By Dan Martella …For many families, Sabbath is the toughest day of the week. After the grueling demands of a full work week, a few extra hours of sleep feels good. Once everyone is finally out of bed, there’s the mad scramble to get breakfast on the table, the kids dressed, and last-minute diaper blowouts cleaned up. There are shouting matches all the way to church, squirming kids to settle during the service, and long-winded preachers who leave our poor kids starving to death. Like I said, for many families, Sabbath is the toughest day of the week.
Sabbath can be especially daunting for young families who do not attend church, but decide to give it a try. They don’t know anyone. They don’t know their way around the campus. They are not sure about leaving their kids with total strangers for an hour-long Sabbath School class. Is that even safe? And then there are the worship songs – they’re new and maybe even a little weird. The preacher uses words that only church people have ever heard of: Sister White, PUC, hermeneutics, eschatology, missiology, haystack dinners, and all the rest. The big-sugar breakfast has got the kids bouncing off the walls. Roll all this into one meeting, and the whole thing can leave guests wondering when the whole awful ordeal will be over.
Every Adventist church I know wants to grow. Every Adventist church I know especially wants to attract more and more young families into church membership. We want moms and dads and kids, grandmas and grandpas, and everyone else to feel welcomed, loved, and accepted. We want our churches to be inclusive so that kids, teenagers, and young adults are just as much a part of the worship, ministry, and fellowship as the old timers. We want our churches to be places where our kids grow up in the faith and stay in the faith; a place our kids can always call home, even when they have grown up, moved away, and have their own families. We want our churches to thrive with all the gifts, talents, and energies rising from the generations of believers. That’s what we want!
So what does it take to become a family-friendly church? That’s the question a lot of us are asking today. As I have turned this matter over in my mind, three essentials for growing healthy, family-friendly churches have come into sharp focus for me.
Family-friendly churches, first of all, know how to convey a warm welcome. When church families and guest families come through the door and move through the Sabbath morning experience, they experience love. They are embraced with joy. Newlyweds, young families, and empty nesters – seniors and singles – strong, healthy people and the disabled – people who are just like us and people who are very different from us are all welcomed with love and joy.
Many years ago, a college kid with a wild bush of hair on his head, a holey t-shirt, ragged jeans, and bare feet wandered into a conservative, upscale church. The worship service was already underway, and every seat was full. So, Jack made his way down the center aisle and sat down on the floor near the front. The prim and proper church members were aghast and wanted him out.
Suddenly a shuffle could be hear from the back of the church. George Harlan, a silver-headed deacon in his eighties, wearing a three-piece suit, began to make his way down the aisle. Old George was a godly man. He was also very dignified, and everyone held him in high respect. “This is good,” they sighed. “Brother George will throw the bum out.”
And then the most unexpected thing happened – George shuffled up right next to Jack, dropped his cane on the floor, folded his arthritic legs, and sat down on the floor by the young man for the rest of the service.
Family-friendly churches really know how to love people. In family-friendly churches parents with fussy kids never get the evil eye. In family-friendly churches people see teenagers, and not just the unusual clothes or haircuts they may be wearing. In family friendly churches the overworked CPA who is deep into tax season, and utterly exhausted, and falls asleep during the sermon gets some understanding. In family-friendly churches people smile a lot. Laugh a lot. Talk a lot. People hang around the sanctuary and halls long after the worship service is over. In family-friendly churches the members make it a point to connect with guests, welcome them, and invite them back before they get around to huddling with their friends. In family-friendly churches no one gets left behind.
Healthy churches, growing churches, family-friendly churches know how to really welcome people. They know how to really love them. It is no wonder then that Jesus says, By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35 NIV
Dan Martella is the administrative pastor for the Paradise, California church
This article was originally published on the NAD ministerial website