As we have gone through this series of articles together, I am sure anyone with a child in worship looked in anticipation to this one more than any other. There is a desire in us that says, “tell me what to do”— but we must learn why first. We need to be driven by our convictions so when things get tough, we will not abandon the course. May I say, if you are embarking on this journey with your kids, the road is clear, but it is not easy.

I imagine the thought of children being in a worship service scares some of us to death. We think thoughts like, how can I do this? What if my kid does not obey? What if they are bored? What will people think of me if I must get up and discipline them? What will I do if they ask me a question that I do not know the answer to? Friend, I feel your pain and understand your fears as a father of three who at times can do nothing but stand behind the pulpit and watch my own children.  

My parents have told me the story of how when I was turning 4, the large Baptist church we were attending said I would have to sit with them in Sunday evening worship. They have expressed to me how they often felt overwhelmed also. I am going to address the 3 groups of people I think can provide the most help in this unique situation. 

Parents

The first group is obviously the parents. What can parents do to help their children in worship? I will outline five ways you can help your kid engage in worship.

1 . Engage in worship yourself. During the service, make sure that you are singing, responding to the Word, praying, and taking the sacraments. This will easily allow you to involve your children in worship as well. Here are a few ideas that you might find helpful:

• Buy them a paper Bible to bring to church with them. Tell them that it is their Bible and let them carry it proudly into church.
• There are notebooks for kids on Truth 78’s website that are available for grade school and even pre-grade school kids.
• Teach them to sing in worship as they learn songs.
• Get them to draw pictures of the sermon or mark how many times the name of Jesus is mentioned in the sermon.
• Let them follow a kid’s bulletin.

Remember, the goal of your child sitting in church with you is not just to keep them quiet and make them sit still but to teach them to worship. I would discourage allowing them to play your phone or video games in church to just distract them. The focus of “Parenting in the Pew” is not merely to keep them quiet. It is to teach them to adore the God you know and love. 

2. See this as your responsibility. Take ownership that your children are a sacred trust from God and that this is your responsibility. Parenting in the pew may not be easy but it is right. As things get tough, and they will, especially early, it is this commitment that will keep you going. 

3. Do not be proud. Understand that initially, you will not get as much out of the services. If your child has been in a children’s church context, you have been able to sit and listen to the sermon without one voice asking to get water or go to the bathroom. (If you do not get everything from the sermon, you can always go back and watch it on YouTube later.)

Let’s lay this out clearly. Your kids will probably be disruptive at some point. You will probably have to take them out and discipline them. But remember, never discipline your child in anger because they have embarrassed you in public. Nothing seems to feel worse for a Christian parent than having to walk the walk of shame from your seat to the back of the church when every eye is watching you taking your kid out. A child who has just started sitting in church will have an adjustment period and you and the church need to understand that. Do not let pride cause you to quit and give up. Keep pushing forward. 

Here are a few ideas to help:

• You may need to get to church a little early to sit in a strategic place to take them out if they get a little too squirmy. Dads, step up to the plate here and don’t make Mama do all the work. Primarily, the Christian instruction and education of your children according to Ephesians 6:4 lies at your door, not hers. 
• Do not be afraid to enlist help. Ask the pastor for help if you need it. I think a wonderful way to help here would also be to enlist some older folks in the church to help young parents in those initial stages. Actively seek to develop a group that you can call your own that you can lean on for encouragement through struggle. 
• Read some books, listen to YouTube videos, or podcasts. One excellent volume on the topic is “Parenting in the Pew” by Robbie Castleman. She is the wife of a Presbyterian pastor who shares the joys and pains of parenting kids in the pew. Her story will encourage you as both of her children are followers of Jesus, but she had to go through some of the difficulties we all must go through to get there.   

4. Lay out your expectations with your kids. If it is a kid’s first time being regularly in church, you may have to begin in 10-minute increments, but don’t take them out and just let them play. You may need to let them go get some water and come back and readjust for another 10 minutes. But lay out your expectations clearly. 

