What Is a Family Integrated Ministry?

Family Integrated

Covenant Baptist Church of Blount County is family integrated. We worship together as one body in Christ, from the youngest infant to the most senior members.

The church throughout the Bible is spoken of as the body of Christ and is exhorted to unity.  As our children are included in the body of Christ, we keep them with us during our worship service each Lord’s Day as well as encourage and train them to participate.

We believe family integration is Biblical. Children were present in the worship services of the apostolic church as they were personally addressed in the epistle. (Eph. 6:1-3)

Family Integrated Worship Equals Corporate Worship

In some congregations the only common experience a family might share Sunday morning for church is the car ride to and from the building. Family integrated worship is the practice of cultivating unity in the church by keeping families together rather than separating them into age-segregated groups

While not all age-based groupings of children and adults are wrong or harmful, its widespread practice has certainly contributed to the fragmentation of families in the church.

Christians commonly speak of “The Worship Service” as “Corporate Worship”. The word is an appropriate one, Corporate when used in this sense means, united or combined into one.

Family Integrated Ministry is Practical

It may sound strange to the modern mind that keeping our children in the worship service is practical. How can this be true in the case of the squirming four year old or crying baby?

It is practical for the raising up of our children in the faith. Children born into a family integrated ministry will never know a time of not being a part of the corporate worship of the church. Thus they learn to identify with Christ and his church as a whole versus their age segregated peers.

Family Integrated Ministry Has Broad Reaching Implications

The principles involved in understanding the oneness of Christ’s body have far reaching implications if consistently applied. Family integration goes way beyond keeping households together in corporate worship; it keeps the whole church family together by establishing biblical principles for unity and instills a culture within the church that resists disunity.

We believe that needed reformation in the Church hinges upon the return of fathers to their God ordained role of spiritual leadership in their homes and the restoration of healthy families.

It hinges upon the church getting its house in order and becoming more like a congregation of families (youth, singles and elderly included) who love and disciple one another into maturity, as well as reach out to those who need Christ.