The following is from my personal experience these may not be taken as mandatory rules but personal experience based I believe on Biblical principals.
I am the father of 7, six boys and a girl. Ages of my children are 17, 15, 13, 9, 7, 2 1/2, 7 weeks. Since 1990 my children have sat with me in any meeting that I have gone to. We are always prepared to take the smaller ones out if they are having a problem. Stephen who is our 2 1/2 yr old was a struggle at times but this has been solved since the baby has been born by him sitting in my lap or next to me.
I have found that by having my children with us we have fostered a deeper relationship with each other and the Lord. We will discuss what the Lord has said to us corporately and individually as a family. I can use illustrations from our daily lives to strengthen what the Lord has spoken to us. I know what the Lord is saying to my children and they know what the Lord is saying to me for we are joint members of the body of Christ. Not seperated because of age.
My children are not lacking by not having the advantage of youth groups and age segregated fellowship. They are seeing the Holy Spirit deal and work in real life situations at home and when we meet together with other brothers and sisters. The older ones have learned to share what the Lord has given them and seen it received and confirmed by those who they look up to and respect. My younger children are learning to wait upon the Lord to be still and know that He is God. They are learning to lengthen their attention span so as not to miss anything that God might be saying to them through someone else. These things will benefit them more than the alternative.
Cliff Silliman cliffsilliman at juno.com Sequim, WA
"let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works."
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I think your idea of keeping your children with you during worship is what God has intended from the beginning. When we are commanded to train our children, to teach our children about God, WE are commanded. How can we effectively teach and train our children if they are not WITH US? Of course, I homeschool and have been able to Scripturally convince most of my family that what we are doing is definitely of God. And my dad happens to be a ps teacher. LOL
We didn't always think this way. We were both 18 when we were saved and barely 20 when our first child was born. We placed our children in the Sunday School class and went to service, thankful to be away from them for a while. Well, the Lord had other plans. And He showed us the error in our own hearts before we began looking for what He had to say on the matter.
We attended a Christian Life homeschooling seminar. (These are led by Gregg Harris, Josh Harris' father.) And Gregg mentioned how he keeps his children with him in service. They had just had twin girls and had several other children as well! I thought he was nuts! LOL But I copied down the Scripture verses he used and looked them up at home.
I always get frustrated in and IC when people look at us funny because our children are with us. Or when we are stopped and told where we can find their Sunday School class! I'm so glad we aren't there anymore!
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I agree about children being in "church" with parents. Children are being shoved more and more out of the life of the parents. I can't count how many wedding invites we had in the 1990's where it stated in various ways, "Children not welcome". The same thing is true at worship time. In the name of "not disturbing" those who are worshiping God, the children are relegated to the basement or some other remote part of the building. Now I am all for there being some sort of provision for nursing mom's, crying infants, etc. But for the most part, Children should be involved with any worship of God and most study of the Word. I have six children. 28, 26, 24, 22, 10, 7. The 12 year gap is fun though not intended. My wife and I think if we could do anything over again, it would be having two more in the gap there. The first four are walking solidly with the Lord as are their spouse's and they are raising their children in the ways of the Lord. The last two are well on their way. A significant part of this is that they were always, mostly anyway, with us, my wife and I, as a part of everything. We rarely used baby sitters. With these last two though, we are noticing a strong trend to keep small children (under 12ish) away from "adult events". I think what is going on here is selfishness. Too many teens and young adults don't want to be "bothered". sigh........
Issachar
Lisa C
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I'm so thankful to see others sharing their hearts on this matter. My family and I have moved north after living and hc-ing in Florida for 2 years with several other families. When we were down south, all the kids in our group stayed with us. We ate a meal together, took communion together, sang together - the kids often requesting their favorite songs....after singing, one family would do an activity they had prepared that often was a "hands-on" activity or game that offered a godly message or teaching for the kids. The adults would join the kids in this activity (singles and teens too!). Afterwards, when individuals began to share in the meeting, the kids were given the chance to read any Bible passages that we discussed. Otherwise, the young ones could draw or color while they remained in the room with us, sitting on the couch, snuggled with a parent, sprawled on the living room floor. Of course much of the discussion went over their heads! They're kids! But they were with us throughout most of our time together, and were permitted to be kids. One of the families had a pool in back and sometimes we'd hold our gathering on their back patio and let the kids swim and have fun together. Now here's the thing: they LOVED our times of fellowship, and the children all felt like they were extended family with one another - brothers and sisters. They looked forward to any time we got together with any of the other families and had little difficulty communicating with either adults or other kids. When visiting families came, their children were welcomed without reservation.
Okay, so that was our experience there. Since moving north, we've had a difficult time finding similar fellowship. Churches do one of 2 things: they either have "children's church" where all the kids are shipped out of sight, or else the kids remain in the meeting for 2-3 hours of boredom, NOT listening to the 1 hour teaching of which they understand nothing; not free to request a song or ask a question; not encouraged to share scripture; unable to move from their "straightjacket" folding chairs. I appreciate that many parents want to teach their young children self-control - I do, as well - but from my experience, most young people stop coming to these gatherings when they are given the choice because they hate it! I keep watching teens leave "the church" because they were never brought in to be a part of it!