While you should listen to your children, you should not obey them. Inevitably, your kids will tell you they are bored. Listen, I have been preaching as a full-time pastor for 15 years and I know a lot of adults who are bored. They just hide it better!

I once heard a preacher say that Satan loves to reverse the God-given order in the home. Meaning, instead of husbands leading, wives following their husband, and children obeying, he wants children leading and mom and dad to be submitting and obeying the kids. Your kids should not dictate where you go to church. Talk about the sermon and service weekly on the way home and over lunch. Seek to take on the role of interpreter if they did not understand everything.

5. Prepare your children.

Here are 3 key ways to prepare them:

• Prayer. We probably pray for our kids more than anyone or anything else. This is right and good but don’t neglect to pray for them in the service. 
• Family devotions. Have a “mini-church” service at least a few nights a week. This does not have to be complicated but let it contain elements of reading a chapter in the Bible, sing with them, and teach them a catechism. The New City Catechism is the one our church uses in corporate worship to teach people the truths of God’s Word. This catechism has a song that goes along with it on the app for smart phones. 
• Get everything ready on Saturday night. This is easier said than done because if you are like me, I want to crash completely on Saturday night. I want to veg out and do nothing after a hard week at work and a long Sunday upcoming. But if we would go back and see the Sundays when things did not go well getting to church, it is because a shoe is missing. A sock is nowhere to be found. That certain someone has looked through the closet and they have “nothing to wear.” This could be averted if we prepped everything on Saturday. Enlist the kids to help and get going. Lay out the time you intend to leave on Sunday and dads pray with your family before you leave and go to church.  

Pastors

Pastors need to pray, encourage, and remember.

• Pray. As a pastor, I must commit to praying for the kids who call me Pastor. This is a sacred trust God has given to me and if we pastors are honest, it is usually the first thing to go with our busy schedules. Tell the children in your church you are praying for them. 
• Encourage kids and their parents. Get to know them by name and encourage them when you see them listening in church. Also, remember to encourage the parents. It is our job to “equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.” What better equipping can we do than to help teach and encourage our people to train their children to worship?
• Remember that when we preach, we have a child audience in front of us. This does not mean that we need to make our sermons childish, but we may need to do more explaining or even call out at times, “Children listen to this.” Both they and their parents will be benefited by this. 

Church

Finally, how do we as a church help? As a church, we must seek to be encouraging, understanding and supportive. Older members of the church may be tempted to forget what it was like to have kids at home. They may even be upset that the “tranquility of the sanctuary” is disruptive by having a few extra kids in the service. 

Please hear what I am about to say to you if you are a part of a local church that seeks to make parental discipleship a reality. Don’t dare discourage or insult parents because of their kids. If you believe something is excessive, speak to the pastor about it, but do not dare go out of your way to try and rebuke a parent out of a self-righteous disposition that just wants kids out of the sanctuary. 

Hear Jesus’ rebuke in Luke 17:2. He says, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” If you go out of your way to harm a Christian parent whose kid is not living up to your expectations, you will discourage them. This discouragement could lead them to quitting church altogether. This would devastate their children’s spiritual development. So, with that understanding, seek to encourage and uplift; do not seek to discourage and tear down. 

Support one another. Members of the church without young children, band together with parents who are discipling their children in worship. I think one of the key things that helps us stick in church when we are discouraged is knowing that we can talk to an encouraging brother or sister on Sunday. We are called to love one another and bear one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ.

As we have surveyed this topic, there is certainly more that could be said, but it is sufficient to leave it here. May we pray for the faith of our children as never before and may we seek in unity parents, pastors, and the church to help the kids entrusted to our faith community to follow Jesus. Matthew 19:14 tells us, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Let us invite them to the only place Jesus promises to meet us weekly in a unique way. Let them find Christ in the church.

Soli Deo Gloria