Christians mamas - our kids unwelcome at Bible study? - Page 2

[SwanMom]

Hugs--Not sure how this is turning out, but I would be incredibly hurt. It really doesn't seem like these people understand normal 4-year-old behavior, nor do they know how to give you the safe place you need. I would most definitely look for other believers to spend time with.

[hotmamacita]

Originally Posted by sbrinton

I have a question for the Christian mamas out there. I'm open to input from moms of other faiths too.

We have three boys, ages 4 1/2, 2 1/2 and 8 months. For about 6 years we've been members of an evangelical church. We've been very involved and have served in several different leadership roles, such as hosting and leading Bible studies and helping with counseling.

I'm really struggling with our current community group bible study. Our kids are active little boys. Our oldest, especially, has had a few situations at community group where he has been rough or aggresive with younger children. The group was meeting in our home and at first it was very difficult for our boys to have 6-8 other young children in their playroom. I would expect some amount of rough play when you have half a dozen toddler and preschool age boys. From what I understood at the time, there were never any serious problems.

But about six weeks ago, after we brought up some issues we were dealing with at home with the boys, the leaders decided that our kids could no longer be a part of the group. They said it is because A, our oldest son, has become too aggresive. When I asked for specific examples, they brought up things that happened months ago. When those things happened, no one told us that there were "serious" issues with our kids. But now, apparently, these things are serious enough that our children cannot go to group.

This breaks my oldest son's heart. He is a Christian, loves Jesus and really loves being a part of community. He wants to pray and learn and grow in is faith. I feel like the leaders are expecting him to be perfect and to never struggle with other kids. He is the oldest, but he is just 4 - I feel like it is inappopriate to expect him to never sin and always be gentle with the littler children. We do want to correct his behavior if he hurts another kid, but I feel like it is completely unfair to kick him out of group based on things that happened months ago, that no one told us about at the time!

It feels like hypocrisy. Many of the families in our church give their toddler boys a small arsenal of play swords and guns. The men get together to watch ultimate fighting. How in the world do they think little boys who are surrounded by violence will not be violent? Our family is much more non violent. We don't have guns or swords and we would much rather watch cycling. But when our little boys fight or goof off, as little boys do, we are kicked out of fellowship? What in the world?

I am so upset that our generally kind, sensitive little boy is unwelcome at our community group. I am not sure what to do. Our son is not perfect, but neither is anyone else. We're all sinners in need of a savior. We all need grace, especially our children.

What would you do in this situation? I'm pretty angry, but I don't want to make rash, foolish decisions.

It seems you are angry over betrayal and that is quite an honest response, in my opinion.

What would I do? I would pray, think, feel and talk to my husband about it before proceeding.

I would also shield my son from arrogance and honor and encourage his genuine faith.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I cannot help but think that this may be a blessing in disguise.

[EnviroBecca]

I am all choked up reading this. My son is 4 1/2 too and just loves being included in church activities. He would be so hurt to be told he wasn't welcome, and I--well, what kind of Christianity is that, saying a person isn't welcome anymore and not even trying to work directly with HIM to help him get along with the group?!? And your son's behavior sounds like the sort of thing I routinely dealt with as a Girl Scout leader--the youngest girls I ever had in my troop were 5, and some were as old as 12--so it is not unusual even for a much older child.

My sense of what's going on here is that someone, or a few people, were unnerved by the problems at home that you discussed in group; something, maybe just one thing, that you said shocked them and gave them the idea that Asher is a more serious "troublemaker" than they'd thought...and then, as they started dwelling on that idea, they started to remember some past events that now seemed to be part of a pattern. Probably a few people talked about this amongst themselves and fed each other's fear until it turned into a much bigger thing. Now it's real to them. Their ability to see Asher and his behavior is distorted by the lens through which they're viewing it. I have had this happen to me before in both directions (others developing a biased view of me or my loved one, and me developing a biased view of someone) and it's really hard to get out of it!

Is there another group you could join that includes some older kids, or could you start one? It sounds like Asher really enjoys going to a group and might thrive on being more involved with the actual Bible study.

I just now saw this thread, but I see it's been 2 months since your last post. I hope things have worked out well for you and Asher!

[RainRaven]

I would find a new church, this all sounds completely unreasonable and very hurtful, not a healthy situation for your son. It is making him feel bad about himself for no reason, he is a little boy he should not know that adults do not "like" him.

[Super Pickle]

I would suggest looking for a new church. I'm sorry, but it sounds like the leaders are trying to control you.

Some close friends of mine have a challenging daughter who was treated this way at their large evangelical church. They eventually found a new church but not until a lot of damage had already been done. They wish they had left sooner for her sake.

