Monroe

The Inclusion of Covenant Children

in Corporate Worship

Introduction

            When the people of God gather in the church sanctuary on Sunday morning to worship the Lord, should their children be present with them?  Should parents hold their infants in their arms as they offer their prayers to God before the Throne of Grace?  Should little ones stand in the midst of all the adults and do their part to sing the hymns of our faith in worship?  Should families be seated together in the pews each week to hear the proclamation of the word of God that will govern their Christian lives?

            At Monroe Presbyterian Church, we believe that the answer to all these questions is an enthusiastic, “Yes!”  For this reason, if you come to a Lord’s Day worship service at Monroe PC, you will find our sanctuary absolutely full of babies and children of all ages.  Does that sound like chaos?  It is not at all.  In fact we are regularly commended by visitors for the exceptional behavior of our little ones in corporate worship, and people often wonder how we do it.  It is not difficult really.  All you have to do is believe that it is important that your children be a part of God’s worship, and then follow the principles of child training that God teaches us as Christian parents in the Bible.

            This article is intended to give you an introduction to the world of family-integrated Christian worship, complete with a biblical defense of this practice, answers to common objections raised against it, and some insights into how we make it work.  If you are not familiar with these ideas, this paper will certainly challenge your thinking in some measure, but we hope that by the end you can agree with us that it is a good thing—and worth some effort—to strive to have our children with us when we gather on Sunday morning to worship the Lord.

The Teaching of the Bible

            Corporate worship literally means “worship of the body”.  This is a term that we use to indicate those occasions when God is worshiped by the assembled body of His people as opposed to just one individual privately.  So as you read the Bible, wherever you discover God’s people gathered together before Him in worship, you should consider this a biblical example of corporate worship. 

            Most of the time when we see corporate worship in Scripture, we are simply told that “all the people of God” or “all Israel” were assembled to worship the Lord on a particular occasion.  The biblical writer just seems to assume that we would understand the meaning of these terms, and no specific mention is made whether the children of the Israelites were or were not present.  However, there are a number of instances where a more complete description is given of the body assembled before the Lord in corporate worship, and on every single occasion that we find such a description, we are told in the Bible that the children were there. [See Footnote #1]

            Consider a few examples.  In Deuteronomy 29:9-11, the second generation of Israel is assembled together to renew the Mosaic covenant with God.  In verse 2 it is stated that Moses called “all Israel” on this occasion, and in his address to them he said, “Therefore keep the words of this covenant, to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.  All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders, and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives…”   So on this important occasion in the history of God’s people, the Bible wants us to know that when “all Israel” assembled together before the Lord, it was not just the adults who were present.  The little ones were there, too.

            In 2 Chronicles 20:13, a combined army of Ammonites and Moabites are marching on Israel, and King Jehoshaphat calls “an assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord” (v. 5) to pray for God’s deliverance.  In verse 9, the king publicly addresses God on behalf of the people and says, “We will stand before this temple and in Your presence, and cry out to You in our affliction…”; and to paint an accurate picture of this assembly in our minds, verse 13 of the Bible explains, “Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord.”  Notice the distinction here between “little ones” and “children”.  Yes, even the babies were present when the people of God gathered to pray to the Lord that day.

            And finally, in Joel 2:15-17, a great locust plague has ravished the land of Israel and wiped out its crops, and the prophet Joel stands forth to announce that this is the wrath of God upon His people for their sins.  In response, Joel proposes a service of corporate worship, saying, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes…Let them say, ‘Spare Your people O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach…”  So here the Holy Spirit speaking by the prophet Joel says that as the people of God come and repent before the Lord in corporate worship, they should bring their children with them into the sanctuary.  “Gather the children and nursing babes!” the prophet cries as He calls Israel to worship its God.  Apparently the children’s presence was also required in the time of Israel’s confession and prayer.

            In contrast to these scenes, never once in the Bible do we find the children of Israel intentionally excluded from the corporate worship of God’s people.  Never once does a prophet say, “Come fathers, come mothers, but leave your children behind!  These things that we do in worship do not concern them, so it is better if they do puzzles and play games far away in the children’s wing.”

