mily of which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls God Father
and man brother.

Closer and more helpful relations between family and church follow where
the principles of the family prevail in the latter. The family is an
ideal democracy because it exists primarily for persons. It places the
value of persons first of all. So with the true church; it will exist to
grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all buildings,
adornments, exercises, teachings, and organizations will be but as
tools, as means serving that purpose. As the family sees its house,
table, and activities designed to personal ends, so will the church. In
an institution existing to grow lives, the great principle of democracy
and of the family will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most.
Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so will the church
place the child in the midst. Just as the home exists for the child and
thus holds to itself all other lives, so will the church some day exist
for the little ones and so hold and use all other lives.

The prime difficulty of relating the children in our families to the
average church lies in the fact that they are children, while the church
is an adult institution. Its buildings are designed for adults--save in
rare and happy exceptions;[46] its services are designed for adults; it
has a more or less extraneous institution called a school for the
children. The church spends its money for adults; it compasses sea and
land to make one proselyte and coerce him back in old age, and allows
the many that already as children are its own to drift away. It often
fails to see that if it is to grow lives it must grow them in the
growing period. There still remain many churches that must be converted
from the selfishness of adult ministry and entertainment to self-giving
service for the development of spiritual lives and, especially, for the
development of such lives through childhood and youth. They must hear
again the Master's voice regarding "these little ones," regarding the
significance of the child. And all must be loyal to his picture of his
Kingdom as a family and must, therefore, do what all true families do,
become child-centric. A church in which children occupy the same place
that they hold in an ideal family will have no difficulty in finding a
place for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed transition
from the family life in the home to the family life in the churc