Raising Kids in a Missional Church Family
Free babysitting for all... with a catch.
I’ve been talking about rhythms and, most recently, about church at the center. In this post, I want to explore what that means in the context of raising children in a missional environment.
Earlier this week, I arrived at an early-morning meeting for one of our campus leadership teams. As usual, it was beautiful to walk in and see several toddlers hanging out with university students while their parents met to discuss how to make disciples before heading into their workdays.
This afternoon, we had a snow-day (aka no school). As our kids roamed around our community, a pile of our university students showed up and took our kids tobogganing for fun. Our kids are 6 and (almost) 9, and, as I recall, we’ve never paid for a babysitter. (That’s not entirely true—we probably have once or twice—but it doesn’t quite read the same!)
One of our goals as a church is that no parent ever needs to pay for a babysitter. This is rooted in the conviction that we raise our kids within a church family, and that caring for children in community is a shared responsibility.
But there’s a catch.
The accompanying assumption is that one of the primary reasons families need childcare is so that we can live on mission together, making disciples as part of the shared mission of our church family.
Our context is non-traditional, but there are significant benefits to raising kids in a missionally focused environment where open homes and integrated discipleship are normal.
“How Do You Raise Kids Like That?”
Do we have a vision for raising children from the beginning to be disciple-makers and members of the church family?
One of the things we try to do is cast a vision for living on mission with all of life, through all of life. That includes our children.
One of the most common questions we receive is: “How do you raise kids in a context with such a narrow missional focus?” Sometimes the question is genuinely curious; other times it carries a passive-aggressive or cynical edge.
At some point, an expectation emerged that churches should provide robust programming for kids in order to attract or retain families. As a result, kids’ ministry has become so professionalized that the idea of churches collectively sharing responsibility for raising children within a covenant family can feel almost unthinkable.
For clarity, our largest campus actually has a relatively mature kids’ program and team. Structure, policies, and processes are not the problem.
The deeper question is this:
Key Practices for Raising Kids in a Missional Context
To integrate kids into a missional movement, a few essentials stand out:
Kids are a blessing, not an impediment to mission. While kids are certainly a lot of work, they are ultimately a blessing to us as individuals and to the mission to which God has called. Children are a gift from God. The mission to make disciples is a gift of God. They go together.
Kids are contributors to the mission—even from an early age. We encourage parents to bring their children along to evangelism and serving opportunities.
Church family is integrated from the beginning. Disciples are intentionally brought into proximity with our kids and invited to share in joy of seeing them grow.
Open homes are essential. The logistics are challenging, and “what works” is a constantly moving target. But open (often messy) homes are part of the process.
People need to see our mess. Families aren’t polished. Parents lose their cool, kids throw tantrums, laundry is on the couch—it’s just part of real life.
We need to be willing to say no. Modern family life is often built around packed schedules. While opportunities matter, we must sometimes say no to extracurriculars in order to make space for church family and mission.
Many missionally motivated pastors with kids would say they’ve lived this way for years. One of my core convictions, however, is that what has historically been normal for professional pastors should be normalized for all disciple-makers.
The Cost—and the Beauty
The beautiful thing is that the primary beneficiaries of raising kids in a missional context are the kids themselves.
Because of the rich environment of a missional church family, children raised this way are exposed to:
A wide diversity of personalities and relationships
Intergenerational community, learning to engage with people of all ages and stages
An authentic, lived faith modeled in everyday life—not just programmed events
A Scripture-saturated environment where they hear “adult” Christianity expressed through sophisticated ideas and language. They aren’t limited to age-appropriate material; they’re immersed in the real thing. Kids track far more than we often give them credit for.
Are there challenges? Absolutely.
There are nights when our kids don’t get enough sleep. There are seasons when our home feels chaotic and we need to adjust our rhythms to maintain our children’s integration into our missional lifestyle. There are moments of sadness as they experience relational transitions when people move on.
However, I’m deeply convinced that raising our kids among university students and within a missional church family has been one of the hardest—and most beautiful—decisions we, and the families of our church, have made.