The question of when, or even if, to permit children to serve in church is a perennial one. On paper, this is a uniquely Baptist problem. If children aren’t members of the church unless and until you baptise them, how far can we include them in the ordinary goings on of the church?
On paper, Presbyterians and Anglicans have a nice straightforward answer. Baptise them in infancy and then let them serve as members of the church. Only, Anglicans introduce extra-biblical mechanisms like confirmation which still limits what a child under, say, 13 might do. Presbyterians typically don’t let their young people serve in all the ways they might let a non-elder adult serve. Ultimately, none of us can avoid the question on some level.
For some, the answer is very straightforward. Dispense with any membership criteria at all. In fact, dispense with membership altogether, and then let whoever serve wherever you deem appropriate. Whilst there is a kind of neatness to that solution, it falls at the point one reckons (and I am one of them that does reckon) the bible teaches local church membership is a thing with particular criteria tied to who can and cannot belong.
I am going to assume a few things for the purposes of this post. If you don’t believe these things, my answer will probably be unsatisfying to you. I am going to assume them though because those most concerned with this question usually think some combination of these essential things:
- Membership is taught in scripture
- The boundary of belonging is, at least partially, affirmed by who can serve
- Serving is a matter of representing the church i.e. who belongs and who does not
Assuming you believe some form of these things, it is quite likely that you will affirm (and I’m going to assume this too) that you are, therefore, not keen on non-members serving before belonging. I appreciate there will be a spectrum of how that works itself out ranging from only public teaching being ruled out at one end of the spectrum all the way through to absolutely every form of service, even clearing up and laying out chairs, being verboten. What will determine your view, if you hold the above assumptions, is just what amounts to ‘serving’ exactly and whether any given activity (as you judge it) represents the church. For my part, I would view non-members as essentially guests in the family home and would tend not to encourage them towards any service until they belong.
Which brings us on to the question of non-member children of believers. If non-members ought not to serve, and the children of some of our members are not themselves in membership, should we be encouraging them to serve? Is this part of their discipleship in the church? Is this special pleading on the part of children if we treat them differently?
As I argued here, I am of the view that serving before belonging is almost always a bad idea. It would be my view that if a child is showing signs of being a believer, they should be encouraged into church membership through baptism. Once they have become a member, there really is no reason they cannot serve in whatever ways are deemed appropriate. If, however, a child show no sign of being a believer, it is hard to imagine good reasons why we would encourage them to serve any more than we would an adult who is similarly not a believer. Are we not liable to do immense damage to a child by inferring they kind of belong when there is no credible evidence of faith to speak of? Are we not more likely to encourage them in their unbelief this way? There is nothing that would lead me to treat children differently to adults in this matter.
Indeed, none of the arguments for including children and allowing them to serve apply any less to adults. Some might say it is an important part of a child’s discipleship? I would ask: is this child a believer or not? If they are, baptism and membership are quite an important part of their discipleship too! If they are not, it is unclear why we would speak in terms of discipleship and include them when we are not convinced they trust in Jesus at all. This is true of both adults and children. Others might argue it is a good way to ‘bring them in’. But this applies as much to adults as to children too. If we are not generally in favour of belonging before believing, why would we allow one set of people to do just that whilst denying the same to another group? Don’t the issues exist all the same in either case? If the issue is about ‘representing the church’, why are we okay with unbelieving, unbaptised children representing the church any more than we are okay with unbelieving, unbaptised adults doing so?
Further to all that, there is an important matter of what we are telling these children. If we believe the little children can come to Jesus, and Jesus specifically tells us to let them, there shouldn’t be any barrier to believing children being joined to God’s people on the same terms as the adults. But if we want to make that clear, it doesn’t behove us well if we allow them a point of entry to service and belonging that the adults don’t get. Indeed, the same Baptist arguments against paedobaptism are at play here.
If we think it is damaging to give signs of belonging to children before they belong because – as we understand the scriptures – they don’t actually belong as yet, how can it be helpful to encourage them into service that is typically done by those who belong when they don’t, as yet, belong? It seems to me a hugely dangerous thing to give people – and perhaps give children above all – any sense of eternal security that we aren’t convinced they possess. If we think they possess it, let us give them the signs of the covenant – permit them baptism and communion – and affirm their profession. If we don’t think so, allowing them to feel like they belong to the kingdom when we aren’t convinced it is so doesn’t seem to me to be the kind or helpful thing many seem to think it is.