ministry ministering to 'cool, young adults' - even the 'ardently believing' kind - and raised three kids to near adulthood...well...I'm not so sure Jean."

I said, "Yes, it probably depends on the 'cool, young adults'!! I think she's got a point, though. There's a prevalent myth in Christian circles that your kids won't turn out as Christian adults if they don't hang around with lots of Christian teens when they're teens."

T replied, "Both models, when offered up as panaceas, are myths. Give me a Christian community that loves, accepts and prays for my kids. Couldn't care less how young, cool or urban they are. The bigger issue is the flattering of certain demographics. Don't know about Australia but the American evangelical world is swimming in that right now."

M said, "I'm loving this conversation. Please keep talking! I think 'Give me a Christian community that loves, accepts and prays for my kids' is probably key here. But I think Kathy Keller provides a good corrective to 'Gospel + youth group = children growing up to be Christian adults.' But as you say, T, we need to make sure we don't just put something else in the Gospel + _________ blank space."

I said, "In Australia, it's the youth group paradigm that I hear all the time, and that's what caught my eye about what Kathy said - that, just possibly, there might be other ways to raise Christian kids. But I think you're right: what matters is that it's a 'Christian community that loves, accepts and prays for my kids', whatever the demographic. I find that a huge relief, because I've been told over and over that what matters is that our kids go to a family church with a big youth group (or else...).

"And on the suburban vs. urban issue - yes, again I agree; but once again, what Kathy is doing is countering a paradigm I'm all too familiar with: 'You have to bring up your kids in a nice suburb and send them to nice schools (or else...)'. Again, good to hear someone saying you can actually make Christian parenting work in a different kind of environment! Our suburb is neither 'urban' nor 'nice', but we are teaching and training our kids to live for Jesus in this place - and, I hope, in any place they may live in years to come."

L said, "Don't they see sin in the backwaters of Melbourne Suburbia? I just have to walk out of my front door to see selfishness, envy, lust and lawlessness: empty bourbon and coke cans strewn on my nature strip, rude neighbours, speeding, reckless cars on the way to and from work. I can go to church in my own suburb if I want to see adultery, unfaithfulness, greed, gossip and slander. Why waste petrol? I'm just sayin'."

I said, "Yeah, true! Or country Victoria will do it for you nicely as well. Although the 'sin' and the results of it in broken lives are more obvious in some areas than others, and Christian parents tend to avoid these places and live in the 'nice' suburbs. And I posted it 'cos I liked the bit about youth group..."

S said, "Jean, I would love to have the pros & con conversation about youth group. I am not convinced another program is going to disciple, encourage and challenge my kids. The stats of kids who are still Christians post youth group days is pretty discouraging."

JA said, "Well, one of my kids' friends from school became a Christian last night at a youth group thing. I'm happy they go to youth group and the young adults who lead are great role models."

G said, "What sort of youth group would they have had in Thessalonica? If they are so important, why aren't they mentioned more in the Pauline epistles or, really, anywhere? You could maybe stretch 1 Cor 15:33 to talk about peer group pressure. Parenting, however, gets spoken of a lot."

I said, "G, It occurs to me that, even though youth groups aren't mentioned in the Bible, neither are Bible studies or even church 'services' in the modern sense. What you say is a helpful corrective. But it doesn't mean that we can't create structures to teach and encourage God's people, including youth groups: just that they're not essential and shouldn't be treated as such.

"S and JA, I'm sure it can work out well for kids either way. I went to a very good church with few young people and a very bad youth group - you can guess which one helped me! But there are good youth groups out there and I'm more than happy for my kids to go. My problem is when a church with a certain demographic is made to seem essential to raising Christian kids - which it often is in pointed questions I'm asked about the church we take our family to."

G said, "Tangential I know, but so are many of the questions around raising kids as Christians, including whether the location is urban or not."

I said, "I gets lots of those kinds of pointed questions too *sigh*."

G said, "Shame."

And V said - in perhaps the most helpful comment of all -

What is a 'family church'? We wouldn't say a married couple who cannot have children are less family for the absence of children. Churches can vary greatly in their demographics, but it is relationship with Christ that makes the family.

I've never attended youth group, having become a Christian at 18 in a small church only two other young adults. As a new Christian, I was in a bible study with the spectrum of ages. I was taught, accepted and prayed for (not always perfectly). I have a friend who came to the church and to know Jesus through an invitation to largish youth group as a young teen. Both are acts of God's sovereign grace, the same sovereign grace that I pray is/will bring my children to know Jesus. How it will look in terms of place, people circumstance I don't know.

As a parent, I do have a responsibility and desire to make wise decisions by my children, but I suspect that decisions concerning our choice of church, school and neighbourhood can loom larger than they really are. The harder things I find are daily issues of living my life in relationship with Christ before my children, training, commitment to and love for other believers etc...

Continue the conversation here.

image is by AllStarsYouth at flickr