By Verna Weber
I can read your mind. The objections that fill the air at the title of this piece probably are not new to me. Let me guess at a few.
Children won”t get anything out of the church”s main worship service.
Children are distracting.
They need an age-appropriate setting.
We need them to be somewhere else.
This is my time (usually uttered by tired parents).
Ultimately, the responses boil down to one point””the greatest barrier to bringing the whole church together for worship is children. It used to be that children were to be seen and not heard. Now, apparently, they are to be neither seen nor heard.
A big part of the problem is this: the church building has become one of the most age-segregated spaces in our culture today. It”s the type of segregation you won”t see, for instance, at a professional baseball game where families observe and participate together . . . for three hours!
We decry the fragmentation of the family in our society, yet arrange for and encourage families to separate during worship, one of the most bonding and transformational times in the family”s spiritual life together.
I”ll admit implementing all-age worship services that include children requires some ingenuity. Quite frankly, that is not too much to ask of a church and a people who pride themselves on resourcefulness and creativity. The church needs to understand that all-age worship is vital to its future. All-age worship that includes children is important for the health of families and congregations. It is biblically and theologically sound.
At this point you may be imagining children running wild, loud noises and screaming, and Cheerios floating in the Communion juice. But I am not endorsing anarchy. Neither am I proposing a return to the harsh, restrictive, adult-centered service that may loom large in the memories of many who were raised in some more traditional intergenerational worship settings.
I am proposing we include children in order to bring the whole household of God together, the very young to the very old, to participate together in worship. We can afford to be more flexible, and we can help children learn about worship behavior. We need to do this for the sake of our worship, our church, our families, and our children.
Our Worship
The primary focus and occupation of the church is worship. The congregation at worship is arguably the central event in the life of the church. It is about God and for God. We are transformed by it but not because we seek it on our terms (i.e., my style, my space, my meditation, my enjoyment, my comfort, my catharsis). It is not about me! Having our children among us helps us keep that in mind.
Children have spiritual capital. They are created in the image of God and are divinely endowed with spiritual characteristics. Because of this, they have potential for spiritual influence in the church. Jesus on more than one occasion called attention to the spiritual attributes of children and what we can learn from them.
Consider his comments embedded in the following passages:
“¢ Mark 10:15: “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
“¢ Matthew 21:16: “From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise.”
“¢ Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
We remember the “do not hinder them” part, but have we recognized the significance of “for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”?
It is not only for the children”s good that I suggest including them in worship today. It”s for our good and the good of our worship. We need what children have and what they bring with them. This includes awe, innocence, spontaneity, vitality, transparency, inquisitiveness, unembarrassed joy, unencumbered faith, and absolute trust in a heavenly Father who loves them. We often lose these kinds of things as adults, and that hinders our worship.
Those who gather to worship should be participants, not passive observers. Much about worship calls for action and response. Rather than hinder these, we might explore how to use a variety of worship behaviors and responses for the purpose of raising our hearts to God. When children are included and invited to be fully involved, they can practice and facilitate participation.
The Church
There are examples in the Old Testament of God”s calling his people to assemble. In these commands he placed obvious emphasis on including children and even infants. He called them to prayer, to confession, and to the reading of the Law. In every case, children were specifically mentioned (see Joshua 8:34, 35; 2 Chronicles 20:13; Deuteronomy 31:11-13; and Ezra 10:1). God apparently considered children to be an integral and important part of the community. Indeed, it is implied that the community is incomplete without them.
Furthermore, it is a fact of human development that we cannot mature if we only spend time with people who are just like us. While that is true of children, I am actually thinking of adults in this regard. We will mature as a people, as a community, when we make room for the less comfortable relationships and situations. We should not shy away from this type of fellowship work in our worship.
I believe this kind of effort is part of being holy people. Holiness is unselfish. It sacrifices, accommodates, and looks to the needs of others. It does not need to have its own way. Holiness models, teaches, and guides with loving patience. This is the church.
Our Families
We charge parents with the challenging job of raising children who will be faithful. Yet we give them precious little opportunity to do this in the congregational setting, especially in worship. The expectation is that all of this work must take place outside the life of the congregation. Being spiritual mentors to your children is a challenging role that needs the support of a safe and affirming fellowship. Rather than always arranging for parents to outsource the spiritual care of their children to those who are trained, we must also encourage and support them in their role within the context of the church together. This includes worship.
