There has been an article that has caused a bit of stir recently; arguing for children to remain with their parents in the main church gathering rather than leaving to key into different age groups.
It is quite in vogue to make these sorts of arguments and while this piece won't address all of those, I thought it might be good to be reminded of some of the benefits of having groups for different aged children (and maybe also youth!).
Some of these will seem very obvious, but with a lot of the narrative moving in the opposite direction it is worth being reminded about them - not least for the many volunteers that will be involved in groups such as these this very week. It's worth saying that I do think some of the arguments in favour of everyone all in together are powerful and persuasive, so I present these not as a slam dunk to say we should definitely do children's groups but to remind us of the other side of the argument.
Defending the Youth and Children's Worker: Taking on the gospel teaching
In my article last month, we started looking at whether there was a place for a Youth and Children's worker …