I am wondering whether we can provide really good coffee and community RIGHT HERE so the Starbucks parents don't go around the corner but stay and connect with other parents. I think part of this phenomenon is that people are finding community in their children's schools, at their gyms, at the Junior League (God bless them) and no longer need the church for that.

I feel pretty much the same way about parents (and communities) who drop their kids at "Children's Church" so they can go "enjoy the service" in peace.

I'd be interested in knowing whether the folks who end up commenting on this article have children. I didn't drop my own kids off at church and go elsewhere when they were young. But having raised children, I am sympathetic to parents who might find themselves overwhelmed by the need to balance work, parenting and various kinds of community involvement. I can't get too excited about the fact that some folks drop their kids off at church (as so many dropped their kids at my baseball and soccer practices) because I am not in a position to judge whether this makes them better parents or not.

Also, while I am against tacky power point slides, and have never actually used power point in a presentation, the notion that we can't distill some basic hypothesis about how to reach out to a particular audience and state those hypothesis in short sentences seems curious to me.

As a child I was dropped off at church - and it "took" --
As to children in church - I like having them there - but many in anglo congregations would like a break from the crying and wriggling during one hour a week. Seems like the least we can to -- present the readings and lessons in a child accessible manner (Godly Play or something else)- come together for communion. And nothing turns off parents like one person giving them the "stink eye." We can try all we want to stop that lack of welcome - but people are people.
I don't agree with you Adam about your comments kids in church - staying in church can be just as much of a turn off for kids as having their own space. I love your idealism but practically - not my experience. One size does not fit all. And it is not either/or

"I feel pretty much the same way about parents (and communities) who drop their kids at "Children's Church" so they can go "enjoy the service" in peace."

So does that mean you'd prefer they not go at all? I'm trying to find a way to not sound belligerent here, but really?? My son is 3 and refuses to go to Children's church. My husband is a priest, so that leaves the burden of policing him throughout the service to make sure he doesn't disrupt anyone else's worship service to me. Can you imagine how much spiritual edification or satisfaction I get out of the service? I can't even close my eyes during a prayer, let alone participate to the degree I'd like.

Frankly, it bothers me that a parent wanting to enjoy a service in peace is so blithely dismissed. You think a parent with a poor spiritual life is going to be inclined to cultivate one in their child? I think a lot of priests, especially those who are young and either without children or are first career and possibly have never had to sit with young kids through a service (not to mention a 20 minute sermon) criticize children's church or their parishioners' desire to worship without their children because they don't see how children get any basis for knowing what goes on in church by the time they're old enough to participate. Which is a fair criticism, to an extent. But it's awfully easy to lob it when you're not the parent in the pew who wonders why you made the effort in the first place. I noticed in my own family that it suddenly wasn't such a huge issue when the priest got the opportunity to experience the service with the toddler in tow.

[Editor's note: Thanks for the comment, Erin. If you feel you can disclose your identity, we'd appreciate your leaving your full name next time.]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments all. A few responses - I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with giving your kids over to the care of others for some portion of Sunday morning. In fact, because it encourages individuation and creates a peer group of children in a Christian community, I think it's probably healthy to do so. The issue is whether kids are being "dropped off" so that they and their parents can more fully participate in the life of the Christian community, or as an abdication of responsibility for a child's Spiritual wellbeing to the "experts." One kind of "dropping off" is a way of belonging. The other a kind of "consuming," and the ill I try to highlight here.

Jim, my concern re: "tacky powerpoint slides," is not intended to suggest a universal suspicion of brevity. I think it is our habit to jump to shallow, practical (secular) solutions when confronted with issues like this, rather than running our dilemmas back through our foundational narratives of theology and scripture, so we can articulate a thoroughly Christian response that is explicitly rooted in our identity and story.

