Why do we come to church? The answer to that question is actually monumentally important. If you have a simplistic/minimalist view of church, then showing up late or attending infrequently, or taking every other Sunday to go camping/fishing instead of being with God’s people means your ecclesiology is about as great as RoboCop 3, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, or whatever sequel that ruined a great franchise. If your view of the Church is represented by that mentality, then good luck, or whatever you say to someone who is endangering his soul and the souls of his offspring.
But for the rest of you who treasure worship, and who have made a once-in-a-lifetime decision to be with God’s people every Sunday unless providentially hindered, then you should know that no matter the tradition, your view of worship is all-inclusive. There is no half-time show, no water-break; rather, the whole thing from beginning to end is significant to shape your view of Christ. In my tradition, if you show up about 10 minutes late, you will have missed the prayer of confession and Christ’s words of forgiveness. You will have missed a really big part of the Gospel story.
This leads to the second argument against keeping children in worship from beginning to end, which is, “I am not going to get anything out of the service if I am constantly distracted by them.” This is a variation of the first argument, but it adds that since the sermon is the central element of worship, keeping children in worship takes our attention away from the preached Word. There is much to admire in this perspective. But we need to challenge the basic premise here, which is that the purpose of worship is merely to hear a 20-50 minute sermon. While the premise is noble and we must treasure God’s word proclaimed, we fundamentally err in thinking that the sermon is a stand-alone act in worship. What goes before the Word preached sets the stage for the Word preached and what goes after the Word preached is the response of grateful hearts to the words of God.
Our first mistake is to think that children are a distraction from the real business of the Church. But why should they not benefit from the sermon also? What if instead of viewing them as distractions during the sermon, you view them as hearers of the sermon as well? What if you worked towards getting them to participate in the singing and the hearing? If the Word of God proclaimed by an ordained minister is so crucial–and it has always been in the history of the Church and the biblical story–why are little children exempt from such a blessing? “But they won’t understand a word!” you might say. Is their humanity and the blessings of God’s revelation contingent on their understanding? What if you have a 30 year-old mentally disabled son who grasps only the minimal? Is he also not worthy of hearing God’s word because of his mental incapacity? Think very carefully about this logic.
We often view children differently than how the Bible viewed them. In Joel 2:16, the assembly gathered and the prophet added to that flock “the nursing infants.” In Psalm 8:2, the psalmist says that praises flow from the mouth of babes and infants. There is never an indication that these little ones were set aside for a separate assembly during the prophetic delivery, and there is zero indication that Jesus scattered the babies during the sermon on the mount. But the opposite is in fact true.
The other failed premise is to assume that “getting something out of the sermon” is the sole purpose of worship. If your congregation is full of life in word and singing, then God is ministering to you in every element of the worship service. You don’t have to wait until the sermon to be fed; God has already begun to feed you before the sermon and will do so after the sermon in the worship service.
It is my contention that the service itself provides opportunities for you to gain throughout by the very act of training your little ones, and being around others with little ones, and singing with little ones, and hearing with little ones. Will there be distractions? Yes. Will you follow the pastor’s argument in Jude 6 all the way? Probably a bit or most certainly not. But do these acts of togetherness with your offspring set the stage for future worshipers who grow into decency before God and man and who treasure the songs of Zion and the Word made flesh? You better believe it! I’ve seen it! Heck, I lived it just a few minutes ago in our family morning worship.
