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Last summer, I was talking to Melanie Young from Raising Real Men at the HINTS Book Fair. She picked up a book off their table and started telling me about it. She said that I had to read it. That book was Children in Church. It was perfect for the journey God was just starting to take us down.
We had recently become a part of a home church / church plant. One of the reasons we felt drawn to leave the church we'd been attending had been the segregation of children from the adults. Josh and I had this longing that we couldn't explain for our boys to be with us learning how to worship and learn in a corporate setting. Age appropriate classes have their place, but we felt more and more that the main corporate worship experience each Sunday wasn't that time.
Curt and Sandra Lovelace, international missionaries, wrote Children in Church in response to that all too familiar statement – or dare I say command – that is heard in many churches every Sunday, “The children are dismissed.” There are even some churches that won't even let your children enter the sanctuary or auditorium where “adult” worship is held. I know of at least one church in my area that requires anyone under age 13 to be in their age-appropriate class during the corporate worship time.
But is this the way that we should be spending our Sunday mornings? Curt and Sandra would say no and they've given much Biblical evidence from both the Old and New Testaments for their stance.
While I appreciated their shared experiences and Scripture basis, I was dying to get to the point and what this actually looks like in practice. How to I get my boys to be a part of our little home church worship gathering and participate in it?
Sandra's experiences of shepherding and teaching her children during service were so encouraging. I really started feeling like I could do this. It all begins with the “church bag.” This is the bags of “tricks” to keep the littlest ones quiet and materials to help older kids start to engage in the service.
There's so much information in Children in Church. It took me a while to get through the book despite that it is only about 160 pages long. There's so many Scriptures to review and so many examples and stories to savor as you read. It took me a while to really wrap my mind around this idea and determine how to best apply it to worshipping with my boys.
Next week as a part of Kids in the Word, I'm going to share with you what is in our “church bag” and how we've handled corporate worship with a 6 and 2 year old.
How have you kept your Kids in the Word this week? How do you or your church handle “children in church”? Share in the comments or link up a blog post about kids AND Bible, character, or worldview.
Children in Church is now available for pre-order from Raising Real Men and Great Waters Press. It's $12 with FREE shipping. Children in Church is currently scheduled to start shipping in March 2013.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