Given my personal experience, it was my family, way back in the '50s, who were the "Starbucks" parents. My father refused to go to church at all. My mother would get us there but never once, ever, engaged me in a conversation about what I was experiencing, or "learning" in Sunday School. When my children were young, 25-30 yrs. ago, Sunday School was still vapid, but my kids were among the first allowed to take early Communion, and they were welcome to remain in services as soon as they could remain at least reasonably well-behaved. Now, same parish, we have an amazing children's formation program, the young ones have nursery but many parents fetch their kids back to the Sanctuary after the sermon, children can take communion as soon as they desire, most of the parents are either assistants in the classroom or work with the older youth or just hang out in the courtyard to help with kids who need mommy/daddy time or anything else. In other words, these parents are anything but drop 'em off, outsourcing people who are expecting others to raise their children in general or instruct them in faith in particular. I realize it may not be the norm, but there are people who haven't abdicated responsibility for themselves or their children.

Sarah Ridgway

Patrick, it may be that we are in general agreement about how we respond to this. I think we do what you suggest, but do it with the needs of this particular audience in mind. We look for the place where what we have to offer overlaps with what they want and suspect they might need. That way we are true to ourselves, but mindful of the audience. We speak our truth, but in a way that people can hear.

I think the crisis might be about church as community, the need for our "identity" and our story, our theological distinctions about committment that morph human behavior on Sunday morning as opposed the the evils of post-christendom. This story might be told other ways.

I was a 'Starbuck's Parent". Well, not Starbuck's, we would take the free coffee and retreat to the little garden area and use the time to enjoy each other's company. We have more money now, if it was today, it would definitely be Starbucks.

The church had a Royal School of Church Music choir - singing that music changed my children, it transformed the whole family, I think. Looking back, I wonder why we thought they needed to go to Sunday School as well. But I know for sure why we retreated to ourselves with the coffee in that little garden space.

We got tired of being treated as invisible.

It is an experience I have have over the years in a variety of places in churches over a range of theological stances. Unfortunately for me, and I guess unfortunately for the Kingdom of God, it has been a uniquely Episcopalian experience.

Even now I find it difficult to describe in words. One can walk down the Sunday School hallways or be finding a place to sit in church and encounter a face that is familiar. Familiar because the same people seem to sit in the same section of the nave or even familiar because you might have substituted in the Sunday School class together some time ago. There is often a moment when you would expect your eyes to meet the eyes of the other person, and it would seem a slight smile, a nod of the head or some small sign of recognition would be appropriate. Just in that very instant, the other person becomes significantly interested in perhaps the colorful bulletin board or maybe the stained glass windows that apparently happen to be in view just behind your head. Better even if there is someone that other person knows well and is delighted to see farther in the distance behind you. It is the experience of being looked through - as if one wasn't there - as if one was invisible.

See, sometimes I still buy clothes my at thrift stores, and at that time we drove older model cars and we couldn't afford to get the little dings fixed. No question that we could ever afford the church school, or to buy a house in the elite neighborhood where most of the members lived. I guess you could look at me and tell those kind of things.

Funny thing though, how the experience has endured. Over the years I think we've actually accrued a little cultural capital. Yet, the days we were returning from my spouse's stint teaching at a European university - for him to teach at of all things, a seminary - our luggage lost, sleeping on a bare floor in an empty house, our first Sunday in the United States in a long time - we showed up at church. I still shudder for the sake of the church I do love, to recall, at the Peace, a manicured hand in mine, a voice and eyes - yes, looking through me - seeking the one, just over my shoulder with the words, "I like your hair."

And of my children? The ones who went to Sunday School while we drank coffee? The ones whose minds and hearts were formed by that profound tradition of music particular to our church? My daughter called me on the phone just about a year ago. She attends a small liberal arts college in the same town where she went to high school and has continued singing in the same church choir. Instead of finishing at the local Episcopal school, however, she opted to spend her last official year of high school attending the local community college and perhaps that is the reason, in the end, that she doesn't belong. I shudder again, and for this daughter I love, this time with anger, to recall her dear 18 year old voice saying to me, speaking, I regret, of the clergy, "After two years seems like they could just recognize my face - I love this music and will always sing it, but I am done with their religion."