What”s more, families face the time and energy demands of their individual obligations, such as jobs, school, and extracurricular activities. These are not generally uniting factors in their lives. Family time has decreased significantly in the past three decades while weekly work hours have significantly increased. As we consider these challenges, we would do well to try to provide opportunities for families to gather rather than divide.
Our Children
Research shows that we underestimate children”s ability to worship and to encounter God. Conventional wisdom declares they need to be entertained with a dumbed-down version of all that is holy. We are so committed to an essentialist, cognitive model of “what they get out of it,” that we fail to see what they absorb and what they experience. We don”t look for that because we are looking for them to articulate something for which they have, as yet, little or no vocabulary or proficiency.
But if we take time to listen, we will hear that children have heard and noticed and experienced. And often they have encountered God and worshipped. They take in the sights, sounds, and smells of worship. They also see the expressions, postures, and participation of those who worship. These are people they know, people who know them, in a place where they should know they belong.
Making It Happen
Including children in worship requires time to prepare the congregation, the parents, and the children. It takes creativity, patience, and persistence. All-age worship is not a reproducible program complete with DVDs, PowerPoint, and study guides. There is no one template. Churches must gather information and ideas and then create their own unique approach that fits their congregation. No space remains here to explore all of the challenges and options for including children in worship, but there are a growing number of resources that can help.
Worshipping with children is being done. Churches are welcoming their children back into their worship services. It is countercultural, I know, but I believe we must seriously consider it.
Verna Weber is associate professor of educational and family ministries at Cincinnati (Ohio) Christian University.
________
All-Age Worship: How and Why
Ivy Beckwith, Postmodern Children”s Ministry: Ministry to Children in the 21st Century Church, specifically chapter 8, “Children in Worship” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004).
Carolyn C. Brown, You Can Preach to the Kids Too! Designing Sermons for Adults and Children (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997).
Robbie Castleman, Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002).
Howard Vanderwell, The Church of All Ages: Generations Worshipping Together (Herndon: Alban Institute, 2007).
Thank you for these thoughts and insights into all-age worship. You have given some very arguments for children to be in worship service. We have become a society where we segregate the different generations. I am a strong proponent of the multiple generations being together and interacting. Each generation can learn a great deal from each other, but we must interact with each other regardless of our age.
Thanks for the “push-back” to: Wee Worship, Children’s Church, “5” [For 5th graders], “Teen Church” – etc., etc.
I see some value in the above – but part of the result is a increased feeding into – “What’s in it for me?” And a “Consumer” Programming approach to church.
I served for a season at one of the largest mega-churches in our movement – we had incredible outreach and discipleship program for kids and youth – but one of the greatest services was Easter at a local arena – where everyone, everyone – assembled for one incredibly large and great celebration – I love your analogy on the ball game.
We are selling ourselves short if we think we can’t plan and pull off such a gathering of our church family – not each week – but on regular occasion.
A bit off topic (but still in the ballpark) — where does the New Testament say that we are to assemble for the purpose of worship? I understand that anytime God’s people are together, worship is appropriate. But I can’t find anywhere in the New Testament where the PURPOSE of the assembly is worship. I see purposes like encouragement and edification, but not worship.
I think our modern day “worship services” (a phrase not found in the Bible) are very, very different from the simple assemblies of the early Christians, and are derived more from tradition than Scripture.
Just my two cents… Fire away! 😉
Great article. Thank you for sharing.
I believe “all-age worship” will play a major role in solidifying families and the church. We need to help equip parents to be Godly parents; to take on their God-given responsibilities to teach their children and to bring them up in the instruction of the Lord. We need to give our children the opportunities to see what it is like for real people to be transformed by God, what it is like to truly worship our Lord, what it is like to search the scriptures daily, what it is like to take up our cross daily… and all of this needs to be seamless. They need to see it at home, in the assemble of the church, and in the day-to-day lives of their parents.