            And furthermore, there is an important moment in the New Testament Scriptures where Jesus rebukes those who would discourage parents from bringing their children to the Lord in faith.  Luke 18:15-16 says, “Then they brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.  But Jesus called them to Him and said, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.’”  Granted, this passage does not speak to corporate worship specifically, but we note that Christ’s attitude toward children here is quite consistent with that exhibited in the passages cited above.  Nowhere in the Bible are the children of God’s people chased away when the time comes to approach the Lord and seek His blessing.  Rather, the natural impulse of these parents to bring their children to the Savior is commended as consistent with the will of the Lord Himself.

            So we conclude from our search through the Bible that God, in expressing His will in this matter, always indicates that He wants the children of His people present in the services of corporate worship.  There is not one example to the contrary.

But now we ask: Are there any reasons to be discovered in the Bible why God would particularly want the children of His people present in corporate worship?  We will mention two.  First, God has always regarded the children of His people to be members of His covenant family.  They, too, are part of “all Israel”, as we saw in Deuteronomy 29:2, 10-11.  In fact, there are instances in the Bible where God refers to the children of the Israelites as “His children”, such as Ezekiel 16:20-11 which says, “You took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to [other gods] to be devoured.  Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to [other gods] by causing them to pass through the fire?”  So the point is simply that since God looks upon our children as part of His people, it is natural that when He calls His people to gather before Him in worship, that summons would extend to the children as well.

            Secondly, the presence of children in worship gives intergenerational significance to the things that happen in a corporate worship service.  We might ask, “Why did God want the children present when Israel entered into covenant with God in Deuteronomy 29?  Or why was it important that the little ones should be there when Judah gathered to pray for God’s deliverance in 2 Chronicles 20?  Or why was it necessary that the nursing babes be brought into the assembly when Israel repented before the Lord in Joel 2?”  The answer to all of these questions is the same: God wanted the children present because these moments were relevant to them as the next generation.  The children of God’s people had a vested interest in what was going on, and their presence was a profound reminder to their parents that this was so.

            In the same way, when God calls His people to worship Him today, the presence of our children among us is a sobering reminder that what we do on Sunday morning has a real impact upon the lives of our little ones as the next generation.  God’s covenant with us is a covenant with them (Genesis 17:7).  God’s promises to us are promises to them (Acts 2:38-39).  The law which God has given to us to obey is a law that God has given to them to obey (Psalm 78:5).  God’s gracious blessing upon us is a gracious blessing upon our children (Deuteronomy 7:13), and His holy judgment upon us is a holy judgment upon them as well (Exodus 20:5).  This intergenerational reality, which is both terrible and wonderful, is brought home with inescapable force when we approach the Lord in corporate worship with our infants in our arms and our children by our sides.  This is what God intends to communicate in calling the parents to come with their children and appear before Him in worship, and something important is lost when this practice is thoughtlessly abandoned for the sake of mere convenience.

            In summary, all the weight of biblical evidence falls on the side of including children in the corporate worship of God rather than chasing them away to the other side of the building to play or be otherwise entertained.  Where the Bible speaks to this issue, it always appears that this is the will of God for our children, and when we consider the intergenerational nature of the covenant of grace, there are good reasons that it should be so.

Answers to Common Objections

          So what kinds of objections are raised to the inclusion of children in corporate worship today?  At Monroe Presbyterian Church, we hear three primary objections, none of which are biblical, and all of which—we are sad to say—in some way reflect the self-indulgent spirit of our age.

Objection # 1: Children cannot be expected to sit still and be quiet for an entire worship service.

             This objection is most commonly stated with reference to a particular child, as in, “My child cannot sit still and be quiet for an entire worship service.”  Our response to this objection is simply to say, “We don’t believe that that is true.  In fact, we used to say the same thing about our own children until God showed us a better way that was based on His wisdom rather than the wisdom of the world.  On the basis of this experience in grace, we want to encourage you that, yes, even your child can be trained to sit still and be quiet for an entire worship service, and we offer you our help in pursuing this goal.”

