Earlier this year Shawn Mathis, pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church (OPC), Denver, Colorado, wrote an article entitled What Is a Family Integrated Church? The article has a subheading that reads “Rejecting activities which separate children from parents,” and this immediately lets the reader know about one of the core principles at the center of the Family Integrated Church Movement (FICM). The article begins this way:
Is your Christian education based upon evolutionary and secular thinking? It is if your church practices the usual age-segregated Sunday school according to a new church movement.
The family-integrated church movement, primarily within the homeschooling community, is a self-conscious challenge to classic Christian nurture. It has already affected some Reformed churches. But what exactly is the movement and how does it measure up to the Word of God and church history?
Shawn seeks to answer this question in his critique of the FICM. And in my continuing endeavor to keep this blog’s readers informed about the issues and debate surrounding the FICM, I recommend that you read Shawn’s article in its entirety. As always, comments are welcomed here.