(Ok, so the picture of Jesus is a bit cheesy, but you get the point, he loved spending time with children...)
As we move forward with our church getting ready to restart and replant Coastlands in a new school, we are rethinking how we do the children's ministry. I'd like to move in the direction of having both a nursery, toddler and lower elementary class available, while also allowing families to keep thier kids in church if they'd like to. We are still in process, but these articles by Scott Brown shed a good light on the subject of keeping your kids in church, if you so choose. I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts.
The Value of Children Worshiping with their Parents in
Church
By Scott Brown
First of all, it should strike as strange that we even would take up this subject. Of course, children should be with their parents in the meetings of the church. But in this era, children are almost always hustled away from worship with adults into high energy activities geared to their inclinations.
So the question for consideration here is, if you make the jump and engage your children in worship and teaching (that is usually geared only for adults) what would be the value?
Church
By Scott Brown
First of all, it should strike as strange that we even would take up this subject. Of course, children should be with their parents in the meetings of the church. But in this era, children are almost always hustled away from worship with adults into high energy activities geared to their inclinations.
So the question for consideration here is, if you make the jump and engage your children in worship and teaching (that is usually geared only for adults) what would be the value?
What follows are my own observations. I do not have any statistics or passages of
scripture to prove any of it. These are the most obvious effects that I have observed.
Here are four value-adding results of our bringing our families together for worship
scripture to prove any of it. These are the most obvious effects that I have observed.
Here are four value-adding results of our bringing our families together for worship
1. It Fosters Closeness:
Bringing the whole family together for worship, prayer and instruction will enhance the
unity love and effectiveness as a team for spreading the glory of God.
Anytime people spend time together, it fosters closeness. This is just a fact of life and it
applies to retreats with your company team members or anything. Meeting together in
the church will do the same thing to foster closeness. When we are together, our hearts
turn toward one another.
At the same time, this should not make families islands, but it should bring them into rich
relationship with the family of God. We come to the gathering of the church to link arms
with the wider family of God. It would betray a deep unhealthiness if the families were
closed societies.
But, people I know who have broken rank to worship with their children, report that there
is more love in the family as a result.
2. It places parents at center stage of spiritual development:
The value for the parents will be that it will place them in center stage of the child’s
spiritual growth. All family members will hear the same thing together and the parents
will be in better position to explain, ask questions and provide practical applications.
It also helps parents understand areas in which the child needs instruction. Being
together in this setting will:
* Bring obedience problems to the surface
* Bring broken relationship problems between parents and children to the surface
All of these things will tend to help the children learn to look to the head of the household
for ongoing instruction in God’s Word.
3. It Accelerates Skill Development:
This is an opportunity to teach your children some valuable skills that will accelerate
their maturity.
There are several things that they will have the opportunity to learn in the process:
How to listen for life changing truth in a lecture setting
How to take notes and share about what was learned
How to honor the speaker by:
* Sitting still
* Keeping eye contact with the speaker
* Honoring the other listeners by refraining from disruptive and selfish
behavior like whispering, wandering around the room, squirming and
whining.
4. It accelerates maturity.
With parents helping children in the above areas, maturity is accelerated. There are many
development oriented experiences that could be mentioned. Here are a few:
Honoring the preaching of God’s Word and participating personally in its life
changing message.
Early exposure to advanced vocabulary
Early exposure to advanced theological concepts
After incorporating children into the normal life of the church for several years now, I
have had the opportunity to see first hand what happens. Early maturity and enhanced
love is the result. I don’t believe that most people would name these as results of the
modern age graded Sunday school.
What Can Children Get out of Church?
By Scott Brown
There is no indication from scripture that children were ever removed from the meetings
designed for preaching scripture reading, prayer and worship. But, in our culture, it is
automatic and comprehensive. Jeremy Walker has observed,
“The constant presumption of Scripture is that children were present in the
worship of the people of God. In Nehemiah's time, men and women and all those
who could hear with understanding gathered to hear Ezra the scribe read the Law
(Neh 8.1-3; Ezr 10.1). Moses certainly anticipated the literal 'children' of Israel to
be present when the Law was read (Dt 31.12-13). Paul's letters, intended to be
read to the churches, assume the intelligent presence of children (Eph 6.1-4; Col
3.20), and children were present when the Lord Jesus taught (Mt 18.1-5; 19.13-
15).”
What effect does worship singing have on a child?
First of all, it must be said that children get something out of everything they experience.
So we should abandon the idea that “my child gets nothing out of big church.” This is
subterfuge and misinformation. Plus, nobody gets everything out of anything,
particularly a sermon.
We may say, “our children don’t get anything out of the services,” but we can’t really
believe it. We get goose bumps when we sing to our children while they are in the
womb. We believe that the sounds and even the attitudes surrounding them are affecting
their development process. Some people play classical music to their children in the
womb, while others contend that just hearing it makes their kids smarter outside the
womb. We take them to the library and they do not get everything out of what is there.
They listen to all of our conversation, and don’t think for a minute that everything goes
over their heads.
Children get something out of everything they experience.
There is great value for a very young child experiencing the deep and authentic worship
of the church.
Something is being transferred as they watch their fathers give of the family resources
during the offering. As they grow up their understanding will increase.
Something is being transferred, as they watch the adults ‘worship in spirit and in truth”
John 4:23.
They don’t get everything but they can get something from observing the fervency and
genuineness of the church’s expression of love for God, dependence upon Him and joy in
Him.
Children progressively understand what a parent and the wider church members love and
appreciate. Year after year, their understanding builds. Year after year the well is filling
up.