            You see, at a typical worship service at Monroe Presbyterian Church, there are normally over a dozen young families together in the sanctuary on Sunday morning, many with four or five small children, and all of these children are remarkably well behaved during the worship service hour.  This is not to say that every child’s behavior is flawless every Sunday, but almost everyone who visits our church walks away impressed and pleased by the experience of worshiping with our children.  So if a new family enters the church whose child is wild and disruptive, then there are two possibilities: Either that child is truly unique among the other thirty or so in the room, or rather these particular parents are not doing something with their child that all of the other parents are doing with theirs.  It is our confident assertion that in almost every case, the real difference—and thus the real problem—is not the child but the parents.

            There is a serious problem in America today which most people seem to recognize to some degree: Our children are out of control.  They are disrespectful to people and property, they do not obey any authority in their lives, and they must be entertained constantly to keep them from becoming little tyrants.  This problem is destructive to education, to families, and ultimately to society, and of course, it is beginning to have its effect upon the church as well. 

            We believe that this problem is due to a whole-sale abandonment of the principles of parenting taught in Scripture, along with a serious underestimation of the standard of behavior of which our normal children are capable.  In short, children should be disciplined in love as God teaches and models in the Bible, and when they are, those children can obey their parents when told to sit still and be quiet.  It is really that easy.  But please note that all these words such as “discipline” and “love” and “obedience” have to be filled with biblical meaning.  A lot of people today freely throw around these words but do not actually know what is properly meant by them, and this is where the church must help people to recover what has been lost.  By the grace of God, we can instruct parents how to use loving discipline to impart to their children the virtue of self-control, and there is a whole sanctuary full of remarkably well-behaved little ones at Monroe Presbyterian Church to prove that it can be done.

Objection # 2: Children cannot understand what is going on in a worship service.

            Our response to this objection is twofold.  First, even if a child, such as an infant, is truly incapable of understanding most of what is happening in a worship service, there are still good reasons for that child to be present in worship.  As we saw in the examples above, God calls even the “nursing babe” to appear before Him because He looks upon that child as His own child and a member of His covenant people.  Moreover, the mere presence of the child impresses upon the parents the intergenerational significance of all that goes on in the worship service, and that is important.  We have already explored these ideas, but it should be evident that there is more to consider in this question than the mere educational value of worship to the child.

            But secondly, we do not readily accept the idea that the experience of corporate worship is so completely over a child’s head (so-to-speak) that he derives no personal benefit from being present in the sanctuary on Sunday morning.  On the contrary, we believe that participation in corporate worship is the best and most natural way to teach a small child about the nature and worship of his God.

            For example, how does a three-year-old little girl learn about thunderstorms?  Does she sit at a desk and work on a thunderstorm coloring book?  Does she watch adults perform a silly puppet show about rain clouds?  No, a child this age learns most about the true nature of thunderstorms by being present when a thunderstorm comes.  She feels the dark clouds descending.  She sees the lightning rip through the sky.  She hears the powerful roll of thunder.  She watches the concerned reaction of her parents as the raindrops begin to fall.  This is the natural process by which a little girl learns about thunderstorms, and coloring books and puppet shows are a poor substitute indeed.

            In the same way, we think it should be obvious that there is no better way for a small child to learn about God than to be there when He is worshipped by His people.  Let the children see their parents appear in their best clothes on Sunday morning and share in their feeling of excitement.  Let them stand with the multitude in the sanctuary of God and hear the majestic songs of praise that are utterly unlike the pop music that they hear on the radio other days.  Let them see the parents whom they trust bow their heads and close their eyes with all the gathered people of God in the quiet submission of prayer.  Let them watch the man in the black garb stand behind the pulpit and open his book and speak impassioned words unto which all the people listen with reverent attention.  Let the little children observe the beautiful symbolism of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper which are administered to the covenant community with solemn peace and grace.  In all of these things, even the smallest child comes away from the experience of worship having learned true things about God which will shape his understanding of religion for the rest of his days.

            And what exactly is substituted for this experience today in the name of the child’s best interest?  A contemporary church in Texas posted this explanation of its “children’s church” program on their website: “The intent of children’s church is to introduce children to corporate worship in a large group setting.  A weekly Bible lesson is presented by way of drama (costumed skits, monologues, game shows, etc.)  Following the 30 minute drama time, children break into small groups for crafts, activities, and discussions.”  Now, does that make any sense?  Do the means described here seem at all suited to accomplish the stated end?  We think not.

