Christian parents, you have this wonderful privilege of bringing your children to the church every Lord’s Day. While many churches have separate “Kids church” or “children church” during the worship program, in our church, we let our children stay with us throughout the entire service.
Why? Because they are our covenant children.
As Peter said, “the promise is for you and for your children” (Acts 2:39). The promised gift of eternal life by grace alone through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ alone is not only for us parents, but also for our children. And as the children of the Old Testament saints also witnessed the words and works of God together with the adults (1 Corinthians 10:1-4; Exodus 10:8-9), our children also can and must witness God’s Word and work among his people.
Because of that, our children join us in public worship—witnessing and receiving God’s ordinary means of grace. They join us in hearing God’s call to worship, singing songs of praise, praying, giving tithes and offerings, and listening to the sermon. Our children are not insignificant attendees; they are part of the congregation.
Given this, we Christian parents have hope that since God has sovereignly put our children in his presence—being exposed to God’s means of grace—they too shall be converted to faith and grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Until they demonstrate clear signs of unbelief and apostasy when they grow up, we can assume that they are indeed part of God’s chosen people whom he will save and grant eternal life.
Such hope gives us encouragement and motivation to bring up our children in the Lord. Because God gives them the same promise he gave to us parents, we seize every opportunity to teach them the ways of God and his saving work in Christ. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 makes the instruction clear, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise…”
Pointing our children toward God and his Word takes long years of patience and perseverance. It’s never an easy task. But it’s a necessary one. And this also applies to training them for public worship every Sunday, for growing in God’s means of grace.
Why “train” them? Because they are also sinners. It’s not natural for them to know how to truly and rightly worship God. They need the Spirit’s transforming work through the ministry of the church. Hence, we intentionally bring them up in worshipping God even inside the church.
So how do we train our children for corporate worship? Let’s first look at two general principles.
General Principles for Training Children for Corporate Worship
First, children should learn to worship God inside the church. What I mean is that our children must have a sense of reverence for God inside the church. When they’re inside the church, and especially during the service—they must realize that they’re not in the park, not in a playground, not in a mall, not even in your house. They are inside God’s appointed place for worship. In church, we are all in the holy presence of the almighty God our Father and of Christ our Lord through his Spirit.
That’s the primary and ultimate objective of training them for corporate worship. To have them get a true sense of God.
Second, every worshipper in the church must observe proper order. As Paul said, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace… [so] all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:33, 44). This is true for every aspect of the church service, including how we and our children behave. While we teach everyone that children are part of the congregation, and should never be treated as distractions—we also do not want to disturb other worshippers intentionally.
We also train our children for corporate worship as a form of serving and encouraging one another in our worship to God.
So given these two general principles, here are some practical ways you can train children for public worship (especially toddlers and small kids).
Practical Ways to Train Children for Corporate Worship
1. Keep them engaged throughout the worship
Help your children understand that they are part of the congregation.
Instead of leaving them seated at a corner watching YouTube, have your children sit beside you or on your lap. When it’s time to stand and sing, make them stand and sing. When it’s time for reading, read with them. When it’s time for congregational confession of sin, let them speak the same words adults say. When it’s time to bring tithes and offering, let them give their contributions as well.
They may not be able to read and sing yet. Or even understand what they’re reading and singing. But what’s important is you train them to read and sing for God. Don’t underestimate even the least thing that God can work in the mind and heart of your small child.
How about during the sermon? Should you expect your toddler to sit still and quiet for 40 minutes to hour?
That’s quite impossible. Find creative ways to still give them the sense of God and his Word. Instead of watching or playing on your phone, or reading a fairy tale, give them a kids’ version of a Bible story. Have them color an artwork of any Bible character.
Here at Grace Immeasurable Christian Church, our Children’s Sunday School teachers prepare puzzles and coloring activities related to the sermon which kids can also work on during the preaching. That helps them retain even a single truth or concept from the sermon.
2. Be attentive yourself
Nothing trains and molds your children more than your example. And it’s true with corporate worship.
If you yourself are engaged and attentive, your children will more likely be the same. So, stop leaving your seat and walking around so often. Stop using your phone to browse on Facebook or Google.
And if your children want to play with you—don’t play with them. That baby or toddler may be too cute to be resisted, but there’s a time for play afterwards. Instead, tell them to be quiet and listen.
Worship God reverently and sincerely yourself, and by the grace of God—your children will follow.
3. Bear with their limited attention
Of course, our children can’t be engaged in worship like we could. At least, not yet. Especially for toddlers, their attention span is short and it’s difficult for them to stay focused and behaved all throughout the service.
So when your toddler gets sleepy, let him/her sleep. It would be better to sleep while inside the church on a Sunday morning than elsewhere.
When your toddler gets bored and wants to play or gets cranky, tell him/her to be quiet. If the behavior persists, and it becomes distracting to others, bring your child outside for a while. Again, we don’t want to keep other worshippers from focusing during worship.
Go outside or to another room where the child can see different things. Just let him/her get past the boredom or finish crying.
But be careful also that you don’t turn this into a license for your child to get used to skipping the things of God in order to satisfy him/herself with what he/she wants. After maybe five minutes or so, tell your child that you need to go back to the service. Tell him/her to behave.
If you go back and the distracting behavior persists, bring the child outside again—not necessarily to let him/her divert the attention away from the service, but to make him/her calm and attentive so you can go back inside again. Sometimes, warning the child that you will spank him/her when you get home if he/she doesn’t listen may be necessary.
Just keep doing it.
A young child may not yet understand your verbal instruction to be behaved inside. But even by your repeated actions, let him/her understand that what’s right and important for you and your children is the service inside rather than outside.
Training children for Corporate Worship is a Marathon
Obviously, training your children this way is very challenging. That’s why it’s important for spouses to encourage and help one another. Other members of the church should also encourage parents with kids rather than judging them or almost telling them to stop being in church. Let’s bear one another’s burdens.
As for the parents, training our children actually starts at home. How children behave in church is also a reflection of how they behave at home. Train them to behave and be quiet whenever you tell them to do so. Train them to realize that there’s a proper place and time for everything—time to play, time to eat, time to read, time to sleep, and so on. And set the tone for your family even before the Lord’s Day. Sleeping earlier on Saturday night and coming early for church on Sunday are just a few ways that you can train your children to treat the Lord’s Day worship as more than an ordinary day and activity.
And lastly, recognize that all of this is a marathon. There’ll be a lot of adjustments, and you can’t expect your children to be behaved in church in just a matter of 1-2 weeks. But take heart, even the small disciplines that you consistenly and increasinly lay upon your children will go a long way in the long run. And you won’t regret it, and your children will thank you for it.
In the end, training our children for the public and corporate worship every Sunday is hard. You yourself will be distracted and wish you could focus more during the service without being “burdened” with your child.
But remember, they’re not a burden and shouldn’t be considered as such. They are a gift from God, “a heritage from the LORD… and a reward” (Psalm 127:3). The reason we train them is not only that they’re sinful, but that they also need our personal help and guidance toward God. Our family is also our primary ministry; training our children is also an act of worship.
And as God has given you this wonderful responsibility and privilege to see your children grow in knowing Christ and following him, he’ll also give you more grace and strength each day… more than you ask or think you’ll need.
Dear Christian parent, “… in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).