So I offer a response to Rev'd Halls piece. While my spouse and I dropped off our kids because we were tired of being invisible, maybe those Rev'd Hill speaks of whose cars aren't dented and who go to Starbuck's, go because they weary of all that it takes, in fact, to NOT be invisible. Maybe they weary of the burden a calculus of the rules of the community to recognize who is to be seen and who is to be unseen. And clerics should wonder if those rules are altogether so righteous. My experience says it is not so often that the church stands against a hostile culture, but that the church, especially our Episcopal church, is not so different from it. Let the staff meetings be wary of lurking arrogant piety.

And why do they drop the children off?

There are other possibilities. Sometimes nowadays, I do rub shoulders with that middle class who might be Episcopalian. For one, they can afford babysitters and child care on their own. For two, maybe clerics in staff meetings don't know it, but there are plenty avenues of 'good values' out there in the secular world.

Despite my own rather ragged uneven experience of church as community, I still believe that the church the one place we hope to find transcendence, to find mystery, to find beauty, to believe in love. I believe that no matter how mucked up church can get, those things some how persist. Maybe, we parents who have done/do the dropping off have an irrational hope, that even though our experience denies it, church is the home of the transcendent and we are slow to deny that to our children. It seems so very human to hope against the odds that the good we may not have found for ourselves might be found for our children. Maybe it is not unrepentant out-sourcing, maybe it is more brave hope.

Melissa Holloway

I'm surprised at the resentment generated by the practice of the parents who drop their children off and go elsewhere. As Ann said:

As a child I was dropped off at church - and it "took" --

My goodness! Maybe the parents just need a break, and maybe church will "take", and maybe one day the parents might even come.

June Butler

I have to respond to one of the phrases that the Reverend Patrick Hall used in his post, as the words are completely antithetical to my experience.

I've taught Sunday school for children and adults off and on for 10 years and have logged many hours being trained (mostly at my own expense) in three separate curricula.

"Toddling issuance"? "Toddling ISSUANCE"? I would *never* use a phrase like that to describe a child. And when parents look overwhelmed, we try to give them a friendly smile and let them know we're here to illuminate the Word for their kids - not to judge them or anyone else. I'm so sorry that's not the standard operating procedure elsewhere. I'm always honored when parents show us that they think we have something worthwhile to offer their children.

I am the Director of Children's Education at my Episcopal church. We do have a few "Starbucks parents" and I am both grateful and honored that they trust me and our team of teachers with their children on Sunday mornings. The parents in our congregation, like many parents in many congregations of all denominations, are sometimes overwhelmed and sometimes overworked and under a lot of stress at times. Both partners work and money is tight and there is not time nor budget for babysitters and "date nights". If one of the gifts we can offer to these parents - these loving, caring, spiritual people - is the gift of TIME, then I am happy to do so. If spouses are able to spend time with one another for a few hours on a Sunday morning, maybe it will strengthen their relationship. The time a parent might spent alone to drink coffee, read a book, and breathe may make them a better parent. Whatever it might be, their use of time on a Sunday morning during our Education Hour is not mine to judge or analyze. But always, always, I give them my blessing as I welcome their children.

Jennifer McNally

""Toddling issuance"? "Toddling ISSUANCE"? I would *never* use a phrase like that to describe a child. "

Quite right. If he wanted to ironically allude to the little darlings, the correct word to have chosen would have been "issue" (as in, "He died without issue") not "issuance."

Indeed, issue would have been the most correct term, and I think i started there. But issuance sounds more like a biological discharge of some sort, and thus struck me as jarring, snarkier verbage. And it is a life goal of mine to say everything in as snarky and jarring a manner as possible. Apologies to anyone who was offended. I rarely say or write anything that isn't at least 50% tongue-in-cheek.

The mission statement of our church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. It hurts my heart to hear those responsible for guiding their flocks to fulfill that mission speak so dismissively and with such a lack of compassion about those who come through the red doors. Unfortunately, I've heard that very tone from two different priests in the span of a single week. No wonder people like Melissa Holloway feel invisible and un-welcomed.

