Children and Worship

I’ve been lis­ten­ing to a 8‑week record­ed ser­mon called “House & Home”. I may not agree with some items, but most of it has some pret­ty good insights and things that I can do to be a bet­ter par­ent & hus­band and (hope­ful­ly) raise a fam­i­ly and chil­dren that will still love me in 20 years, and (hope­ful­ly) stay out of trouble.

But, the ses­sion I was lis­ten­ing to tonight on the way into work was geared more towards the chil­dren, but he spoke to the par­ents about wor­ship and how the church has “sep­a­rat­ed” fam­i­lies (and his church was going to be issu­ing an apol­o­gy to the con­gre­ga­tion and realign­ing their struc­ture to bring fam­i­lies back to together).

He men­tioned how years ago a *big* church was maybe 200 or 300 peo­ple, but today you’re more like­ly to find these super-church­es (I went to one for a few years) that have over 1000+ people!

And what hap­pens… They com­part­men­tal­ize (so it is eas­i­er to man­age) and tod­dlers go over here, teens over here, youths over here and so on.…but what ends up hap­pen­ing is that your chil­dren don’t get to see you wor­ship in church and ask you ques­tions about their expe­ri­ence and learn by watch­ing you and others.

And I start­ed think­ing about my own upbring­ing in the church…

When I was grow­ing up we went to a *medi­um* sized church, about 100 peo­ple. While we had a youth group, the teens were in the same ser­vice. So I got to see how she and oth­ers wor­shipped and was able to ask my ques­tions and learn from her and others.

When I grew old­er and attend­ed a mega-church, my chil­dren were off in their *sec­tion* of the build­ing and did­n’t get to expe­ri­ence that with me.

It struck a chord.

Now, I will admit its been awhile since I have been to church (my old church is too far away and we just haven’t found one that felt like *home* to us), but I have resolved that I would like (if at all pos­si­ble) to have my old­er chil­dren in the ser­vice with me. So they can learn by watch­ing and feel free to ask their questions.

I know that always won’t be pos­si­ble and I do want them to have time with teens their own age to wor­ship togeth­er (my fond­ness mem­o­ries of church are wor­ship­ing and hang­ing out with my youth group), but at least once in a while, in the ser­vice with me.