“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them,
for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 19:14
for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 19:14
Parish Church is committed to training our children in the Lord Jesus Christ. We seek to provide the highest level of love and care for our children in order to ensure the greatest opportunity for their spiritual flourishing (click here to look at our child protection policy). We also seek to provide high quality, well organized, intentional times of teaching and training in righteousness. Our desire is not to simply entertain our children, rather it is to offer them enjoyable and valuable times of growing in their knowledge and love for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Parish Church pursues these values in the following ways:
Parish Church pursues these values in the following ways:
SUNDAY MORNING WORSHIP
We live in an age where young people are leaving the church at an alarming rate. Many young adults who grow up in the church stop attending as soon as they leave home. At Parish Church, we believe one of the key reasons for this mass exodus is due to young people's lack of identity in the church. From a very young age, children are relegated to programs and classes that take the place of worshipping together with the community of faith. As they get older, the necessity of maintaining the status quo continues and they never truly experience the value of worshipping together with the people of God in cooperate worship. At Parish Church, we mean to give our children value and a place in the morning worship service. Each week there is a special children's sermon during the service where the children can come forward and engage the morning's topic on their level. This time is invaluable in setting them apart as valuable to our church family, while equipping them to understand much of what will be communicated in the sermon itself. Our children grow to cherish this time and even look forward to coming to church so that they can see what pastor Josh is going to teach them today!
DISCIPLESHIP AND COMMUNITY
In addition to finding their identity in the church, they need to grow in their walk with the Lord in ways unique to their age and stage. Parish Church is committed to providing regular teaching and fellowship times for our children to grow in their faith with other kids their age. Our main venue for training our children is our midweek Bible study on Wednesday nights. We offer classes intended to help our children grow in their faith while giving some of our older youth opportunity to serve the young kids through teaching and serving in the classrooms. Through discipling our kids and equipping our youth to serve in the church we are seeking to provide long term value and identity in the church. Additionally, we offer quarterly church picnics with activities geared directly to our kids as well as families in the area. This serves as both an opportunity for outreach as well as fellowship within the church.
TRAINING AND EQUIPPING PARENTS
At Parish Church, we are aware that our parents posses the greatest amount of time and influence with their children. One of the more challenging and intimidating aspects of parenting is training our children to walk with the Lord. We all feel inadequate to the task and often feel too busy to better ourselves in the role. Parish Church is committed to its responsibility to equip our parents with all the tools they need under heaven to faithfully train their children. In addition to the regular ways that we model this process through children's sermons and other ministry venues, we offer an annual parenting conference focused on developing the tools to lead our children to Christ, shepherd them in their walk with Christ, and equip them to own their faith. Additionally, the pastor, staff and elders of the church are intentional about walking alongside the families in our church and serving as a resource to them as we all navigate our Christian walk in these troubling times.