I don’t have a particular problem with segregating children from adults. There are always going to be some things that can be done more effectively or more efficiently in a socially homogeneous group. I’m pretty sure that if we made children and adults do things together all the time, we’d all be clawing at the walls before long. But I do think that continuity of discourse is an important postmodern virtue. As soon as a pragmatic segregation (eg., for the purpose of teaching) becomes a ‘cultural’ or ‘social’ or ‘linguistic’ segregation, then community begins to suffer. Part of the postmodern agenda, surely, is to knock holes in the cultural boundaries between church and not-church, but also within the church – between traditionalists and progressives, between moderns and postmoderns, between thinkers and feelers, between word-based and Spirit-based spiritualities, between different social and racial groups, between men and women, and between young and old. Let the children be part of the conversation, I say. Incidentally, last Sunday at the Ichthus church in London we go to, we had kids being prophesied over, waving banners, and writing their thoughts and drawing pictures from God on a big roll of paper as part of the service. Old-fashioned charismatic kitsch maybe, but it all helps overcome the disjuncture between their spiritual life (if they’re allowed to have any) and ours.