Please understand, I'm not saying that your child didn't misbehave; I'm saying that when a 4 yo boy misbehaves there are simple ways of handling it other than making him and his parents feel like crap.

My church has a lot of difficult children. We have children who were adopted past infancy and who struggle with various issues, we have some children with developmental delays, and we have some children who are just a handful. It's not always easy to find volunteers to teach Sunday School, but no one would ever think it acceptable to refuse to welcome a child. I am teaching SS this year and I have two of the most difficult kids in the church in my class, but we are bending over backwards to make sure it works without excluding anyone. We have a helper for each of the challenging children and we are in constant conversation with the parents about what works and doesn't work for their children. That is the way it should be, and I hope you are able to find a place where children are treated with love and patience.

[sbrinton]

Hello again. Yes, it has been two months and no, things have not really improved.

The last two months have been really hard. In some ways, I know God is using this situation to teach me so much. I'm learning about humility and finding my identity in Jesus, not in what other people think of me. I'm learning about God's heart and he's renewing my hope in him, even while many of the Christians around me are not acting much like Jesus. It's been hard on our marriage, but my husband and I are doing okay, leaning into each other and refusing to believe the lies and accusations against our family.

I don't think I ever shared what happened after the weekend. The couple who were the leaders of the group came to our house, saying they wanted to have a discussion about what to do with kids. We thought "good, let's move on", but they had misled us and had an entirely different agenda. Without going into too much detail, they basically spent hours accusing me and my husband of all sorts of sin. Most of what they had to say was false, other accusations were for things that had happened years ago that we'd worked through.

Eventually I lost my temper, cussed them out and yelled at them to leave our house. Not a mature response, I know. Within minutes, we called the "coach" and let him know we were sorry for our anger and we wanted to work things out. We were told to have no contact with the leaders and to wait for the pastors at the church to work it out.

Two months passed and nothing happened. We kept emailing and calling the pastors and asking for a meeting to begin working towards reconcilliation. We've been excluded from the community group. In this time, we've discovered that there has been a lot of gossip about our family. We're trying to move on, but we still feel there needs to be reconciliation between us and the leaders if we can stay at this church.

It's so hard. We're at the point that if we don't see some forward progress with this in the next week or two, we will leave the church - but that is a huge, very difficult decision. We've been very involved in this church for years and almost all of our friends go there.

It's just such a flippin mess. I am so tired of the accusations against our family that are just false. I just want to move on...

[MrsSurplus]

Originally Posted by sbrinton

I just want to move on...

WOW. That is horrible; I am so sorry! Definitely does not sound like Christ-centered leadership. Do you have an eldership?

[MrsSurplus]

Originally Posted by sbrinton

I just want to move on...

WOW. That is horrible; I am so sorry! That is just so amazingly inappropriate (the confrontation - and that nothing has been addressed in 2 months) Do you have an eldership to go to?

[sbrinton]

The way our church is set up is that the elders are the pastors. There is not an independent elder board seperate from the pastors. We belong to a large church and there is a board of directors who are elders who are not involved in this situation, and I supose we could try to appeal to them.

It's just frustrating. These Christians are being the stereotype of why non-Christians don't want to be Christian! You know...hypocritical, judgmental, moralist, legalist...

[Kidzaplenty]

I don't think I would have held out this long. I hope things work out soon for you, or that you find a new church family.

[Bluegoat]

Yes - I am not sure I would have stayed this long either under the circumstances.

[EnviroBecca]

Somewhere near you is a church that will welcome you and heal you. I am praying for you.

[sbrinton]

Well finally some good news.

This morning, I finally tracked down one of the pastors and politely demanded to talk with him. At first it did not go so well, but eventually we got ao a place of really understanding one another and finally I feel a lot of hope about this situation.

Praise Jesus.

The bottom line is that the pastors are completely overwhelmed with the needs. There are three pastors and three other people on staff. And then there are like 1500 people on Sunday. Which is totally insane.

It turns out that the pastor who has been most involved did not understand that the issue was deeper than just what happened in the crazy meeting. For the last two months, he's been frustrated because he didn't understand why we couldn't just work through what happened at the meeting.

Now that he sees that there is a much deeper issue - how children are viewed as a part of Biblical community - he understands why we're so upset. And he finally realizes why we need the pastors to be involved, not just in our situation but in teaching more about children and family. The pastor, who also has three young children, understands how we feel and agrees that our family, and families like ours, should be welcome at church. Amen.

I'm thankful that we have persevered to get to this point. The pastor said that he and the other leaders have been learning a lot through this situation. Praise Jesus again, apparently it was much needed.

Crazy as it sounds, and as hard as the summer was, I'm thankful this happened to our family. We've been through enough crap in our lives that we were strong enough to cope. But Lord, I'm thankful this is just about over!