We are in the process of planting a new church where “all-age worship” is one of the main areas of focus. We take it a step further. We also have “all-age service” to the community and “all-age study” of the scripture. We have adopted the “family-integrated church” phraseology so as not to limit the scope.
In order to be more effective in our overall evangelism and discipleship, we need to do well in our main fields of evangelism and discipleship, our families, and learn to do that as comprehensively as possible.
You have made very solid points in your article. There are more to be made. Here’s one that ties a second critical issue for the contemporary church to this one…
As you consider the criteria for those who are to be our Elders, how much more likely will a man pass the test of how he manages his family if he has been very involved with his family? Or, from the other side of it, how can a man pass the test if he hasn’t actually been involved? Furthermore, how can a man know how to shepherd the church if he hasn’t learned to truly shepherd his family?
From what I can see, God has shown us how to maintain a healthy family and a healthy church from generation to generation and this is a critically important piece.
Thanks again. May God be glorified through us.
Thank you, Verna, for articulating something I have been saying for some time. We often hear it said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America, usually in reference to racial interaction, but we have been segregating in other ways too. I believe that the root of the so-called worship wars we have been experiencing in the Church has been in our Sunday morning balkanization. Some of my best preaching is on our family Sundays when I preach to the children in the congregation and the adults listen in.
OK. All of the agree-ers have spoken. I disagree. Mostly with the tone, which makes this seem like an imperative,
“The church needs to understand that all-age worship is vital to its future. All-age worship that includes children is important for the health of families and congregations. It is biblically and theologically sound.”
Yep, always love when someone’s “pet rock” becomes VITAL TO THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH”
This, of course, means that anyone who disagrees is theologically backward, and, in fact part of the reason why the church is so fragmented.
My proposed alternative?
Generate a history of all ages worship and share them with us. You may be on to something, but please don’t shove. Instead, show.
I would second Al’s concern.
No matter what format of worship you choose, there are trade-offs that will be made. In reality it comes down to the culture of the local church’s community and the direction their leadership chooses to take. An attractional model (which sees Sunday morning corporate worship time as the primary time that you will engage nonbelievers), for example, would probably not be a good fit for all-age worship. In addition to the non-attractional issues w/ the worship service, itself, all-age worship removes the targeted teaching of children from the attractional model, as well (since few non-believers will initially stick around an extra hour beyond the worship service). [For more on this particular model, you can see Andy Stanley/Northpoint’s recent discussion on it here.
This is just one example of a local church community’s culture and/or mission that would not mesh well with this type of worship.
I agree that, for more inward-facing churches, all-age worship could be beneficial, but like Al, I’m not buying the imperative tone of this argument.
To the OP,
I happen to agree that all-age worship is a good and beneficial thing. When I was employed as a preacher, I disliked the idea of ‘children’s church’ because it always seemed like more of a distraction to me. But this is, to be sure, a very personal opinion.
I don’t, however, think it is as big of a chore as you seem to be suggesting. Nor do I think the future of the church hinges on whether or not we do. It seems to me that in good old fashioned Restoration Movement practice, every church will figure out for themselves what works best for them. This means for some churches it will be a good idea, for others not so much.
I recall a particular Sunday, just after I graduated from Great Lakes Christian College, when I was preaching in a small church in West Virginia. My wife was away for the weekend so it was just me and my son. We practiced all-age worship. He was fidgeting in the hard oak cushionless pew and no one in the all-age-worshiping-congregation lifted so much as an eyelid to help me with him. So I picked him up and preached the sermon with my son on my hip. Good times.
Creating theological imperatives for the church is rarely a good idea. The only thing the future of the church hinges upon is Jesus. And besides, I can think of about 50 other things that would be more imperative for Restoration Movement Churches to do than whether we have all-age worship and upon which our future as a denomination might hinge. I will be happy when we start discussing the way congregations treat preachers, but that is another topic.
jerry hillyer
former preacher
Is it really a problem? I have never ever been to a service where children wouldn’t be present, unless there was some special event for them going on that day.
“I”™ll admit implementing all-age worship services that include children requires some ingenuity.”
Not really. They don’t.
It doesn’t take creativity, patience, and persistence. We just do normal worship services and kids join and they usually enjoy it.