If your congregation is like most churches, they offer some sort of children’s worship. It can last the entire duration of the worship service or happen just during the sermon. Some congregations only have children’s worship for preschool children, while others offer it through late elementary or even the teen years.
I have long been an advocate of children remaining in the worship service. There are tons of benefits from our children remaining in the adult worship. In my opinion, those benefits are far more important than the distractions children may cause if allowed to stay.
You may be thinking you won’t “get anything out of worship” if your kids are sitting with you. Yet ultimately, worship is not really about us. Having your kids with you in worship may be challenging at first. If you stick with it though, your kids may just get the following benefits:
I recently heard a minister say something wonderful about worship. “Worship,” he said “is not an event for us. It’s a way of life.” I love that. In some churches, worship services rival the time, money and effort but into Broadway shows. Worship teams and choirs hold auditions. In some instances, the focus has seemed to shift from God to the performers. An average person feels afraid to sing or participate in any way for fear of being judged inadequate to worship God.
If your children attend an average elementary school, they are probably having breakfast around 6:30 or so in the morning. Schools are great about pressuring the parents of even kids who don’t want breakfast into having morning rounds of “just eat a little something” . At school, your children may be eating lunch as early as 10 am. By 11 am, most elementary aged kids have had two meals or a snack and a meal.
Christianity is actually an interesting mix of grace and work. Step outside of any preconceived ideas and take a look at the New Testament with fresh eyes. When you do, it becomes obvious we cannot save ourselves and we are saved only by and through the grace of God.