A family integrated church is one in which parents and children attend church services together, children stay all through church services (without attending Sunday school or children's ministries) and organised groups and activities for children and youth are non-existent. Timothy Paul Jones notes that in the family-integrated ministry model, "all age-graded classes and events are eliminated."[1] Other terms used are family discipleship churches, family-centered ministry and inclusive-congregational ministry.[2]
Family integrated churches emphasise inter-generational ministry and the "parents' responsibility to evangelize and disciple their own children."[2] Some advocates base this on the idea that families are the "God-ordained building blocks of the church."[3] In 2009, B&H Academic published Perspectives on Family Ministry: Three Views (ISBN 0805448454) which included a contribution by Paul Renfro in favour of "Family-Integrated Ministry." Renfro argues that in the Old Testament, children were part of the "gathered assembly of God's people" (Deuteronomy 31:12), while "in first-century churches the presence of children in the church assembly was assumed," since Paul directly addressed children in Ephesians 6:1-3.[4] Scott Brown argues for family integrated churches on the basis of the sufficiency of Scripture,[5] while advocates of the concept also argue that this is the practice of historic Christianity.[6]
A movement of family integrated churches has formed among evangelical churches in the USA. Organisations that advocate family integrated churches include Vision Forum,[7] the Alliance for Church and Family Reformation, and the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches.[8] The NCFIC lists around 800 affiliated churches.[9]