We did find one house church here with a terrific group of people who really love God and are seeking after Him. But, amazingly, there is absolutely no provision at all made for the kids! They don't sing with the adults, they don't remain in the room during sharing and there is no meal together, so they are left alone, allowed to go do whatever they feel like in any part of the house where the meeting takes place. I was astonished! When we attended several times, my kids started out in the room with us, but no adults made any attempt to make what they shared understandable to the kids at all, and the discussions go on for quite a long time. I noticed that most of the other families with children 12 and over didn't even bring their kids. I imagine that those kids are uninterested in the meetings and look for fellowship elsewhere.
And I guess that's the bottom line: if we do not provide real fellowship for our children, they will eventually seek it elsewhere - even kids who earnestly desire a real walk with God. I don't have all the answers, but we cannot put on our kids the same legalistic, traditions of men that we are desiring to shake off of ourselves. Let's pray for God's creative solutions to some of the tricky situations! Let's share ideas with one another and be willing to admit mistakes. Let's do away with the things that stroke our egos with regard to our kids and stop pursuing the things that make our kids "look" like Christians, with no regard to what's going on in their hearts. It's not about how many books of the bible they've memorized or whether or not they've won the scripture contest. It's not even about how "involved" they are in the workings of the church. It's how involved Jesus is in their hearts! And the fruit that the Holy Spirit is cultivating in them will show - in His time. We can't magically "make" fruit in them. Only the Holy Spirit can grow that fruit.
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Hi Lisa. Wow! Am I glad to see your post! My wife and I started in January of 1976 to attend a church that had just started up from a house church. What you described as your Florida experience is what this church was. We have 6 children. Two by Jan.1976, one more Dec.1976 and a fourth in June1979. They are now all in there 20's, two (oldest and third) married (oldest with 5 children), second is engaged for a Sept.2001 wedding and the fourth, practically engaged . All are with godly, Christian spouses and to be spouses. A part of this is due to the church experience which complemented the home experience. Well, when the fourth was almost 12, we had a pleasant surprise. A boy in Dec.1990......then? A girl in Apr.1994. So, we have four grown and two we are raising. Here is our rub. The church got quite a bit bigger over the years and drifted from it's roots. It is now just another institutional church with all the programs, building, blah, blah, blah stuff. Kid's are not a part of anything where they used to be very involved. However, according to the leadership, the church has "matured". With the boy, Josiah, now 10 and Hannah at 7, we have moved to a church where the teaching is much better. Children not being involved/included was not the only reason we left. The teaching was going awry too. I won't go into that here since that would be off topic, but suffice it to say that after roughly 7 years of drifting from the Word, we left. The new church seemed great because the teaching was so much better. But now we have been there about 4 months and we are now used to good teaching again. However, now we are realizing that children are constantly separated from the rest of the congregation even more than the church we just left. Well, just prior to leaving the former church, about a year ago, I started to look into home churches on the internet. I don't remember how I even came across the concept. But, I don't know of any in the NW Ohio area. Everything I have read though about home churches makes me want to either start one or find one. So threads like this are very encouraging to me. I hope you can find a solution to the new one you are in. Have you suggested anything to them? About involving children I mean? Keep us posted... Issachar
Shesta
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I truly belive that our children are "the heritage of the Lord" and that they should not be separated from us, their parents. I am not a home churcher, but am considering it prayerfully. I have always been in IC, because that's how I was raised. Now, after seeing how separated my children are from me, I don't like it. I don't like the fact that every family member is separate, ie: the mom is in the choir, the dad is on the Usher Board, the teens are in the Youth group(in another building), the kids are in Children Church(in another building)and that the babies are in the infant nursery. After much conviction about homeschooling, that conviction has spilled over into the church and it separating families. While I belive in "ministry", I believe we should operate together, not separately. I love having my children with me all the time. Besides, God blessed my husband and I with them, and therefore God gave us the ability, throught Him, to "train them up in the Lord". I've never heard of homechurching. I just happened to see it on one of the HomeSchool pages on the web and typed it in. I believe God is leading us in this direction. There is some fear, because it's some- thing that is out of the norm, but, hey, so is homeschooling. LoL Please pray that God shows me the way and that I just be obedient to His will. And about our children again, God said "Let the children come to Me". I want my children to come to God and I won't let anyone or any institution stop that. The family is broken enough! I am saddened at how the "church" don't realize that they are continuing the world's (Satan and his demonic forces)trend.
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The first four are walking solidly with the Lord as are their spouse's and they are raising their children in the ways of the Lord. The last two are well on their way. A significant part of this is that they were always, mostly anyway, with us, my wife and I, as a part of everything. We rarely used baby sitters. With these last two though, we are noticing a strong trend to keep small children (under 12ish) away from "adult events". I think what is going on here is selfishness. Too many teens and young adults don't want to be "bothered". 