What effect does the teaching of the Word have on a child?
By joining in the main services they will be experiencing the teaching of God’s Word and
beginning to understand the importance of preaching. This is a perfect opportunity for a
father to share with his children how the preaching of the Word is affecting him and how
he plans to bring his family in line with it.
Only God knows what a child gets from hearing father pray.
Only God knows what a child gets out of hearing God’s people worship.
Only God knows what a child gets out of seeing men standing up and speaking of the
things of God.
Only God knows what a child gets out of experiencing Christian community.
It is really much simpler than you might think. The attitude should be: the church is
family time. Our family, and the family of God.
We enjoy eating out together as a family. We enjoy going to the beach together as a
family. Then, why do we not enjoy worship and instruction and fellowship with our
brothers and sisters? One reason is that it is culturally odd and it is difficult to resist the
direction of culture of excluding children. At many points, the church must be separate
from its culture to maintain its faithfulness to God. This means that difficulties will
present themselves as we resist
Steps for the Preparation of children:
The first thing that must be in order to bring your children into the main worship services
of the church is to examine your own heart. Do you find pleasure in hearing the Word of
God and turning your heart toward Him in the corporate worship service.
Do you yearn for the courts of the Lord? Do you hunger and thirst after God and His
Word?
So, when should you bring your children into the main service? As soon as you
personally love the Lord with all your heart.
If you do not love the worship and the preaching, you will no doubt raise up another of
your own kind.
A husband and wife came to our elders once to say that their children were not getting
anything out of the services and they were going to leave the church. Both of them told
of how boring and dead and irrelevant church was to them as children, when their parents
forced them to go. I asked, “were your fathers regenerate? They said “no”, they did not
think so. This is the legacy of parents who make their children to go to church when they
themselves have no relationship with Him. I believe that they thought church was
irrelevant, because their father thought it was irrelevant. If your chief delight is not in the
worship of God and Word of God, you will no doubt create more problems than you will
solve.
Second, you must teach your children that it is ok if they do not understand everything.
Life is built one building block at a time and it takes much time. The child raising
experience is marathon of accumulation. Each day something is added.
Every valuable activity in life is not the exciting rush of activity that you find in our
incredible movie entertainment products. Some legitimate activities are exciting and
some are not. It is healthy, in a sense, “to be bored.” It is good for them as it strengthens
them in another area: honor for parents and others around them.
It will strengthen their ability to wait patiently while not being entertained, and it helps
them break addiction to entertainment.
It lengthens their attention span and the ability to sustain energy under the hearing of
discourses with demanding logical progressions.
Third, keep a routine of methods. Here are some ideas for keeping your children with
you in church.
The night before the service, look at the text to be preached and look for images or
objects that could relate to what is there. Try to find an object to bring to church with
you that will help the very young child to understand the content.
If you have older children, instruct them to have sensitivity to the mothers with very
young children who may need help.
Give the children some guidelines: no potty breaks, no drinks of water or wandering
around, no running in the meeting place of the worship time, no getting on the platform.
For very young children, bring a blanket and have them sit on it on the floor during the
service and give them something to draw with or play quietly. This will also give them a
footprint upon which they can be instructed to stay. This could also be practiced at home
for a successful experience in church.
I am not in favor of giving children coloring books and distractions to keep them
occupied. It is better to bring their attention to true worship of God.
Bring a small chair for the small child.
Third, prepare yourself for the long haul view. This is not an Instant Gratification Affair.
It takes significant time and effort to shape the heart and behavior of a child to the place
where they are well behaved and participating in the services. A few Sundays will not be
enough to train them to be active listeners and participants in worship. It takes many
weeks, months and years and is an ongoing process.
Ages 1-4 are the most difficult ages since children are more squirmy and ‘attention
spans” are shorter. These years require constant coaching and vigilance. It could drive the
most godly parent to church hopping, drink or homicide. But remember, you are
preparing them for the future and the front end investment, though it is the most difficult
is worth the return.
Training children is like building a new company. It is harder at the beginning and
severely taxes almost everything you have. But, if you are diligent on the front end,
rewards await.
Fourth, plan what you will do during the service.
One of my favorite things to do with my children who are beginning to learn how to
write is to have them look at my notes as I write them. I tell them to copy the words I
have underlined on my page. They have difficulty keeping up with everything I write in
my notes, but if I underline a few key ideas, they will understand some of the really
important points.
Use tools to help the child keep focus
Use a “fill in the blank” outline
Play a word identification game – We list key words to be used in the sermon on
the sermon outline sheet
Vocabulary builder – have the child write down words they do not understand. It
is also wise to have the parent write down words that the child should learn.
Use a “picture it” outline for very young children. In our church, we provide a
sheet with key ideas in the outline so the student can draw a picture of the idea
being presented. Even if you do not have a prepared sheet like this, a blank one
will work.
If your children are being disobedient or dishonoring, feel free to take them out of the
service to deal with the heart issues that have created it.
What can children get out of church?
The question would be a strange one for people in 1800 since they always had their
children with them during worship. It was normal. The question would not have come
up because people were used to keeping their children with them.
The question would also have been an unusual one for people in the early church. The
early church met in homes with all present and Jesus made it clear to His disciples that
children were always welcome.
The question would be a strange one for people in Israel. We have many Old Testament
references that record children present during major events where God’s Word was being
communicated to groups of people. The Old Testament writers make mention of this
without interpretation.
It is obvious that the normative practice for Israel and the early church was to integrate
children into the normal practices of the gatherings of the people. Nowhere do we find a
trace of teaching or example of our modern age graded approach to the church.
