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children in worship

The Benefits of Welcoming Children to Worship

Why should children worship with adults?

This topic is drawing a good bit of search engine interest, so let’s address it.

2×2, comprised of members of Redeemer Lutheran Church, East Falls, has visited 42 Lutheran churches in the last 18 months. (We have been able to do this because our denomination locked our congregation out of our church and stripped us of any status or voice in the ELCA as it claimed our property and endowment funds.)

We found the status of children and youth in worship to be shocking.

In most of the churches we visited, the number of children present was few to none, with even weaker statistics for youth.

Most churches are fashioning the worship experience for adults only and dismiss children very early in the service.

This was new to 2×2 because children were always very much a part of our worship and were part of our growth spurt in 2006 and 2007.

We’ve been reading another congregation’s chronicle of their growth which parallels the Redeemer experience.

We are going to compare some major points from this book with our experience over a series of posts.

The first is the experience with children in worship. The book is Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality by Stephen Chapin Garner and Jerry Thornell of the United Church of Christ in Norwell, Massachusetts.

When this church began to rethink its ministry, children worshiped separately from adults.

2×2 Ambassadors discovered that this structure has become popular in Lutheran churches in the Philadelphia area as well. This goes against Lutheran philosophy which values the concept of corporate worship being the expression of all the gathered people of God.

We suspect that this key concept of Lutheranism has been abandoned for trendy reasons.

Parents want children to have Sunday School training but do not want to attend education offerings for adults. Answer: teach the kids while the parents worship. Kill two birds with one short hour of church commitment.

The long-term drawbacks of this practice are many:

  1. Children first encounter worship at an age when it will all seem foreign.
  2. Children will get the idea that worship is for other people.
  3. If there is a gap in children’s education from the young elementary years and adolescents, teenagers will be entering church at a time in their lives when they are most critical of institutions and adults around them.
  4. The adults who teach the children never get to worship.
  5. The adults leading worship are distanced from their congregation’s educational offerings.
  6. Adults attending worship do not participate in learning and are less likely to grow in faith and church commitment.
  7. The worshiping body continues to be designed around the preferences of adults and fails to mature and change with input from younger members. It therefore becomes more archaic, which might not be noticed by your congregants, but will be noticed by visitors or children attempting to become involved at a later age.

The Scattering Seeds church decided to change this and stopped offering classes during worship. They encouraged families to worship together.

Pastor Garner tells of his congregation’s initial resistance. The parents complained that it was a strain to get the family out the door on the one day of the week when they wanted to enjoy leisure. (He also notes that one of the biggest complainers had no trouble rolling the kids out at 5 am for hockey practice on Sunday mornings.)

Another reason: parents want to leave religious nurturing of their children to others. Martin Luther would be rolling over in his grave! He taught that religious instruction is the primary responsibility of parents and wrote his catechism to help them.

Still another reason is that many adults are uncomfortable with religious education. They view their confirmation as graduation from religious learning.

The Scattering Seeds church is still working at this, reporting mixed results with significant early successes.

  • Worship was a bit more chaotic at first as children got used to participating. After about a month, families with children had settled in. Children knew what was expected and adults developed a tolerance for the occasional fussy child.
  • Their biggest success was that youth were soon part of worship. As children matured they felt comfortable taking on new roles in worship and continued to attend after their confirmation.
  • The most difficult hurdle, they report, was accustoming adults to the idea that they, too, should participate in religious education.

2×2 had discovered many of the same things. Our children often outnumbered adults in worship and were comfortable in many leadership roles. It was not unusual for children to volunteer and let adults know they were ready for more responsibility.

Adults met for worship during the week. At first it was the ladies of the church but men were beginning to stop by and participate as well.

Scattering Seeds reports that their new mantra, Education for All and Worship for All, is making a difference in their church growth and has even resulted in higher giving.

It’s worth exploring!

22 Mar 2012

How Old Should Children Be in Worship?

Our Ambassador visits have revealed that there are very few children in worship. Often when there are children at the beginning of worship, they disappear after the opening ten minutes, sometimes with the explanation that they are leaving to attend age-appropriate activities.

How old should children be to participate in worship with the whole family of God?

Can infants worship with adults?

Infants are attracted to light, faces and music. Colored lights gleam through church windows. Faces of their families surround them and there are new faces to study as they look over their parents’ shoulders at the people in the pew behind them. They hear the organ or praise band and can both feel and hear the voice of the person holding them in worship. Infants belong in worship.

Can toddlers and nursery children worship with adults?

Toddlers can be active and distracting but toddlers notice everything. Toddlers are learning to sing and listen to stories. Worship is filled with songs and stories. Toddlers imitate what they see. Church is a place where their worlds begin to grow. They are beginning to realize that there are more people in the world who love them than just those who live with them. They are true believers. They have a deep understanding of God. Their simple faith will one day be challenged. A firm foundation and acceptance within the family of God will help them weather the challenges. Behavioral issues will be short-lived as they come to understand worship as part of life that is not focused on them. Nursery children belong in church.

Can kindergarten age children worship with adults? 