All Christians are called to love one another as Christ loved us--and clergy hold a special responsibility to show that love, not only with our lips, but in our lives (in the ways we allow ourselves to think about the souls entrusted to us). Lord, I love your people, help my unloving thoughts...

Thanks Suzcate - please sign your name when you comment at the Café -- ~ed.

I got a kick out of "toddling issuance."

" And it is a life goal of mine to say everything in as snarky and jarring a manner as possible. "

Tsk - and you a clergyman... ;-)

As a father of five children I find it amazing that people are more interested in taking their children to Sunday School than taking themselves to Sunday School. True commitment to a path for your entire family seems more beneficial. How do you talk to your children about Sunday school when you were at Starbucks? Where is your point of reference?

Alan Brown

When I was the (lay) youth minister at a very affluent parish, I was sometimes tempted to post a sign on the youth room door: "Beware. Bringing your children here may result in their becoming Christians."

Now, as the rector of a small parish in a New England college town, possibly the single thing that I devote the MOST energy to is building Christian community among the young families of the parish by gathering twice a month on a weeknight for storytelling, activities, dinner, and worship. It's not terribly restful for the parents, but God bless them, they show up. And bring their friends. And for at least one family, it IS the avenue that allows them to be part of the parish, because Dad isn't involved in church and Mom doesn't feel like coming to Sunday morning and wrangling a 3-year-old and 5-year-old in the pew. And I baptized those kids last month.

I cannot even begin to comprehend the mindset of clergy who say they want to grow their churches or attract young families, and then ignore or dismiss those same families. Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that my mother is Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, and I was radicalized regarding Christian formation at about the age of 7. :)

Grace - your mother radicalized many of us with her work.

Alan, I think there are a lot of parishes out there where the Adult Ed. pickings are pretty slim.

I began reading this because of the title. I see outsourcing our children as the lack of knowledge that parents have about just how to share their faith with their children. They expect the one hour a week (minus the weeks of vacation or other times when it's inconvenient) to teach their children about the Christian faith. When you compare the hours required for public education and what we have available for Christian education, we fall very short. Yet parents will expect the church to teach the Bible, how to act in a Christian manner, how to get along with others, how to pray, church history, and more. As I've worked with parents across the years I've come to realize that what they really want is for their children to have a sound realtionship with God (which is what I relate to as "faith" - my beliefs change as my faith grows). But parents feel very inadequate. When I first realized this I found no book that I could recommend to parents that wasn't like a seminary text book or that told the parent, "If your child asks this, you may say that." I do not believe I, nor anyone else, should put words into a parent's mouth about their own faith. The parent needs to learn how to share his or her relationship with God in their own words. Consequently I wrote a book that has been revised and now goes under the title: HOW DO OUR CHILDREN GROW? It has a study guide in the back that would be good for churches that want to have a "Starbucks" parents' class.

I was glad to read Grace Burson's comments about planning times when parents and children could work with learning together. As I've consulted with churches across the nation I've had requests for help with this, and so the book SIDE BY SIDE: FAMILIES LEARNING AND LIVING THE FAITH TOGETHER. This book has family-oriented events that can be done on Sunday mornings or on an evening, as well as a mini-retreat. They cover subjects such as worship, the sacraments, prayer, and seasonal times.

I've also developed a "Young Reader's Bulletin" that is different from the children's bulletins you can purchase because you set it up according to your adult bulletin but explain what's going on in every part of the service and give suggestions for children to write or draw their thoughts during those specific times. It's in several of my books. For more information on my books check out my web site or contact me:
Delia Halverson
www.deliahalverson.com

'Alan, I think there are a lot of parishes out there where the Adult Ed. pickings are pretty slim."

So....maybe we could send a few parishioners down to Starbucks to sit, talk, build community and maybe even begin to share faith stories! Meet people where they are and go from there instead of trying to make them fit into our mold. I keep reminding people that Sunday Schools were only invented in the 1880's -- we did faith formation for almost 2000 years before that without this particular mode of doing it. So we could get creative and think outside of that box. Those parents are signaling that we need to connect with them in a different way. I'd start with going to Starbucks with them.