John and Noel Piper have written a great article entitled The Family: Together in God’s Presence.
In this article, we hope to do two things: 1) demonstrate that parents (or some responsible adult) should bring little children to the Sunday morning worship service rather than send them to a “children’s church”; 2) give some practical advice about how to do it.
At Ephesus Church, we allow children ages 4 and under in the nursery during corporate worship. Our desire is to see the family unit worshiping together, with young children learning early on how to worship in the presence of God and his people on Sunday morning – No children’s church.
Filed under: Ecclesiology, family, parents, worship
You know when we first came to Ephesus I was unprepared for having Isaac (then 3) in worship service with us. I was so afraid that he would disturb others. I was pleasently surprised how well he did after a very little time. Now I am actually greatful that Ephesus encourages parents to do that and the whole congragation makes us feel as though we are never a bother but a blessing in the service. I just wanted to chime in.
My husband and I have always felt it was important to worship together as a family. There have been times when we allowed our children to attend children’s church, but it just never felt right to us. We instead focused on training our children how to sit quietly, perhaps allowing them to quietly color (while sitting on the seat, not lying down, not crouched on the floor)and engaging them with what was going on up front (“we’re praying now”; “time to stand up, we’re going to sing”). If they became fussy we respectfully removed the child from the sanctuary, teaching them that we would return when they could control their outburst. As they got older we would discuss what was taught in the sermon, asking for their input. This eventually taught them to begin listening to the pastor and not just find ways of occupying their time while mommy and daddy “went to church”. Most of all, we taught them that going to church was not only expected of us, it was something we actually didn’t want to miss. Sunday has become our family’s favorite day of the week because we get to spend time in corporate worship with other believers.