"Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs,” says Jesus in Luke 18:16.  I was initially stunned to hear of communities that did not allow children. “55plus” communities are supposed to be some kind of senior citizen paradise for retired folks who only like their own grandchildren—and perhaps even them in manageable doses. 55+ paradise? A quiet, clean neighborhood without children getting in the way of one’s golf carts—this makes a better, “plus” community? 

Okay, yes, children are a pain. They don’t respect the property of others and they do dumb stuff, like picking other people’s Tiffany roses, throwing dirt clods on roofs or through bay windows, and catching insects and spiders in jars before releasing them all onto the floor of your TV room. And yes, it’s probably safer if they live someplace else. They play in the streets and are hard to see around the hood of your Cadillac. Safer for you as well, because they tend to leave lots of plastic Playskool toys on sidewalks, lawns, streets, and again, roofs.

So this so-called Senior Paradise (and I’m over 55, I can say this now) is a world hindering children. Peace, quiet, order, and freedom from startlings or undue anxiety—that’s the code.

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Nearly all the Renaissance paintings of Heaven include lots of little babies flying around in the clouds. The Medieval imagination always pictured Paradise as one punctuated with and enhanced by the addition of pudgy, pink-cheeked putti, or cherubs.  No, the Bible gives no indication that the cherubim are in any way infantile, but somewhere along the line this became the idea, that Heaven is filled with lots of baby angels.

Perhaps this developed because until modern times, infant mortality was high, and parents were assured that the souls of their little ones were indeed innocent, and therefore now consigned to God’s good Heaven with abundance and eternal life in the form of toddlers. If so, I guess that’s bad news for the 55 plus tribes. “What? This is Heaven? Why do we have to have all these babies flying around?”

Of course, there are 55 plus churches as well. They never actually admit to it, but you can tell by their policies and the spirit of their leadership that they don’t really like little children around. They are peaceable, quiet, orderly, and they’ve all but eliminated risks of spillage, leaks, or stains on the carpet (from children, anyway). They usually have lots of nice things—expensive furniture, clean walls, great handicap access, and sugar-free cookies to go with the Kirkland coffee.

They don’t mean to do it—or at least they don’t think they’re doing it—but everything about the 55 plus church drives children away. It is unconscious and inevitable. 55 plus churches hinder children.

As a pastor, I’ll say plainly: Jesus hates this. I will guarantee that once these seniors pass into Paradise, they’ll have to spend several thousand years surrounded by toddlers in unlearning their earthly biases. Jesus loves babies and wants them around. Where Jesus is, there are little ones.

What happens to the church that guides its style toward a 55 plus paradise? Jesus leaves it. It loses its life, vitality, and mission, and thereby quickly descends into hospice status. Any church without small children is a hospice congregation. Euthanasia should not be out of the question.

But we’re not talking about First Pres, and God would that we never lean that way.

Without exception and without qualification, let us say that First Presbyterian Church of Upland will always welcome and encourage the children to come to us. With our Preschool, we will continue our commitment to partner with parents in giving young children the best possible start to life. We will continue our commitment to staff a Children’s Ministry and bolster our outreach and programming for children and their parents. And let us also continue our commitment to provide staff and programming to children right up through graduation in order that we assist them into adulthood and gear them on their path to Christian maturity.

It’s costly. It’s messy. Children burp, drool, spill, and break things. It’s going to happen, but so what?  We love the little children as Jesus loves them, because in his eyes, that’s all we are as well. †