Why Should Children Worship with Us?
Many churches use Children's Church as a separate service during the Worship Service. During this time, children have their own experience that at times can be rightly worshipful but at other times becomes a fear-based[1] ministry desperately trying to maintain relevance and entertain children to salvation. If the church errs on the side of the former option, this is still misguided. We ought to exercise extreme caution in the frequency that children are removed from corporate worship.
The church's gathered worship patterns are the historic, biblical, regulative means of grace in which our hearts are re-patterned to love God and His people. We often tend to think of worship as a "bottom-up" experience in which we come with hearts full of joyful praise to make much of God's name. However, corporate worship is a "top-down" activity in which we come empty and deprived, with hearts in need of reshaping after another week of trial and tedium. During the week, our lives drift toward liturgies that rival the gospel: habits that give us an alternate solution to the good life and salvation. We find our comfort in these rituals. These rituals lead us to unsatisfied lives of longing for something more. But corporate worship becomes a sanctifying experience that, week after week, replaces these rival liturgies with gospel liturgies.[2]
The progression of the service takes us through the forms of worship that express the elements of singing, reading, praying, preaching, and tasting/seeing the Word. The service begins with a Passing of the Peace in which the congregation affirms the peace of Christ that our resurrected savior proclaimed to His gathered disciples. The service progresses to a Call to Worship that reminds us that God's graciously and sufficiently revealed word alone calls us to worship. Next, we invoke His saving name, calling upon the king of creation as we beg for his ear and intervention. Then, we praise Him for His majesty and the wonder it should cultivate in us. Reflection on His great-making attributes drives us to our knees in humble confession. But the gospel story does not leave us there, for the cross affirms our faith in the God who delivers us, not just in our immediate circumstances, but holistically from all condemnation. The only response worth giving is one of thanksgiving, in which God has gifted His people with the ability to discern His merciful acts of deliverance through answered prayers. Public declaration of thanksgiving completes the joy of God answering distraught prayers of anguish and lamentation. Being equipped with the affectionate understanding that God is living, active, and hears the cries of His saints, we boldly offer intercessory prayer in Christ's name on behalf of others. We do so knowing that God graciously uses prayer as His sovereign means of working in the world, but we also do so as a reminder that God's kingdom is bigger than the individual, Salem Baptist Church, the Roanoke Valley, and the United States of America. This intercessory prayer becomes the capstone of "togetherness" in corporate worship.
Take note that the structure of the service itself is the gospel story. Furthermore, the elements themselves ensure that we hear the gospel preached, read, prayed, and sung. On Lord's Supper Sunday, we even taste the gospel,[3] As the first portion of the service has taken us through the gospel story in its structure and elements, the preacher begins the gospel story again, expositing the next text in the series, demonstrating the Spirit's conviction on him as he has placed himself under the authority of God's Word in his preparation and study. He then reminds the congregation that the conviction of sin always leads us to Jesus. Every passage has a fallen condition-focus and a Christ-centered connection. The entire service becomes a sanctified and sanctifying gathering in which the saints are called, equipped, and recommissioned to go into a dark world as Kingdom ambassadors.
Conclusion
There appears to be a growing trend among Generation Z (born from 1997-2012) to gravitate toward joining ancient church ritual/liturgy that reminds them of God's transcendence. They long for higher church traditions in which they can join, not as spectators of a tailor-made worship experience, but as participants in something historical, grounded, and greater than themselves. Sadly, many young teenagers and adults do not believe that Protestant churches can satisfy this longing. They (wrongly) associate Protestantism with the pitfalls of the larger Evangelical movement, which, in the interest of being accommodating, seeker-sensitive, and "back to basics," has begun to lose its luster in the eyes of young people who do not wish to be entertained to faithfulness. Instead, they seek a top-down worship gathering, rich in historic worship patterns that can equip and send them into an increasingly anxious world. Regular worship patterns are powerfully countercultural for an apathetic yet anxious generation, for in them our hearts learn, by habit, the transformative, sanctifying nature of corporately rehearsing the drama of redemption. These trends are likely to continue for Generation Alpha (years 2013-2024), for they are widely known as THE anxious generation.[4]
For these reasons, why would we deprive our children from experiencing corporate worship? We aim to limit the frequency they might be removed from the sanctifying presence of worshipping believers. Instead, raise them up to know the gospel as desiring observers of its rehearsal. Additionally, they learn to imitate--they get to watch their parents, extended family, and broader church family engaged in the unifying practice of historic corporate worship. And their young, restless hearts learn to love through observation, exposure, and imitation of the rhythms of worship.
Resources
Smith, James K. A. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016.
Click here for a helpful Gavin Ortlund video on Generation Z religiosity.
[1] For context, consider James K. A. Smith's description of a "fear-based" youth ministry: "You walk into a kind of loft space that combines various elements of an arcade, a coffee shop, a dance club, and a family rec room. The room is dripping with energy. an unrelenting sense of scripted happiness that is synonymous with being 'upbeat'--even while trying to communicate that this is a place where young people can 'chill.' Above all, it is trying very hard to be a place where young people want to be...Eventually these little tribes are gathered together as one clan so that the program can begin. They are here instead of in gathered worship in the sanctuary (more likely in this context to be referred to as an 'auditorium' than as a 'sanctuary'). This program is their substitute 'service.' The liturgy will look familiar to them: A raucous band takes center stage, a routine widely familiar from concerts and music clubs. The band leads the group through a rousing set of triumphant praise songs and then into a quiet set of introspective, heartfelt, eyes-closed, hands-raised meditations. Whatever spell has been cast, however, is largely broken by an abrupt change of gears when a comedy troupe comes onstage to lighten the mood and let everyone know that following Jesus can be fun. The cheery atmosphere then creates room for a hip young teacher to emerge with either a broadly moralistic message ('don't drink, don't smoke, and above all, don't have sex') or a generally therapeutic message ('we're just here to love on you,' as if the gospel were one big hug)--always communicated with the primary concern of not sounding boring...You wouldn't know it, but the entire 'program' we've just witnessed is designed by fear--not for fear; by fear. It is the creation of a generation of parents and adults who are terrified that their children--the proverbial next generation--will leave the church and leave the faith. And they've convinced themselves that the primary reason young people will wander away from Christ is because they're bored. It's as if these adults overheard the nineties grunge band Nirvanna shrieking, 'Here we are now: entertain us!' but completely misunderstood the point" (143-144).
[2] James K. A. Smith uses the shopping mall for an extended illustration of a rival liturgy. "The mall is a religious site, not because it is theological but because it is liturgical. Its spiritual significance (and threat) isn't found in its 'ideas' or its 'messages' but in its rituals. The mall doesn't care what you think, but it is very much interested in what you love' (41). He goes onto explain that the layout of the mall is religious, from its cathedral-like architecture, windows that open to the sky by not the dismal reality of the parking lot that could offer a chance for escape, its vertical scale that gives us a sense of "transcendent openness," its advertisements that prescribe us material fixes to our longings, and its 'festal calendar' with 'images of an unending litany of holidays and festivals' (42). But this, like all rival liturgies, leads us into a destructive cycle of addiction and dissatisfaction.
[3] Since the Lord's Supper is a visceral reminder in which we invite our sense of taste into the gospel story, it is preferable to incorporate this weekly, though our standard practice is monthly.
[4] There are several reasons why Generation Alpha is projected to be the most anxious generation. Among them is also the oversaturation of social media, unfiltered access to information, too much connectivity with the surrounding world. See our Family Seminar summary documents for more on healthy digital habits.