Kindergarten-aged children are proud that they are growing up. They are eager to take on the roles they see older children playing. They sing with ease and memorize quickly. They will learn the liturgies and hymns with repetition even before they can read the words. They have a profound spirituality and can understand that God loves them and Jesus is a special friend. Kindergarteners need to be where they can experience worship as modeled by older Christians. They belong in church.

Can elementary-aged children worship with adults?

Elementary-aged children are eager to learn new skills. They can read and are learning to follow music. Some are learning musical instruments and beginning to sing harmony. They like a good story. They are starting to understand the Bible and will recognize passages of scripture in worship and begin to see the words of scripture placed in context of community. They are starting to grapple with complex ideas. They are able to understand the concept of service and giving. They can understand that their younger siblings are watching and that they are setting an example. They belong in church.

Can middle-school children worship with adults?

Middle school children are hands-on learners. They can play many important roles in a worship service. They are beginning to master musical instruments and can sing complicated music. They can begin adopting a more serious decorum as they serve beside adult mentors. They are questioning their place in the world and need to be among strong, nurturing role models. They not only need to be in worship with adults but they need to begin working with adults.

How about teens? Can teens be part of worship?

If teens have not been in worship as younger children they will have more difficulty understanding worship or making it part of their lives at this exciting stage of life. Teens are stretching the limits and beginning to break away from their parents. They need to find role models outside their family. The church can be a place where they can begin to express themselves. They can test their interests and skills and try out their new understandings of self. Their reasoning skills are maturing and they need to practice them. How much they want to be part of things may depend on how they are accepted and welcomed. Teens belong in worship.

Worship is for the whole family of God. If we place an age on acceptance in worship, we exclude part of the family and limit the possibilities for worship for all. Change will be harder to implement. Worship can become more rigid as expressions will be geared to the older spectrum of the community. Children may wonder when they will ever fit in and find it easier to drift at the first opportunity.

06 Jan 2012

Small Churches Can Reach Out to Unaccompanied Children

Our Ambassador visits have revealed some stereo-types of small churches. We heard some professional leaders referring to them mockingly as “old-folks homes.”

Offensive as this terminology is — some congregations are aging. Unfortunately, leadership mindset sees this as the end of ministry. Pastors adopt, sometimes with the encouragement of denominational leadership, a caretaker approach to serving. There are no plans for growing the church or any reason to look for mission opportunity. They are playing a waiting game.

It may be up to the laity to turn things around.

Our ambassadors have seen some small, aging churches making the transition to becoming welcoming places for families and children. They invariably have only supply pastors or part-time professional leadership. Imagine what might happen if the leadership saw this as a door opening for ministry.

Our own church made this transition and grew from a church of seniors to a church of young families.

Our transition began when we noticed a number of children returning week after week without parents. At first a couple of girls (about aged 10) came and sat in the front row. After a few weeks, they brought an older brother (about 12). Soon they started bringing younger children.

We weren’t prepared to deal with this. That’s not the way church works! Parents bring their children to Church and Sunday School.

Things have changed!

We have noticed some similarities in other churches we visited. The early focus of our visits was the urban church. In cities, children pass the church as they walk home from school. Curiosity brings them back. Yes, their parents should accompany them. But children are playing the cards they have been dealt. They may come from homes with only one over-taxed parent. The parent may know the children have gone to church and consider it baby-sitting, or the parent may be at work unaware of that their children have turned off the TV and wandered out on their own. In the worst case, the parents may not care. In that case, the church must not turn their backs on the children because they have arrived on their doorstep in an unconventional way. Small churches with aging memberships can be particularly attractive to children who are seeking.

Young children have some things in common with older folks. They are crossing paths in life. Children are dependent growing into independence and older folks are independent growing into dependency. Young children often like the attention of seniors who can understand them in a way their parents don’t. They have time for them when their parents are preoccupied. It is validating to seniors.

Congregations can see this as a nuisance that must curtailed, or they can see it as outreach coming to them.

There are good reasons to discourage unaccompanied children.

  • They do not contribute to the offering.
  • They do not behave.
  • They are lively, energetic and strong and may seem threatening to the frail.
  • They may be there only only for donuts at fellowship.
  • Raising them is the responsibility of the parents.

Or

  • They may, in their own ways, be seeking.
  • They may enjoy the music.
  • Older children (as young as 11 or 12) may have been left in charge of yournger siblings and are following an instinct to parent them.
  • They might might feel part of a family of God when their own family is dysfunctional.
  • Raising them is the responsibility of the community of God.

Here are some first steps to take when children start coming to church by themselves.

  • Make sure an adult sits nearby, perhaps in the pew behind them.
  • Teach the church service. Pastors can give a brief explanation as your worship moves along. The adult sitting near them can whisper in their ears. “We are now going to stand to honor the reading of the Gospel that tells us about the life of Jesus Christ.”
  • Engage the children in conversation. Find out where they live and who their parents are.
  • Plan to visit their homes with the pastor. You may be hitting a brick wall, but you may find a parent receptive to help. At the very least, the parents should know with whom their children spend Sunday mornings.
  • Pray for them. Assign each child to an adult as a prayer partner. Engage the children in the prayer if possible, but they don’t need to know you are praying for them!
06 Dec 2011