Parents are sending their kids to play groups, in order to teach them to get along with other children. The general populace disdains the home-school movement, because the home-schooled children don't socialize often enough. Is it really so all-fired important to accomplish this socialization with our children, or are there values of greater importance, which we might be missing in this socialization movement?

Kids are taking guns, knives, and drugs to school, and this after years of redirecting public education away from the three R's, and toward a program which is supposedly working for their social adaptation. The fact of the matter is, that socialization as practiced today is not the need of every child. It has proven to be a grand fallacy, and there are ramifications in the life of the local church.

Many people are choosing the church they attend on the basis of the socialization myth. A good children's program is what drives the parents of young children to find "the right church." The active youth group is what captivates the attention of the parents of Junior High and High School youth. This even follows the child, as he grows up and out of the home - if he still attends church, he looks for the active singles ministry.

What is missing in this equation, which could help us accomplish a more effective discipling of our children? I believe that the answer lies in how the church views its responsibility of discipleship. Below are the two keys, which I am convinced can create strong Christian children, who will remain strong beyond the childhood years:

1) Training of children must remain primarily the responsibility of the parents. Therefore, the church must train parents to train children. Because our children live with us, we must be the ones to model Christianity. Once we pawn the discipling of our children upon the Sunday School teachers and youth leaders, we teach them by example, that the only time we act like Christians is Sunday morning at 10am.

2) We must break the generation gap in the life of the Church. Children are often left out of the important moments of church life, because we have not developed a philosophy of ministry which includes them. As a result, they do not know how to enjoy God, when they finally participate in services with adults. They have been used to playing games, and socializing with their own age group for the previous 10 or 12 years.

The socialization myth has taught us that: 1) Children must be taught how to adapt to society by interacting outside the home, and 2) this societal adaptation needs to occur within the context of same-age groups. It is time for the church to rise up and refute this absurd concept. We must defend the family as the foundational social institution within society, and train our families to train their children in social skills and citizenship. Likewise, we must bridge the generation gap and "suffer the little ones to come unto" Jesus along with us.

In the process of developing a vision for church life, be sure to think of the families, and their spiritual health. Avoid the socialization myth. Create a church which chooses to train parents to train their children, and is aggressively attempting to bridge the generation gap.