Communion in Children's Church

Only those who are baptized believers should receive the communion.

Why make a separated observance of the Lord's Supper from the rest of the church?


Bro. Dallas

 

First, I want to say that I am not trying to tell you how you or your church have to do this.

But, from what I can understand from scripture, this is limited to the saved baptized membership of the church.

I don't understand how you mean it used as a 'teaching tool'.

how is it presented in that way?

Just trying to understand you and not wanting to be contentious, I am starting to get my fill of that from 'Old Baptists' who are 'Old' only in accordance to the "Old Paths" but not willing to clearly identify those "old Paths".

I think alot of times, our differences are simply a matter of our understanding of how one another expresses themselves and their practice.

But, I would be sure to limit the Lord's Supper to only saved Baptized members.

Bro. Dallas

 

Yep, Saggy, it should.

Since our children's church is for those second grade and under, most children who have accepted Christ are in church for communion. We have it every 5th Sunday plus special services throughout the year.

Who should serve would depend on the ages. Who 'preaches' to these children? How old are the oldest boys?

Diane

 

We had the same issue today. Except our children are disnmissed to Children's worship during the main service. So, my husband (the pastor) announced that any children who had already accepted Christ might want to stay and observe the ordinance of the Lord's Supper (with parents blessing of course)instead of going to Children's worship.

Now - we used to supervise summer missionaries when we served thru NAMB in resort missions. We made it a habit each summer to have a candlelight communion service with our student missionaries on the beach at night. Very moving. Although it is an ordinance of the "church" - they/we were not serving "in" a church, but the beach was our place of service. It was neat.

 

Check out who was present when Christ instituted the Lord's Supper.

Each was a 'baptized beleiver' and Judas had been dismissed.

as I already said, not wishing to argue, do what ever you wish, we all do any way I guess, but the proper Biblical method (especially if you are teaching it) is for Baptized believers (members of the local body).

This (baptism) is also a command of the Lord and really not subject to parental consent. That is also scripturally supported. So, neither of these are just my 'wild' ideas.

Where does the Bible say to separate your 'children' or even your 'youth' into developmental age categories and to separate them from the regular worship service?
Bro. Dallas

 

Only those who are belivers should partake in the communion service. Remember the bit in corinthians where it says "let a man examine himself lest he eat and drink unworthily"? all without Christ as saviour are unworthy. Age isn't the important thing, belief is. It is wrong for ANY church or section of the church to encourage unbelivers to partake in communion.

How will the church then be discering amongst adults if it allows unregenerate children to partake? All control is gone.

Arguably it could be only baptised members, but i can accept the more open believers concept. BUT NOT NON_BELIVERS.

Regards
Bob

 

Only those who are belivers should partake in the communion service. Remember the bit in corinthians where it says "let a man examine himself lest he eat and drink unworthily"? all without Christ as saviour are unworthy. Age isn't the important thing, belief is. It is wrong for ANY church or section of the church to encourage unbelivers to partake in communion.

How will the church then be discering amongst adults if it allows unregenerate children to partake? All control is gone.

Arguably it could be only baptised members, but i can accept the more open believers concept. BUT NOT NON_BELIVERS.

Regards
Bob

 

Since Baptism is the public confession of faith in Christ, baptism is a prerequisite to communion.

We believe there are four requirements:
1. Saved
2. Baptized as a public confession of salvation.
3. Member in good standing
4. Orderly walk (obedience)

Communion in children's is not a good idea since
1. A number of children are not saved and there is great pressure created to partake of communion unbibically.
2. Communion is an ordinance of the local church body and should be practiced together. There is no compelling reason to observe communion apart from the assembled body.

Just curious, you say you have a woman teaching and a man helping with the games. Why not have the man teach and the women help with the games? That, to me, sends a message to the young boys that it is not "cool" to be a solid serving Christian. It encourages later tendencies to let the ladies do the spiritual leading while men sit back and do nothing. It is always better to have men teaching ... It sets the right example and shows the young boys what they ought to be like.

 

Larry: Since Baptism is the public confession of faith in Christ, baptism is a prerequisite to communion.

SBC: This is a human addition. The SBC BF&M follows suit, but I don't believe it can be fully supported from the text.

 

I have brought a set of communion ware to Children's Church so that they could see close-up how it is used, but I have never conducted actual commmunion. The reason is simple, children are used to having us expect that they all should do as they are told. And since some of the children are not saved, they would partake "not discerning." The closest I came to having communion is when we had a Passover seder. But since that was a kind of "going back in the time machine to see what happened" type of event, all drank the grape juice and ate the matzoh as prescribed in the seder, not just in the part that jesus instituted.

 

How is that a human addition?? Can you name one place where communion is participated in by an unbaptized believer? In every place in Scripture, it is the opposite. In Acts 2, the sequence is Salvation, baptism, added, ... breaking of bread. In 1 Cor, the church was clealry baptized (chapter 1) before communion (chapter 11).

We need to understand that the lack of an explicit statement does not equal human addition. Too many people are buying this line that if Scripture does not explicitly spell something out, it has be an human addition that we don't really have to follow.

So much of this kind of stuff is Baptist polity. It I amazed at the number of Baptists who don't know Baptist polity. I must admit that in past times I did not really know what it meant to be a Baptist. I guess that is why I am pretty insistent on teaching why it is we are Baptist and what it means to be a Baptist.

 

The lack of an explicit statement demands human interpretation and application (which is an addition to the text). No I cannot name a place where the NT explicitly says an unbaptized person participated in Communion, just as you are speculating to say that everyone who participated in Communion in the NT was already baptized. Other than the Acts account, we have no idea if baptism was always instantaneous.

The Bible nowhere makes baptism a prerequisite for participating in the Lord's Supper. Is it a good polity? Perhaps. Is it a direct teaching of Scripture? No. Acts simply describes what happened and the prescriptive areas of the NT regarding the Lord's Supper concentrate on heart matters (in remembrance of me ... eat ... drink ... examine your heart).

You hit the nail on the head. It is a polity issue. We must always remember polity is polity.

 

You know, as a parent, I would be really uncomfortable with my young children (12 and under) participating in communion (even though they may be believing and baptised) without me there guiding them to make sure they approached it with proper soberness. If I found out it was being done in my children's church, I think I'd opt them out for that session.

 

In 1 Cor 11, Paul instructs that we are to examine ourselves before eating and drinking. What do you think he was talking about?

 

Larry: In 1 Cor 11, Paul instructs that we are to examine ourselves before eating and drinking. What do you think he was talking about?

Examine your spiritual condition.

I am not de-emphasizing the importance of baptism. I am simply saying it is not presented in the NT as an explicit prerequisite for participating in the Lord's Supper.

Do you think those who are "weak, sick, or asleep" are unbaptized Christians?