            Our position is that if you want a little girl to learn about a thunderstorm, then let her experience a thunderstorm, and if you want a little girl to learn about the worship of God, then let her experience the worship of God.  As she grows older, her parents and pastors will begin to give articulate expression to her experience by teaching her Christian doctrine, but in the mean time let her just sit and watch and listen.  We assure you that this little girl is taking it all in, and where the worship of God is what it should be, she is learning far more about the living God than she ever would sitting with a dozen other toddlers watching talking vegetables on a television screen.

Objection # 3: Adults cannot worship God and attend to their children at the same time.

            Imagine a woman standing in the sanctuary of the church, her eyes closed and her face and hands uplifted to heaven, swaying to the sentimental praise chorus as she seeks to enjoy communion with God in the Spirit.  Yet every time she begins to get her groove and feel something spiritual, she has to stop and reprimand her six-year-old son for kicking the seat in front of him or digging through her purse in search of candy.  Obviously this is a frustrating moment for this poor Christian mother.  Worship is not working.  What is the problem?

            There actually are two problems here.  First, this woman apparently has not disciplined her son properly and so cannot control his unacceptable behavior.  We spoke to that earlier.  But secondly, this woman has an erroneous idea of what worship is.  She is trying to isolate herself from others in the midst of corporate worship, and the very idea is repugnant to the teaching of Scripture concerning the life and worship of the body of Christ.

            In the early 1900s, a movement known as Pentecostalism began to spread throughout the Christian church, exerting its influence even in denominations that never admitted to being Pentecostal.  One of the secrets to the success of this movement was its novel view of worship.  The key word in the worship of Pentecostalism was “experience”, and the goal of every person worshiping God on a given Sunday was to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that he would have some sort of transcendent, ecstatic religious experience that left him feeling elated and blessed.  It was a “high” of sorts—a means of escape from the real world like an hour of massage therapy at the spiritual spa.

            Well, this new Pentecostal worship hit America right at the birth of what has come to be known with some notoriety as the “Me Generation”.  It was the age of the individual where self-expression and self-indulgence were the new virtues of a newly liberated human race.  And what did the “Me Generation” think of Pentecostal worship when it came to their churches?  Well, of course, they loved it, because Pentecostal worship is really all about “me” and “my experience”.

            So the point is that where people object to the presence of children in worship on the grounds that they cannot worship God and attend to their own children at the same time, we smell the influence of Pentecostalism.  We acknowledge that it is impossible to do Pentecostal worship and parenting at the same time, but we deny that Pentecostal worship is biblical worship.  The fact is that for literally thousands of years, under both the Old and New Covenants, God’s people have gathered corporately to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth with their children at their sides, and any view of worship that cannot accommodate that dynamic must be in error.  Where children are properly trained, parents are completely capable of sitting with them in the sanctuary to sing, to pray, to hear God’s word, and to receive the sacraments with an engagement of mind and heart that constitutes true communion with Christ in grace.  The fact is that you can worship God and attend to your children at the same time, as long as you your idea of worship is biblical rather than Pentecostal.

How to Prepare a Child for Worship

            So what is the method behind this biblical madness?  How can children be trained not only to sit and be quiet during the worship hour, but also to participate in the elements of worship in a way that is good for them and honoring to God? 

            Let us begin with two preliminary principles.  First, it is important for both the church and the Christian parents to have realistic expectations.  Think about having children at the dinner table.  Their presence with the family is a blessing, but there will be crumbs.  There will be questions.  There will be trips to the bathroom.  Children are children, after all, and no amount of training will make them adults before their time. 

            At Monroe Presbyterian Church, we want our children to be with us in worship, and we are willing to accommodate some childish inconveniences to make that happen.  Certainly parents have a responsibility at times to remove their bawling children from the sanctuary if they are being a real distraction to others, but those same parents also have the encouragement of knowing that all the other parents in the room are pulling for them.  In short, we, too, want your children to be with us in worship, and we are willing to endure the inconveniences of the training process that in time allows them to be there.

            Secondly, it is important to emphasize that training children to behave in corporate worship is a small part of a larger effort to teach children to be obedient and self-controlled wherever they go.  That is to say, a child who is uncontrollable at home and in the grocery store will certainly be uncontrollable in a worship service.  So while the broad subject of parental discipline is obviously beyond the scope of this paper, as you consider the practical tips below, be aware that both the work and reward of training children for worship reaches far beyond the bounds of the sanctuary into every moment of every day of your and their lives.

