Family integrated church

In Protestant Christianity, a family integrated church is one in which parents and children ordinarily attend church services together, children stay all through church services without attending Sunday school or children's ministries, and organized groups and activities for children and youth are normally non-existent. Other terms used are family discipleship churches, family-centered ministry and inclusive-congregational ministry.

A spectrum of such churches exists, where some completely eliminate all age-segregation and others allow for some in certain contexts. Although segregation may take place during weekday events, family-integrated churches are generally united in having children in the main worship service. Timothy Paul Jones notes that in the family-integrated ministry model, "all age-graded classes and events are eliminated." Family integrated churches emphasise inter-generational ministry and the "parents' responsibility to evangelize and disciple their own children." Some advocates base this on the idea that families are the "God-ordained building blocks of the church."

Family-integrated churches can be found within many denominations. Other denominations or associations, such as the Primitive Baptists and the Covenant Presbyterian Church require family-integration of their churches. There are also parachurch organizations that work to promote family-integration and unite family-integrated churches, most notably Vision Forum and The National Center for Family Integrated Churches (NCFIC). These two organizations hosted a "Summit on Uniting Church and Home" in San Antonio, Texas, during September, 2001. The Summit discussed various issues, especially the "glaring dichotomy [that] still exists in those churches which practice unbiblical family-segregating, and teen-culture driven philosophies of church life."

NCFIC is a parachurch organization, founded with the mission of promoting the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life and restoring family-integrated worship. The center works toward this goal by hosting conferences and connecting family-integrated churches around the world with their church directory which lists around 800 affiliated churches. Although they have a confession of faith that listed churches are required to agree with, affiliation with the NCFIC does not necessitate full agreement with the organization, only "substantial agreement." Furthermore, aside from their unity on family-integration, churches may vary widely in beliefs and adherents may vary greatly on issues regarding the practice of their faith.

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