From Wayne Jacobsen by way of House Church Blog:

But don’t our children need church activities?
I’d suggest that what they need most is to be integrated into God’s life through relational fellowship with other believers. 92% of children who grow up in Sunday schools with all the puppets and high-powered entertainment, leave ‘church’ when they leave their parents’ home. Instead of filling our children with ethics and rules we need to demonstrate how to live in God’s life together. Even sociologists tell us that the #1 factor in determining whether a child will thrive in society is if they have deep, personal friendships with non-relative adults. No Sunday school can fill that role. I know of one community in Australia who after 20 years of sharing God’s life together as families could say that they had not lost one child to the faith as they grew into adulthood. I know I cut across the grain here, but it is far more important that our children experience real fellowship among believers rather than the bells and whistles of a slick children’s program.

Gretchen and I have been talking lately about our place at Brookwood, what’s good and bad, where we fit in and where we don’t, what things bring us closer to the center of what God is doing in our world, what things bring our kids closer to living in the revolutionary way of Jesus and what things just make our kids better churchgoers. And the above strikes at the heart of that. Cause for further thought, prayer, meditation, and discussion. And maybe for action.