            With those preliminary principles in mind, here are a few practical ideas that we have found make all the difference in training children for corporate worship. 

1. Institute a time of “family worship” in your home every day.  There are many important reasons to institute the practice of daily family worship in the home, and among these reasons is the fact that daily family worship allows you to work on your child’s behavior during worship seven days a week rather than just one day a week.  Try to make your family worship similar to corporate worship, with the same elements of worship (signing hymns, reading and discussing the Bible, and praying) and the same reverent spirit.  And require of your child the same standard of behavior at home that you will require of them at church.  If they will be sitting in your lap on Sunday morning, make them sit in your lap during family worship, etc.  The main thing is to give yourself and your child the opportunity to work on behavior in worship every day, and you will see results far more quickly than you thought possible.
2. Train your child in family worship to be involved in as much of the worship service as possible.  If your church sings a particular doxology each week or recites a particular creed, include that doxology or that creed in family worship.  Sing the same hymns in your home that you sing most often in church.  Teach your children to bow their heads and close their eyes and fold their hands when it is time to pray.  Potentially, your child can be very active in an appropriate manner during much of the worship service, and this makes it much easier for them to sit quietly during those parts of the service where sitting quietly is in order.
3. If your child is disobedient during corporate worship, take him out of the sanctuary, administer discipline, and then bring him back to the worship service.  Repeat as needed.  The main idea here is that your child needs to be assured that he is not beyond the reach of the rod of discipline just because he is in the middle of public worship.  When you prove to him that there will be swift consequences for disobedience in corporate worship, he will soon become resigned to the fact that he must make the effort to control himself, and that is the key to good behavior in a young child.
4. Do not give your child anything to play with during the worship service.  Rather than pacifying children, toys simply encourage children to make noise and create problems.  Your child should have nothing to do in worship other than observing worship.  No paper.  No pencils.  No fiddling with daddy’s watch.  Make your child sit quietly with his hands in his lap, and soon he will find all kinds of interesting things happening in the worship of God to occupy his curious little mind.
5. If your child is fidgety, sit on the front row of the church rather than the back row.  One of the mistakes that parents often make is sitting in the very back of the sanctuary in the hope that their children will not be a disturbance to others.  Unfortunately, this only encourages children to go ahead and be a disturbance.  Instead, give your child the sense that everyone—including the pastor—can see what he is doing, and many children will suddenly sit up and make every effort to be on their best behavior.  This does not always work, but it works often enough to be worth a try.
6. As you progress in training, continually seek the advice of other parents who have obviously trained their children well.  The book of Proverbs repeatedly emphasizes that only a fool refuses to seek out counselors who will instruct and correct him.  There are any number of other obstacles that can arise when attempting to train a child for corporate worship, but in a church where children are regularly included in worship, there is a wealth of help all around you.  This is but one application of the blessing that we call “the communion of the saints”, i.e. the sharing in each others gifts and graces as we seek together to be faithful in serving the Lord.

Conclusion

            In closing, we hope that this article has helped you see the inclusion of children in corporate worship as a biblical ideal, a worthwhile goal, and a real possibility in the church, even today.  At Monroe Presbyterian Church, we want you to know that we are eager to help you and your family rediscover the blessing of family-integrated worship, and we hope that all of our members and visitors will be encouraged to seek from us the help in this endeavor that we gladly offer to all. May the Lord our God be glorified both now and forever in the worship of His beloved children!  Amen!

Footnotes

[1]  Nehemiah 8:1-2 says, “Now all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel.  So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month.”  Note that the language in this text is inclusive rather than exclusive.  The point that Nehemiah is making is that no one among the Israelites who could understand the law of God could claim ignorance of the law because all such persons were present to hear the law when it was read and explained by the priests (8:8).  The fact that all who could hear with understanding were in fact present on this occasion does not necessarily mean that all who could not hear with understanding were absent.  The text does not say that, either explicitly or implicitly.  Therefore, we consider this text to be inconclusive with respect to the presence or absence of children in corporate worship, and urge that it should be interpreted in the light of what the Bible says more clearly elsewhere about this subject.