For decades, China restricted family size to control population growth. Now the nation is facing the long-term consequences of a shrinking and aging population and is encouraging families to have more children. But generations do not reverse direction as quickly as government policy.

Families have built lives around smaller households. Housing is expensive. Employment feels uncertain. Education is intensely competitive. Parents calculate the cost of raising a child and decide the numbers just don’t work.

When we say children are only the future of the church, we unintentionally suggest that the church belongs primarily to adults and that children are waiting in the lobby until they become mature enough to enter.

But children are the church. They belong to the body of Christ today. They can encourage, give, pray, learn, confess, forgive, welcome, and make God known today. Children will become adult members of the church later. But they are not spiritual apprentices without present standing.

Researchers have used the term “sandwich caregiver” to describe adults who are raising dependent children while also caring for aging parents or other older relatives.

The pressure can be immense.

A parent may be helping a teenager prepare for college while helping an aging mother make decisions about housing. One phone call concerns a child’s school behavior. The next concerns a father’s medical appointment. Money, attention, time, and emotional energy are pulled in opposite directions.