One of the questions shaping my doctoral research right now is this: Who do we believe children are in the life of the church? It’s a simple question, but I’m increasingly convinced it sits underneath many of the practical questions churches are asking about intergenerational ministry, worship, discipleship, and what meaningful participation looks like for children. We often jump quickly to strategy, models, or programming ideas. But before we ask what should we do?, I think we need to ask something deeper:

What do we believe about children, faith, and belonging in the body of Christ?

That question sits at the heart of my doctoral research on the spiritual formation of children in Canadian Baptist churches. The broader project includes pastor interviews, parent surveys, and focus groups with children. So far, I’ve completed the pastor interviews, and while the research is still ongoing, I wanted to share a few of the early things I’m noticing. These aren’t final conclusions. They’re emerging themes I’m hearing as pastors talk about children, faith, worship, discipleship, and the life of the church.

Pastors care deeply about children and often speak about them theologically with real warmth and conviction

One of the most encouraging things in these interviews has been hearing how pastors talk about children. Again and again, I’ve heard pastors describe children as image bearers, as part of the church, as capable of knowing God, and as people whose faith matters now and not just someday when they are older. One pastor said simply, “They’re church.” Another described children as “equally part of the church as every individual is.” That matters because it means the issue is not usually that pastors don’t value children or see them as important. In fact, many of the pastors I interviewed already have a strong theological instinct here. They want children to know they belong. They want children to encounter God. They want children to be formed in faith. And yet, it also became clear that our theology and our practice do not always line up as neatly as we might assume.

We may say children belong, but we are often still deciding what that belonging actually means

This is one of the clearest tensions I’m seeing. Pastors often speak about children as part of the church, but when it comes to actual participation, belonging is still being negotiated. In some churches, children are warmly welcomed and deeply cared for, but their participation is still mostly limited to children’s ministry spaces. In others, children begin to participate more as they get older. In still others, participation depends on whether adults know them well enough to discern readiness and maturity. That may sound like a small distinction, but I don’t think it is. If children are truly part of the body of Christ, then belonging cannot simply mean that we love them, teach them, and make space for them elsewhere. It has to push us to ask what it means for them to participate in the worshipping, serving, and communal life of the church as children.

Churches often describe faith formation as relational and communal but our structures still tend to default to programs and age-based ministry

When pastors talked about how children’s faith is formed, they rarely described it as just information transfer. They talked about prayer, worship, trust, relationships, shared life, being known, hearing the stories of God, serving with others, and learning what it means to follow Jesus in community. I think that rings true. Children’s faith is not formed by content alone. It is formed by the people around them, the practices they participate in, the language of the church, the stories they hear, the ways they are welcomed, and the worshipping life they are invited into. But many of our churches are still structured in ways that make this hard. Children’s ministry programs matter. Age-appropriate teaching matters. Safe, thoughtful spaces matter. I’m not arguing against any of that. But I do think the interviews raise an important question: if we believe faith is formed in the shared life of the church, how much of that shared life are children actually experiencing? Where do children see adults pray, grieve, confess, serve, sing, and trust God together? Where do they build relationships with adults beyond their own family or classroom leaders? Where do they get to contribute, not just consume? In several interviews, pastors described meaningful intergenerational practices like family services, children reading Scripture, children serving in worship, shared service opportunities, all-age moments in congregational life. But those moments often seemed to require a lot of intentional planning. They were meaningful, but not always the ordinary default of the church’s life.

A Baptist question I can’t ignore

As the interviews continued, one area kept surfacing in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated: the role of baptism, communion, and church membership in shaping how we think about children. If a child expresses faith at eight or nine, what do we do with that? If we believe that child genuinely trusts Jesus, is baptism appropriate? If they are baptized, does that mean membership? What about communion? These are not just policy questions. They are theological questions. They reveal what we believe about children’s faith, about belonging, and about what counts as participation in the body of Christ. I don’t think I have all my thoughts settled here yet, but I do know this: our sacramental and membership practices are not separate from our theology of children. They are one of the places where that theology becomes visible.

So what am I learning?

At this stage, I would say I’m learning this: The challenge is not simply getting churches to care about children. Many already do. The deeper challenge is whether our practices actually reflect what we say we believe. If children are truly part of the body of Christ, then intergenerational ministry is not mainly about finding a few moments to include them or adding some all-age experiences to the calendar. It is about asking whether our churches are prepared to receive children as participants in the worshipping community, not only as recipients of care, but as people who belong to Jesus and to his church right now.

A few questions for churches to sit with

• What do our current practices communicate about who children are in the life of the church?
• Where are children treated mainly as recipients of ministry, and where are they welcomed as participants?
• What assumptions about age, maturity, readiness, or belonging are shaping our decisions?
• If we say children belong to the church, what forms of participation does that belonging actually make possible?

There is still more to learn, and I’m especially eager to hear from parents and from children themselves as the next stages of this project unfold. But already, the pastor interviews are helping me see something clearly: Before we ask how to make church more intergenerational, we may need to ask a more foundational question: Who do we believe children are in the life of God’s people?