Our Family-Integrated Worship Model

Grace Baptist Church keeps families together. We want families to worship together, sing together, give together, pray together, and hear the Word together. While we affirm that there are times to give instruction specific to different seasons of life (for example, see Titus 2:3-5), we believe that we ought to be one body as much as possible. It is good for children to see their parents and guardians singing to the Lord and to observe them listening to the preaching of God’s Word.

We resist the impulse of our age toward religious entertainment. Although there are certain exceptions, it appears to us as if many churches believe that the best way to disciple children is by entertaining them in "children's church." But we are concerned that an entertainment-driven approach to youth ministry (of whatever age) is teaching children to want an entertainment kind of religion even when they reach adulthood. We are humbly trying to prevent this.

Therefore, here at Grace, children remain with the grown-ups during our worship services. For the convenience of parents we do maintain a nursery for ages 0-3 years, but all other children are in the auditorium. This allows our children not only to worship God with us, but to learn how to worship him.

In summary, here at Grace Church, we treasure the time our children have to gather with the “grown-ups.”
We take children very seriously, and believe they are worthy of respect. We have high expectations of them. They are the next generation of Christian leaders.

Therefore, by God’s grace, and for God’s glory, the children of Grace Church will watch and learn from mature believers how to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).