Children at Church: The Place for Inter-Generational Worship

My friends, here is a topic I have grown more confident about as the years have passed. Should children worship with their parents during the Sunday morning service, or should they be sent away to a special “Children’s Church” in another room? (Or sometimes a completely different building.)

I appreciate very much what John Piper has said here on the topic. While I don’t really have a problem with a “children’s sermon” in the middle of the service, which Piper is against, I think there is incredible value in having the children stay with their parents and worship WITH them. Worship together is so valuable that I believe it should happen every day.

But how can I teach my children to sit still during a worship service they don’t understand? Well, first check out that article. Some good practical advice there. Secondly, children understand more than we know. It astounds me how much those little sponge brings soak up. (Even when we think their attention is given to other things.)

But way, WAY more valuable than any doctrine they may or may not absorb/understand is the opportunity to see their parents giving honor and reverence to a higher Power. A Being of such great importance and value that they spend dedicated time each week (each day if we’re doing this right) to worship and praise Him. The one whom they call the Creator is not only the maker of Heaven and Earth, but the Redeemer of all mankind and the person my daddy and mommy call “Friend”, “Lord”, “Father” even. That is impact you cannot get out of a book.

This kind of example is the kind of thing that has a deep impact upon the thinking and worldview of our children. It’s the kind of impact that lasts well beyond the early days of childhood. It can carry them through the difficult and uncertain teen years, when they are seeking answers to a host of challenging questions. Remembering their parents worship God can help to provide a foundation upon which a teenager can build solid doctrine and truth. (Since they are finally old enough to grasp profound doctrines. See we don’t need to neglect doctrine either.) But if they never saw or heard their parents worship, those memories are absent.

This kind of foundation is not laid by making sure my four year old mentally understands the significance of a substitionary death, or the necessity of the incarnation, or the mystery of the Trinity. But the simple experience of watching dad or mom shed tears of gratitude and praise to the Lord God Almighty can be life changing for a child.

Even if they stray from the faith as adults, they remember the good example set by their parents with fond memories, especially if those parents were careful to show unconditional love to their children. (FYI, that is a huge piece of this puzzle called “parenting.”)

But we are robbing our children of these memories, these life-guiding experiences, because we don’t want to be distracted from learning as much as we can. Because we want to “get something out of the service.” Once again we want to “get, get, get” something from worship, instead of thinking about what we can give.

What are we giving our children during a worship service? What are we giving Christ?